‘Adult Onset,’ by Ann-Marie MacDonald
Do our more modest northern neighbors talk about the Great Canadian Novel? After all, they have big geography there too — the mountains, the prairies. “Always in view was the vastness of what in most countries would be called a sea but in Canada was known simply as ‘one of the Great Lakes,’ ” the Canadian writer Ann-Marie MacDonald writes in her big, troubling and brave new novel. Books like hers have a continental sweep: The writer amply stocks them with people and ideas, with all she knows. Spare, quiet perfection isn’t the aim. Read more…
