[.ca] The Outlander (ISBN 0887842100)

A hauntingly beautiful novel:
I read this book last fall, when it came out in Canada, and I was ABSOLUTELY mesmerised by it. Adamson can write, there is no question! Not since Anne Michael's book, "Fugitive Pieces", have I been so completely enthralled by an author's use of the English language. Adamson has, until now, been a poet and that is evident in every sentence she writes. And yet, the book does not get bogged down in flowery description. Instead, one is drawn into a beautifully crafted world; a world populated with interesting, FEELING characters - characters which are fully formed and which deserve our interest. There are a couple of moments in the novel that I particularly loved. The first is the moment when Mary dreams of her father fishing. At one moment, Adamson writes: "The sun was sharp on the corded water, dancing like pennies on a blanket." Simply beautiful. The second, and possibly most powerful moment in the novel, occurs in Chapter 19 when Mary recalls the moment of her mother's death and her father's response to it. She writes: "Her father, too, was sleepless in those days. And staggering. Rum was his drink, and so a sweet reek followed him about the house, burnt toffee cut with piss, and his breath was rank. He would go whole days without responding to anyone; he would not even meet his daughter's eye, but stared dully ahead, too deep in the smoking ruin of his hear to see the world." The passage goes on and through it we see a husband and father torn apart and destroyed by grief. A grief which leaves a lasting effect on the daughter. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. If you read only one book this season, make it "The Outlander."