Compulsive Overreader

Along with borderline hypergraffia, my other literary disorder is -- I'm a compulsive overreader. I'd like to say that I'm trying to get it under control, but I'm clearly not. Check out the archives here to find what I'm reading and what I think of it. If you came here directly through blogger --if your page has no yellow frames and no pretty pic of me in the top left corner -- you may want to visit my main site at www.hypergraffiti.com, where you can read this blog and much much more.

Name:

I'm Trudy Morgan-Cole, a writer from St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada. My books include "The Violent Friendship of Esther Johnson," "Esther: A Story of Courage," and "Deborah and Barak." I'm also a married mom of two, a teacher in an adult-ed program, and a Christian of the Seventh-day Adventist kind. I blog about writing, reading, parenting, teaching, spirituality, and shiny things that catch my eye.

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

The Wreckage, by Michael Crummey


The Wreckage is one of the most acclaimed Newfoundland novels of the past year and was shortlisted for the Newfoundland Book Awards. It richly deserves the attention it's gotten, and more. I think of Michael Crummey first and foremost as a poet, but the problem I often have with novels by poets is that the beautiful language takes centre stage, pushing story and character to the margins. I even found this true, to some extent, in Crummey's first novel, River Thieves (though lots of people would disagree with me). In The Wreckage, though, Crummey has written a completely compelling novel that benefits from a poet's ease with language.
The Wreckage tells the story of Wish and Mercedes, a couple who meet as teenagers in a remote Newfoundland outport but are driven apart first by the religious prejudice of the community and then by the Second World War. The beautifully realized settings move from Fogo Island to St. John's to a Japanese POW camp -- and then back to modern-day St. John's as these "star-crossed lovers" finally cross paths again in old age. A very satisfying read.

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