When an enigmatic woman cloaked in black wanders into a Chinese labor camp in the Pacific Northwest of 1873, one man is chosen to lead her out into...
read full description
reviews
Dec 17, 2009
Danna
rated it: 
A vividly imagined and charming retelling of the Wizard of Oz, with a liberal pinch of sci-fi thrown in the mix. Fowler reimagines Dorothy, Tin Man, Cowardly Lion, and Straw Man as Old West characters that romp their way through the Pacific Coast, San Fransico's Chinatown and numerous frontier towns. Along the way they butt up against an appropriate Wicked Witch of the West character,but continue on in pursuit of their individual and mutual dreams (just like the film). One suggestion: don't re
More...
0 comments
like
(4 people liked it)
Jun 11, 2008
Sara
rated it: 
The Jane Austen Book Club somewhat misrepresents Karen Joy Fowler's prowess as a storyteller. Sarah Canary is her first novel, and it's riveting, mystical, gorgeous...a mysterious mute woman wanders into a 19th century Washington railworkers camp and gets misplaced when the Chinese laborer who finds her attempts to escort her to an insane asylum. I have no idea what else to say about it except that you should read it immediately!
0 comments
like
(4 people liked it)
Sep 12, 2011
Jenee
rated it:
When I first read this book I hated it, but after thinking about it for awhile I think its one of my favorite books. It's very odd and has an almost 19 hundreds circus feel too it. I would highly suggest reading it.
I read this for my AP english class and everyone in my class picked out the obvious topics in the book like race and gender in the 1800s but I skipped past all the and saw the real mystery. There was such a strange feeling that came with reading the book and I think that's why I hated More...
I read this for my AP english class and everyone in my class picked out the obvious topics in the book like race and gender in the 1800s but I skipped past all the and saw the real mystery. There was such a strange feeling that came with reading the book and I think that's why I hated More...
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Apr 20, 2011
E
rated it: 
The narrative of the story was like an old penny dreadful novel. Set
in the West after the Civil War, a motley group of characters are thrown together due to the mysterious Sarah Canary. There is Chin the
Chinaman who wants to take her back to her family and home wherever
that is. He is very leery of moving through the white society of that time and rightfully so. He is joined by B.J. the mental patient. B.J.
seems in awe of Sarah. Adelaide is a feisty suffragette More...
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Mar 16, 2008
Barbara
rated it:
I didn't think I wanted to keep reading, but I'm glad I did because the reward paid off. Be prepared to be confused, though, and don't expect to ever really find out who Sarah is. Like the characters surrounding her in this novel, she can be whoever you want her to be, which makes this curiously like meta-fiction. It is also a short history of women's roles in the west at the end of the 19th century.
Mar 14, 2010
Kathy
rated it:
Sarah Canary, wearing a battered but fashionable black dress, appears out of thin air to Chin in the archetypal forest of the American west. Initially, he mistakes her for the "ghost lover," who will abduct him for an enchanted evening of love and return him a century later in human years, leaving him prosperous beyond his wildest dreams. Instead, Sarah Canary is a totally addled, ugly white woman. Is she a crazy woman? A traumatized victim, left to roam the woods? Someone's lost, ment
More...
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Jan 20, 2009
Yvonne
rated it:
This book gave me a taste for Karen Joy Fowler's books that was long unsatisfied (until I found her next book some four years later!). The story seemlessly blends a science fiction motiv with a dark and quirky historical setting. If you enjoy cross-genre experiments, check this one out.
Unfortunately, Ms. Fowler seems to have a day job that keeps her happy because she has only published four novels since 1993. Each novel is very different from the others, and she only repeated the More...
Unfortunately, Ms. Fowler seems to have a day job that keeps her happy because she has only published four novels since 1993. Each novel is very different from the others, and she only repeated the More...
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Aug 22, 2011
Her Royal Orangeness
rated it:
WHY I READ THIS BOOK
Fowler is best known as the author of "The Jane Austen Book Club." Based on that book, I had dismissed the author as a chick lit writer and never so much as glanced at her other work.
Several months ago, there was an ongoing online discussion about why female authors were rarely nominated for a certain sci-fi book award. (Unfortunately, I didn't bookmark any of the articles, and now I can't find them.) As a result of that discussion, some well-known More...
Fowler is best known as the author of "The Jane Austen Book Club." Based on that book, I had dismissed the author as a chick lit writer and never so much as glanced at her other work.
Several months ago, there was an ongoing online discussion about why female authors were rarely nominated for a certain sci-fi book award. (Unfortunately, I didn't bookmark any of the articles, and now I can't find them.) As a result of that discussion, some well-known More...
3 comments
like
(3 people liked it)
Jun 30, 2011
Molly
rated it:
This book is inventive, brilliant and a masterpiece of original, vibrant writing. Set in 1870's West coast America the book is replete with geniune hoeroes and heroines including the elusive and elemental Sarah Canary, a kidnapped Chinaman, an escaped lunatic, a sex-positive suffragist and a drunken, shellshocked Civil War vet. Fowler manages to create a story that is inventive, surreal and at times, amazingly profound. (A fun counterpoint for this book would be Marge Piercy's book Sex Wars, s
More...
0 comments
like
(2 people liked it)
Nov 19, 2011
± Colleen of the Crawling Chaos ±
rated it: 
I started this book in June 2011, stalled out on it and one point, put it down with the intention of getting back to it, then mostly just forgot about it and didn't really care to pick it back up, but got tired of seeing it sitting there so finally finished it tonight.
After I picked it back up it took me a little while to remind myself what had happened and reorient myself into the story - almost like picking up the second in a series when you hadn't read the first in awhile. But s More...
After I picked it back up it took me a little while to remind myself what had happened and reorient myself into the story - almost like picking up the second in a series when you hadn't read the first in awhile. But s More...
Apr 04, 2011
Ben
rated it:
It is a widely accepted fact that our passions and interests are not evenly distributed among the eras of human history. Some prefer tales of neolithic courage; others are interested in ancient Greece, Ilium, Rome. I have a soft spot for medieval and Tudor England; even Victorian England has its allure. Late 19th-century America, not so much. I do not avoid books set in that time, nor do I go out of my way to read them.
The atmosphere of Sarah Canary's time period holds little appea More...
The atmosphere of Sarah Canary's time period holds little appea More...
0 comments
like
(1 person liked it)
Dec 16, 2009
Trin
rated it:
After loving The Jane Austen Book Club so much, I was really expecting to love this, too; however, I found it disappointing. It's Fowler's first novel, published more than a decade before Book Club, and I guess it shows—Sarah Canary contains a great cast of characters, including a struggling feminist and a Chinese immigrant whom I loved, and it makes evocative use of its setting, the Pacific Northwest in the early 1870s. Yet nothing really seems to come of the various bar fights, the river boat
More...
Feb 14, 2011
Leah
rated it:
Now this book will rattle any feminist. Told from a historical standpoint of about 1873 it is full of antecedents about the treatment and psychological and physical characteristics of women. I have a feeling a lot of it is meant as black satire however it leaves an unsettling feeling in the pit of your stomach remembering how far women have come.
Having finished it now, definitely satire, and if taken in a different light quite funny too. I really enjoyed her opening couple of pages More...
Having finished it now, definitely satire, and if taken in a different light quite funny too. I really enjoyed her opening couple of pages More...
0 comments
like
(2 people liked it)
Sep 24, 2010
Jenine
rated it:
I loved the beginning. The precarious existence of a Chinese man in the western US in the 1870s. Chin is good company. Complaints: I am not knowledgeable about Emily Dickinson's poetry. I find it enigmatic and frustrating. So I felt that when reading the excerpt at the start of each chapter. Dr. Carr was developed and abandoned. Shift to San Francisco was severe. The fantastical angle was suggested but not developed. Not much of an ending. Endings are hard.
Sep 25, 2010
Siria
rated it:
This is a strange, surreal little novel, which equal parts engaged and bored me. The boredom came from how unfocused and meandering it felt; I was not hooked by the narrative, for all its weird and wonderful twists. I did, however, like Fowler's subtle, wry, intelligent examinations of gender and women's history and human interactions. I was a little more uncertain about how she treated racial interactions, but I feel that topic needs someone more intelligent than I am (and certainly someone not
More...
Jan 17, 2012
Dana
rated it:
Liked this one a lot--part magical realism, part sci-fi, part historical fiction; I especially liked that the cast of characters are all those who were considered to be "oddballs" and outsiders of the time period. I read that the author loosely based this storyline on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum, and I could definitely see some similarities.
Jan 03, 2012
Laura
rated it:
Intriguing, but maybe a bit scattered? The characters were all very fun, and I liked that there wasn't really an answer at the end, but the timeline jumps quickly & was hard to follow the characters, especially as the author avoided identifying them until you were well into the next scene.
Jan 08, 2010
Kelly
rated it:
I just finished this first novel by Karen Joy Fowler. Am still in mourning over finishing this tale. What a story. The historical threads throughout were spot on. Thank you Karen for imagining and sharing this creation with me.
Jul 26, 2011
Kathleen
rated it:
Sarah Canary is a very interesting read. A story about a mysterious woman with autistic characteristics,aChinese man and an inmate from an insane asylum. the year is 1873 in the pacific northwest.Some of the story details were based on true historical facts.
Apr 03, 2011
Christine
rated it: 
With so many good SciFi titles either on my shelf or coming soon from the library, I just couldn't engage with this book; I did read about 1/4 before finally abandoning it...just didn't care about the characters or story.
Nov 02, 2010
Larisa
rated it:
Throughout this novel, I--like several of the characters--wondered why everyone kept chasing after the mysterious Sarah Canary, when she seemed to bring nothing but trouble and gave nothing in return. Indeed, toward the end I also found myself wondering why I kept reading the book. I did develop an extreme fondness for Chin, the Chinaman who first sets off with Sarah Canary and finds more adventure than he bargained for. Also, I did enjoy the introductory section to each chapter, where Fowler su
More...
Nov 28, 2010
Regina
rated it:
Only 20 pages into it. Not sure if I will enjoy it, but it was given to me through a book swap and I needed something to read. We shall see...
I couldn't get into it, so I stopped on page 45.
I couldn't get into it, so I stopped on page 45.
Oct 03, 2010
Lynne
rated it:
This is a very odd story about a mysterious woman and some backwoods characters in the Northwest. I understood this story even less after I finished it.
Mar 27, 2010
Kimberlee
rated it:
I guess I'm not that clever, because I didn't get it, nor did I really see the connection to Wizard of Oz. I liked the characters enough to finish the book to see what happens to them.
Dec 14, 2009
Shane
rated it:
this was a very interesting book to read; loved the links to the past; once finished, I find myself with more questions than answers, though.
Oct 09, 2011
Jen
rated it:
Ugh! Bizarre and tedious. I have just discovered the replacement for water boarding. Not a fan.
Jan 09, 2011
Sarah Canary isn't really about the woman who shows up in the woods of the Pacific Northwest in 1873, speaking a language no one understands. It's the question--who is she?--rather than it's answer that lies at the center of the novel. Fowler uses that set-up to explore the identities and relationships of the four people who encounter Sarah Canary and who are drawn to her, for reasons having far more to do with them than her. The deceptively simple narrative, alternating between the four, makes
More...
Dec 27, 2011
Morgan
rated it:
A very odd book. It's about madness and a journey through 1873 America. I didn't like the first 11 pages, but then it picked up after that. A bunch of odd, if not insane characters follow Sarah Canary much like the characters of The Seventh Seal dancing after death. I enjoyed the bits of trivia that illuminate that time period. The book is also about prejudice and perception.
Jul 11, 2010
Daniel
rated it:
My favorite book of all time! Surreal, engaging, hilarious, and astute.
Feb 16, 2009
Kelly
rated it:
I could not connect with the characters at all. I found it hard to finish.
