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'{{Infobox book | <!-- See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Novels or Wikipedia:WikiProject_Books --> | name = Crow Lake | image = File:CrowLake.jpg | caption = First edition (Canada) | author = [[Mary Lawson]] | country = Canada | language = English | translator = | cover_artist = | genre = | publisher = [[Knopf Canada]]<br>[[Dial Press]] (US)<br>[[Chatto & Windus]] (UK) | release_date = 2002 | media_type = Print | pages = 293pp | isbn = 0-6769-7479-1 | oclc= | preceded_by = | followed_by = }} whats up '''''Crow Lake''''' is a 2002 [[debut novel|first novel]] written by [[Canada|Canadian]] author [[Mary Lawson]]. It won the [[Books in Canada First Novel Award]] in the same year and won the [[McKitterick Prize]] in 2003. It is set in a small farming community in [[Northern Ontario]], the Crow Lake of the title,<ref>Not to be confused with the real Crow Lake ([[Kakagi Lake]]) in Ontario.</ref> and centres on the Morrison family (Kate the narrator, her younger sister Bo and older brothers Matt and Luke) and the events following the death of their parents. Kate's childhood story of the first year after their parents' death is intertwined with the story of Kate as an adult, now a successful young academic and planning a future with her partner, Daniel, but haunted by the events of the past. In among the narratives are set cameos of rural life in Northern Ontario, and of the farming families of the region. ==Plot== The death of their parents, when Kate is 7 years old, Bo a toddler, and her brothers in their late teens, threatens the family with dispersal and seems to spell the end of their parents' dream that they should all have a college education. Luke, the oldest but not the most academic, gives up a place at a teachers college in order to look after the two youngest and allow Matt, academically brilliant and idolised by Kate, to complete his schooling and compete for university scholarships. This sacrifice leads to much tension between the brothers. Both work intermittently for a neighbouring family, the Pyes, who for several generations have suffered from fierce conflicts between fathers and sons. In the final crisis, Matt, after winning his scholarships, discovers that he has made the meek and distressed daughter of the Pye household, Marie, pregnant; she also reveals that her father, Calvin Pye, has killed her brother, who was thought to have run away from home as several other Pye sons had done. Calvin Pye kills himself, and Matt has to give up his plans for education to marry Marie. Kate sees the loss of Matt's potential academic career as a terrible sacrifice, and is unable to come to terms with Marie or Matt thereafter. The dénouement of the adult Kate's story comes when she returns to Crow Lake for Matt and Marie's son's eighteenth birthday, introducing Daniel to her family for the first time. In the course of this visit, she is made to realise - first by Marie and then by Daniel - that Matt's loss though real was not the total tragedy she had always considered it, and that it is her sense of it as tragic that has destroyed her relationship with him. The book ends with her struggling to come to terms with this view of their past and present relationships; the struggle is left unresolved but the final tone is optimistic. The book is essentially a double [[Bildungsroman]], in that the development of both Matt and Kate is charted; but whereas we see the key events in Matt's young adulthood more or less in sequence, the key events in Kate's are sketched in from both ends, towards a crisis that in terms of events is Matt's but psychologically is more significant for Kate. The mixture of perspectives involved in Kate's story allows the author to relate violent events and highly charged emotions in a smooth and elegant style, a quality for which the book has been widely praised by reviewers. ''' ==Publication history== *2002, Canada, Knopf, {{ISBN|0-6769-7479-1}}, Pub date Feb 2002, Hardback *2002, US, Dial Press, {{ISBN|0-385-33611-X}}, Pub date Feb 2002, Hardback *2002, UK, Chatto & Windus, {{ISBN|0-7011-7321-1}}, Pub date Feb 2002 *2003, UK, Charnwood, {{ISBN|0-7089-9450-4}}, Pub date Mar 2003, Large print (h/b) *2003, Canada, Vintage, {{ISBN|0-676-97480-5}}, Pub date Mar 2003, Paperback *2003, US, Center Point, {{ISBN|1-5854-7332-4}}, Pub date Aug 2003, Large print (h/b) *2003, UK, Vintage, {{ISBN|0-09-942932-2}}, Paperback *2003, US, Dial Press, {{ISBN|0-676-97480-5}}, Paperback *2006, Canada, Seal Books, {{ISBN|0-7704-3010-4}}, Pub date 25 Jul 2006, Paperback <ref>[http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/l/mary-lawson/crow-lake.htm www.fantasticfiction.co.uk] Retrieved 2013-09-03.</ref> ==External links== *[http://www.reviewsofbooks.com/crow_lake/ Reviews] *[http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780385337632&view=auqa Author Interview] ==References== {{Reflist|2}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Crow Lake (Novel)}} [[Category:2002 Canadian novels]] [[Category:Novels by Mary Lawson]] [[Category:Debut novels]] [[Category:Northern Ontario in fiction]] [[Category:Canadian bildungsromans]] [[Category:Novels about orphans]] [[Category:Novels set in Ontario]] [[Category:Alfred A. Knopf books]] [[Category:Chatto & Windus books]] [[Category:Dial Press books]]'