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Quiet, reflective novel good book club material
Book Review
By Derryll White
Warren, Dianne (2015). Liberty Street
This is definitely a story of everyday life. It is not grand or sweeping, but it is exotic in its details. Frances Mary Moon takes the reader stumbling through the life of a little farm girl in Elliot, a small prairie town. What happens to her early in the novel is what has happened to everyone. She has questions, but is largely ignored. She has feelings, but isn’t quite sure just how to express them. She understands things but no one has time to listen to her. Frances’ childhood is sweet because it is part of the reader’s memory. “This is just like what happened to me.”
As Frances ages her life gets more complicated. She makes bad choices and buries them as secrets, seemingly even to herself. Frances creates alternate realities where the mistakes seemingly cease to exist. She has the same conflicts with her mother that every growing person has, her will against her mother’s knowledge and sensibilities.
Dianne Warner gives Frances the opportunity to atone for her past mistakes. It is not particularly dramatic or exciting, but it seems real. Frances works through the detritus of her past as the reader might, step-by-step.
‘Liberty Street’ is a quiet, reflective novel. It is perhaps good book club material. With a friend very sick and the turmoil of time passing in my own life, this novel was pleasantly calming. Give ‘Liberty Street’ a try.
****
Excerpts from the novel:
HAPPINESS – Perhaps it was just exhaustion, but I felt a familiar kind of misery coming over me. It was the flip side, I thought, of the belonging I’d briefly sensed when I spoke with the farmer by the side of the road. It was the kind of misery that comes with knowing who you really are, and who you will always be. I thought of what Ian had said about me resisting happiness. He was wrong. He had to be. You can’t know what misery is without wanting its opposite.
ESCAPE – People who disapproved back then – the ones who didn’t get the miracle of throwing away your watch and toking on a nice fat doobie – would say, “It’s not real; you’re fooling yourself,” and he would think, “That’s the point, suckers. It’s not real. I’ve had my fill of real.”
– Derryll White once wrote books but now chooses to read and write about them. When not reading he writes history for the web at www.basininstitute.org.
Lotus Books is pleased to sponsor book reviews by Derryll White. If you are interested in a book that Derryll has reviewed you can shop online at https://lotusbooks.ca/, call us at 250-426-3415 or please visit us at 33 10th Ave. S. Cranbrook, and we would be happy to help you find a great read.
