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A Bird in the House

Margaret Laurence

Start date: December 1, 2020

Finish date: February 28, 2021

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Nov 19, 2020 Elizabeth (Alaska) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 5-star-reads, canada, late-20th-century, kindle, xx-20th-c-women-read, women, short-stories

Having almost nothing to do with this book, one of my earliest thoughts was what a powerhouse are the Canadian women authors. I feel very lucky to have accidentally discovered Margaret Laurence early, to be followed shortly by Alice Munro. So many are avid fans of Margaret Atwood (although I am not), and then there is Carol Shields and Gabrielle Roy. There are others on my list yet to try. Just simply fabulous women all of them! O Canada!

This title includes eight inter-connected stories. The cop Having almost nothing to do with this book, one of my earliest thoughts was what a powerhouse are the Canadian women authors. I feel very lucky to have accidentally discovered Margaret Laurence early, to be followed shortly by Alice Munro. So many are avid fans of Margaret Atwood (although I am not), and then there is Carol Shields and Gabrielle Roy. There are others on my list yet to try. Just simply fabulous women all of them! O Canada!

This title includes eight inter-connected stories. The copyright page indicated six of them had been previously published as stand alones. I'm glad I read them this way, but yes, all of them are self contained stories and any information needed from the earlier ones is mentioned so no continuity is lost. In fact, I think they are not in quite chronological order. The first person narrator is Vanessa MacLeod, who is 10 in the opening story. She does get older in subsequent stories, but there are two where Nessa's age spans several years and so revert to a younger self at their beginning.

Nessa's family is relatively small. Her father is one of the town doctors and we learn that her mother was his nurse at one time. We first meet the family on their way to Sunday dinner at the Brick House, where Nessa's Grandfather Connor lives. Grandfather Connor is an opinionated, irrascible old cuss with whom everyone tries to get along. It is also painfully obvious that getting along with him would try the patience of a saint - and only his wife actually manages it. I loved all of these characterizations, even when I did not like all of the characters. Even the minor supporting characters are well done.

The writing is just superb. In describing the Brick House on page one, Laurence writes By the mid-thirties, the spruces were taller than the house, and two generations of children had clutched at boughs which were as rough and hornily knuckled as the hands of old farmers, and had swung themselves up to secret sanctuaries. I became too interested in what she had to say for the most part to much more underlining.

I have not read *about* this book much, but it must be at least somewhat autobiographical. Vanessa MacLeod writes stories. She briefly tells us about them and sometimes about her inspiration. Many of these stories are abandoned. I sort of think that's probably how a 10-year old or a 12-year old would begin before learning enough to hone her craft. Writers are readers too, and I did like this: I was lying on the roof of the tool-shed, reading. An enormous spruce tree grew beside the shed, and the branches feathered out across the roof, concealing anyone who was perched there. I was fifteen, and getting too old to be climbing on roofs, my mother said.

Rarely am I sorry to come to the end of a book. Eight stories was not enough. Will I think of this as one of my top ten favorites? Maybe not. Maybe only top 25 - but that's pretty good, isn't it?

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