This year has been difficult financially and one of the consequences of this has been that I have not been able to buy many new books so I have taken to scouring the car boots and charity shops trying to find interesting reading. I decided that is was often difficult to find good books and to identify books that might be a bit more challenging or interesting. So my method was to look for anything that may have been shortlisted for an award or picked out by book clubs eg Richard and Judy etc. It hasn't always worked but mainly has been a pretty good method.
unless by Carol Shields was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2003 and sounded interesting. I was unsure when I started the book whether it wasn't going to be so good but I kept with it and in fact it turned out to be an amazing read. The basic story is about a woman writer who lives a good life with her family until one day her eldest daughter just leaves everything behind to sit on a street corner with a sign that says 'goodness'. I feel the book explores many themes; family, woman roles, politics, the nature of publishing, women's working life, etc and for the most does them well. I think perhaps that the feminist ideas in the novel aren't quite clear enough (neither weak or strong) but other themes help to balance the novel well. I would definitely read another piece of her work.
Dix
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