A Good House - Softcover

Flush with post-World War II optimism, veteran Bill Chambers and his wife Sylvia settle in to the business of raising their three young children. Bill logs full days at the local hardware store; Sylvia strings the family's clothes out to dry in the backyard and proffers dinner punctually. Her wasting health, however, leaves her husband yearning for a contentment now stolen and her children disquieted by the sudden tenuousness of their security. When Sylvia dies and Bill remarries, his staunch and pragmatic bride Margaret displays a three-fold capacity: she allows him his sluggish and methodical affection; she preserves Sylvia's memory with untainted regard; and she cultivates a deft empathy with her stepchildren.

Burnard's meticulous pacing nearly, but never quite, upstages the story itself, although her unwieldy and expanding cast of characters occasionally threatens such harm. Margaret is the real wonder of the book. While the requisite affairs, divorces, and funerals intervene--and as Bill declines excruciatingly into a belligerent stranger--she summons a reserve of affection, the source of which is admirably opaque. She perseveres in "hoping as mothers and fathers almost always do that the difficulties could be examined, could be broken apart and fixed one by one by one." Burnard's tale is dignified and generous. --Ben Guterson

BONNIE BURNARD is the author of two novels and two short story collections. Her first story collection, Women of Influence, won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best First Book. Casino & Other Stories was shortlisted for the inaugural Giller Prize and won the Saskatchewan Book of the Year Award. Her first novel, A Good House, won the Giller Prize and the CBA People’s Choice Award and was published around the world in many languages. Her second novel, Suddenly, was a Globe and Mail Book of the Year, praised by critics as “a smart, consuming read” (Toronto Star) and “an unassuming masterpiece” (The Globe and Mail). A recipient of the Marian Engel Award, Bonnie Burnard lives in London, Ontario.