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    The Stubborn Season
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    The Stubborn Season
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    The Stubborn Season
    Ebook440 pages6 hours

    The Stubborn Season

    By Lauren B. Davis

    4.5/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this ebook

    Where does one person end and the other begin? That’s the question that haunts Irene, a girl growing up in Toronto during the Great Depression. Living with her father, a pharmacist who finds comfort in the bottle, and her mother, a woman teetering on the edge of her own depression, Irene’s crumbling family situation mirrors the economic and social turmoil just beyond the front door of their respectable, working class neighborhood. As she grows into a young woman, Irene finds herself consumed by her mother’s increasingly erratic moods and isolated from a world where unemployment, poverty and bigotry have taken firm root in the water-starved soil of town and country. Yet in the midst of lives that seem lost, Irene finds strength in the unlikely form of David, a young man from the Jewish farming community of Sonnerfeld, Alberta, who is fighting his own battle for dignity, hope and a place in the world.

    The Stubborn Season is an utterly compelling first novel, peopled with vivid characters and set against an era that emanates magically from every page. This is a story alive with the claustrophobic darkness of a Victorian row house; the icy loneliness of life riding the rails as a “box car cowboy”; the languid feel of a steamy Sunday afternoon when respectable people closed their stores, and their lives, against intrusion; and the stench of fear in a jail cell packed with communist agitators desperate to change a broken system. It is a story that is hard to put down, intimate in its knowledge of human struggles and strengths, wonderfully written, and altogether satisfying.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJan 27, 2015
    ISBN9781443444729
    Unavailable
    The Stubborn Season
    Author

    Lauren B. Davis

    LAUREN B. DAVIS is the author of the bestselling and critically acclaimed novels The Stubborn Season, The Radiant City, Our Daily Bread—which was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and named a best book of the year by both The Globe and Mail and The Boston Globe—and The Empty Room, as well as two collections of short stories, Rat Medicine & Other Unlikely Curatives and An Unrehearsed Desire. Born in Montreal, she now lives in Princeton, New Jersey. Web: laurenbdavis.com Facebook: Lauren B. Davis, Author Twitter: @Laurenbdavis

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    • 4/5
      "She pictured her mother's depression like a shadowy fog that slipped around the doorways and through the plaster cracks and along the pipes. She couldn't escape it, and it made everything too close, too blurry. Where did one person end and the other begin? (16)This is the question that haunts Irene MacNeil, a young girl growing up in Toronto during the Great Depression. She lives with her mother, Margaret, who teeters precariously on the brink of depression, and with her father, a pharmacist who has found solace in alcohol. The turmoil in their home reflects the crumbling of the economic and social structures around them. Irene heartbreakingly describes Christmas as the only “ceasefire” in her household: a brief reprieve in which Margaret miraculously summons the energy to bake and decorate; and Douglas, albeit white-knuckled, manages to control his toxic intake for a couple of days. As Irene becomes a young woman, she is consumed by her mother’s increasingly erratic behaviour. In a world gone mad with poverty, unemployment, and bigotry, she will unexpectedly find comfort in a young man from a Jewish farming community in Saskatchewan, who is fighting his own battle for dignity and a place to belong.A Stubborn Season, although not the first of her works I’ve read, was Davis' debut novel. Cast with vivid characters, each page is alive with sense of place and history: the claustrophobic darkness of a Victorian row home, a steamy summer afternoon in a Toronto city park, the fearful stench of a jail cell, the loneliness of a “box car cowboy” riding the rails. Impressive, and highly recommended!
    • 5/5
      very good book about the depression. is there a sequel?interesting portrayal of mental illness and enablement.
    • 5/5
      Our bookclub selected The Stubborn Season, and all of us loved this novel! Lauren B. Davis had my attention from the first few pages - wonderful plot with well developed characters. It is clear that the author did meticulous research, not only did the storyline hold together well, but I learned an awful lot that happened in the depression years in the US & Canada. Highly recommended!!
    • 4/5
      Since I wrote this book, I'm obliged to say nice things about it to keep it from haunting me. However, it doesn't feel right to self-promote like that, so let me instead share a review from Donna Nurse Baily in the Toronto Star:""A GLEAMING DEBUT . . . a terrific first novel. . . compelling social history. . . Davis superbly registers the sly skills young Irene develops in order to navigate her treacherous existence. . . Davis adopts a refreshingly old-fashioned approach: She begins at the beginning. When characters do glance back, it’s mostly to explain the very recent past. This allows the reader to get to know the characters as they get to know themselves. It produces an intimate illusion of a shared history, especially in the case of Irene and David, whom we watch mature into young adults. . . . Davis turn[s] a discerning lens upon Canadians of British stock. Unlike most Canadian novelists, she treats the very mainstream MacNeils as the product of a particular culture, and then she subtly compares that culture with others. . . . Davis bravely admits — then interrogates — the prevalent racist attitudes. . . This is a wonderful novel. . . every character is sincerely drawn; these sentences just gleam. THE STUBBORN SEASON is one of those rare novels I look forward to reading again."- Donna Bailey Nurse And this from The National Post:"...well researched and crisply written...Davis's talent is unmistakable... she evokes with harrowing precision. ... Margaret is one of the most memorable characters I have encountered in contemporary Canadian fiction... inspiring...Davis's portrayal of Depression survivors shows the human spirit can be amazingly strong and resilient."-The National Post,
    • 5/5
      'They circle the rink once and then twice. She had her hand tucked up in his arm and she began to trust the feeling. Their breath formed small white clouds around their faces. "I used to come skating with my mum and dad," She said, "when I was really little." David took her hand and spun out in front so he was facing her. "Close your eyes," he said. "Why?""Go on. Close 'em. Let me lead you. Trust me, I won't let you fall"And so she did, she held his hands and he skated backwards and drew her around the ice. She tipped her head back and let the cold wind hit her face and the darkness invade her body completely. She felt as if she were flying like a night bird over the clouds. She felt the subtle shift from foot to foot, the roll and dance of this movement, the sturdy heaviness of his hands beneath her weight. He pulled her in a circle, and the noise of the other skaters faded into the background. She kept her eyes closed and it felt as though what was inside was bigger than what was outside, like a crust of something thin and silvery, crisp with cold, covered with a vast landscape of star-filled dark inside her. The only thing that connected her to the ground was the slim blade under her feet and the solid flesh at the point where she ended and David began. David watched her face intently, felt her muscles relax under his touch. He let go of the breath he'd been holding when he saw the frown disappear from her forehead and the smile come to her lips. He smile himself then, and knew that he had taught her the wonder of letting go. For just a moment he gave her the gift of unburdened lightness. ' (Davis, Lauren B. The Stubborn Season. 286-287) Whenever I think of love I think of this passage. This is what love would feel like.