[Warning: this is a long review, but this complex book merits it.]This is a long, thoughtful, and multi-layered novel. It was recommended to me as a good depiction of life growing up on Canadian military bases, as I did. And it is. It centres around 8-year-old Madeleine McCarthy, who's on her fourth move in 1962, and her father Jack McCarthy, a Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) officer. The early part of the story is about how the McCarthys, including Madeleine's Acadian mother Mimi and her older brother Mike, settle into their new home at RCAF Station Centralia, in central Ontario. Author MacDonald captures very well what it's like moving all the time, setting up in yet another military-supplied house. I've been there and done that and I'll attest to the accuracy. She explains the lifestyle better than I could.MacDonald writes that when you move all the time, you're not from anywhere that you can locate on a map; you're from a series of events. You define yourself by stories -- what she calls "remember-whens" -- not by home towns. And stories are what I think this book is really about. We tell stories to ourselves to make sense of our pasts. We tell stories to each other. We tell stories at a community or cultural level to make sense of our world. And often, we only know part of anyone else's story.In addition, we sometimes lie to each other, and even to ourselves, to hide unpleasant truths. Stories and lies drive this novel. Madeleine tells lies to protect her parents from knowing how things are in her Grade 4 class. Jack tells lies to protect the secrecy of a military-intelligence operation he's involved in. And society tells itself lies, or at least omits part of history, to justify actions that are at best unethical and at worst criminal. Throw in post-war World War II optimism and Cold War paranoia, and almost every character in this story is deceived by someone about something. Only the reader knows what's going on, and even we can't be totally sure we have the whole story.Near the half-way mark, all these stories and lies run against the murder of a child, which is announced on the first page, but not fully recounted until much later. The murder is highly reminiscent of the Stephen Truscott case, which MacDonald acknowledges. Jack and Madeleine both have information that is pertinent. One of them must decide whether to lie, and the other must decide whether to tell the truth. Their decisions have consequences that they must both live with. Nearly 20 years later, the story picks up with Madeleine and Jack having to confront and relive the decisions they made then, and update their stories.The novel is very well-written, with every word carefully chosen. The whole story is told in the present tense, which gives it an immediacy that makes it very compelling. It is, in short, a page-turner. It is very long, however; over 720 pages. Occasional flashbacks and flash-forwards are also in the present tense, which can be a bit confusing, but it's generally easy to adjust. The first portion, dealing with life on the RCAF station, is slow-moving but still engrossing. The pace picks up with the murder trial and its aftermath. This is a sad, disturbing tale. While there are moments of childhood joy and silliness, the events are, on the whole, demoralizing. This is not a feel-good story, but there are one or two deeply moving scenes that remind us what the real point is: it's all about love.
SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERTThis book was way too long and I think the editor knew it. The very first page is the description of a scene in which a murder is foretold. The next 350 pages of the book is the meandering build up to the murder scene. Ann-Marie MacDonald leads the reader through rooms involving child molestation, international spydom, elementary school quarrels, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Nazi refugees. And written like this, I admit it sounds interesting. But all of those topics are told through the eyes of a 9 year old who doesn't quite understand.Interspersed through the narrative are occasional jumps to the murder scene, in which the reader gets time to formulate a motive and suspect. The author is very skilled at leading the reader along the wrong path. Too skilled, I'd say, because if this weren't my book group book I would have stopped reading it about 500 pages in thinking that I knew the who/what/where/when. I think the editor felt the same way, otherwise the murder narratives wouldn't be necessary. The plot would just propel you through the evidence of the case. After the murder was revealed (I was right about who got killed, by the way, thus adding to my "I can see right through this plot" feeling I had), the plot was more solid and focused. I flew through pp. 350 - 600, really really good stuff. Then in the six hundreds somewhere you hit a chapter that reintroduced Madeleine, the lead character, as an adult. You learn of her hinted at lesbianism and the outcome of her parent's marraige after moving from Centralia, Ontario. She's screwed up, she's leaving her girlfriend for another woman. Honestly, I didn't need all this explication. Round about p. 725, McDonald starts to reapply the circumstantial evidence of the case and the reader learns their assumed culprit had a solid alibi. You read the main characters findings of the case after she starts researching evidence about 30 years after the incident had taken place and find out the true story of that murderous night. Very well done. I was completely wrong about thinking I knew the mystery at p. 200. The clues planted all along the way that the obvious suspect was not the killer are perfectly fitting in hindsight. Really beautifully told, I just wish I hadn't had to wade through 400 pages of red herrings to find out I was wrong.
What do You think about The Way The Crow Flies (2004)?
I picked this up at Costco and was 100 or so pages into it when I took it out to the garbage. I was expecting a murder mystery set during the cold war. What I found was a slow starting book written from each individual characters perspective. (I actually liked the different voices.) That turned into some sick storey of an 8 year old child and a teacher who got his students to participate in sex acts. You knew something fishy was going on and then POW a paragraph later you have a visual image in your mind you would never have wished to be there. It doesn’t matter what happens next for me…. I don’t knowingly ingest poison and keep doing so to see how it all turns out.
—Krystal
"The birds saw the murder. Down below in the new grass, the tiny white bell-heads of the lily of the valley. It was a sunny day. Twig-crackling, early spring stirrings, spring soil smell. April. A stream through the nearby woods, so refreshing to the ear - it would be dry by the end of summer, but for now it rippled through the shade. High in the branches of an elm, that is where the birds were, perched among the many buds set to pleat like fresh hankies."From the first sentence, the author has you. There is a murder and it haunts you through the entire novel. And yet, Ann-Marie MacDonald has made this book much more than a murder mystery. It is about values, morality, innocence lost, loyalty and deception. Despite it's dark themes, there is also a brightness about this book. "Outside the car windows the corn catches the sun, leafy stalks gleam in three greens. Arching oaks and elms line he curving highway, the land rolls and burgeons in a way that makes you believe that yes, the earth is a woman, and her favourite food is corn. Tall and flexed and straining, emerald citizens. Fronds spiralling, cupping upward, swaddling the tender ears, the gift-wrapped bounty. The edible sun. The McCarthy's have come home. To Canada."Perhaps it is her beautiful prose. Perhaps it is because she captures, so well, the feeling of growing up in the sixties. Whatever it is, it gives the reader a sense of hope. MacDonald is an expert story-teller and I found it difficult to put this book down. I'll just read 60 pages, then 100, then just a few more, until I knew I needed to get to bed. Luckily, I have a wonderful husband who let me escape after dinner into the Canadian world that this author laid out for me.
—Suzanne
From my Summer Reading List blog post (May, 2012) Ann-Marie McDonald – The Way the Crow Flies: By the time I finished this book, I could hardly believe that Ann-Marie McDonald wasn’t one of the most famous and popular writers on the planet. This book is truly a masterpiece in the way that it captures a critical moment in history (the Cuban missile crisis from a Canadian perspective) through the eyes of a witty, naive observer, eight-year-old Madeleine, whose own secrets echo those of her military father. A further gift of the novel is the opportunity to observe Madeleine some twenty years later as she visits her therapist and struggles to process the events of her childhood. Truly remarkable. (I just have to add that McDonald’s first book, Fall on Your Knees, is almost equally as awesome. These are books I wish I hadn’t read so I could read them again for the first time!)
—Beth
