3 books to read if you loved The Wonder
Jane van Koeverden | CBC | Posted: June 19, 2017 8:15 PM | Last Updated: June 19, 2017
Emma Donoghue's The Wonder was among the finalists for the 2016 Scotiabank Giller Prize. If you loved the gothic historical novel, we have three fantastic reads that might scratch the same itch.
A Beauty by Connie Gault
What it's about: In the Canadian Prairies in the 1930s, a luminous young woman named Elena becomes the favourite subject of gossip in her small town when her father vanishes. At a country dance, Elena impulsively runs off with a handsome stranger and ends up on a journey across the drought-ridden prairies.
If your favourite thing about The Wonder was: A captivating young character burdened with many, many secrets. The social politics of small, insular communities.
When you're in the mood for: A romantic escape to a time gone by.
Prestige points: A Beauty was longlisted for the 2015 Scotiabank Giller Prize. Fellow Canadian writer Marina Endicott named it as her favourite Canadian title of 2015.
From the book: "They were all trying to look at Elena Huhtala without seeming to look at her. They didn't realize it didn't matter if they looked. They would see her dress, her figure, her hair, her face; they wouldn't see her, not the way Aggie saw her. They didn't know how. She was invisible to them. It didn't matter if they were shocked, if they gossiped, if they worried about her. All they wanted was an answer; they wanted an ending , and whatever it was they'd bring meatballs and stew, they'd bring pies and cakes and platitudes.
'It's the not knowing that's hard,' the women said.
It was Aggie's opinion it was the not knowing they liked."
Away by Jane Urquhart
What it's about: Survival and magic are at the heart of this historical epic, which follows the lives of a young family fleeing the Irish potato famine for Ontario. The women in the family have a tendency to go "away," drifting between this world and another unknown, communicating with natural elements about what's to come and what their purpose is.
If your favourite thing about The Wonder was: History, with hints of magical realism and Irish myth. Compelling female characters with supernatural connections.
When you're in the mood for: A long, beautiful — and occasionally harrowing — journey. Exquisite writing.
Prestige points: Jane Urquhart is one of Canada's most celebrated writers. An Officer of the Order of Canada, Urquhart's long list of accolades includes the Governor General's Literary Award and the Marian Engel Award.
From the book: "The women of this family leaned towards extremes.
All winter they yearned for long, long nights and short precise days; in the summer the sun in the sky for eighteen hours, then a multitude of stars.
They kept their youth — if they survived — well past their childbearing years until, overnight at sixty, they became stiff old ladies. Or conversely, they became stiff old ladies at twenty and lived relentlessly on, unchanged, for six or seven decades.
They inhabited northern latitudes near icy waters. They were plagued by revenants. Men, landscapes, states of mind went away and came back again. Over the years, over the decades. There was always water involved, exaggerated youth or exaggerated age. Afterwards there was absence. That is the way it was for the women of this family. It was part of their destiny."
The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley
What it's about: A church group travels to the desolate English coast on their annual Easter pilgrimage. A family in their number hopes that divine intervention will cure their eldest boy, Hanny, of being mute.
If your favourite thing about The Wonder was: A gothic mystery married with religious zeal, dark secrets and hints of magical realism.
When you're in the mood for: An unsettling and gripping read. A story about an otherworldly bond between brothers (Hanny and his atheist-leaning younger brother, who narrates the story.)
Prestige points: Winner of the Costa first novel award.
From the book: "Dull and featureless it may have looked, but the Loney was a dangerous place. A wild and useless length of English coastline. A dead mouth of a bay that filled and emptied twice a day and made Coldbarrow — a desolate spit of land a mile off the coast — into an island. The tides could come in quicker than a horse could run and ever year a few people drowned. Unlucky fishermen were blown off course and ran aground. Opportunist cocklepickers, ignorant of what they were dealing with, drove their trucks onto the sands at low tide and washed up weeks later with green faces and skin like lint."