Road Ends

July 15, 2014
Lawson's compelling third novel (The OtherSide of the Bridge, 2006, etc.) is about trying to get away-from the past,from tragedy, from grief, and from the inescapable obligations, for better orworse, of family. The Cartwrights live in Struan, arural Canadian town with harsh weather. In 1967, 21-year-old Megan is finallyleaving home. The second eldest child and only daughter, she's spent most ofher life running the household and raising her five younger brothers while hermother focused on having babies. She moves to London, intent on living her ownlife, and in her absence, the Cartwrights begin to unravel. The father, Edward,avoids his family as much as possible, worried that his growing temper andviolent thoughts mirror his own father's abusive behavior. Tom, the oldestson, is rocked by a tragedy that leads to his best friend's suicide and movesback home. He isolates himself from the outside world as much as possibleand fixates on death. As Megan slowly finds her footing in London, theCartwright home descends into filth and inattention. Finally, Tom discovers thathis 4-year-old brother, Adam, has been grossly neglected and changes must bemade. The conflicts the Cartwrights face seem unavoidable, as if theycannot-or, more appropriately, will not-help themselves. Even halfway aroundthe world, Megan can't completely escape her family's many needs; but returningwould mean giving up a life of her own, and, as a friend tells her, "Thegraveyards are full of indispensable people, Meg."Although the novel moves slowly, thecharacters are riveting and demand sympathy even at their most pathetic. We areleft with the sense that to live is to struggle, in cities or in the harsh,Canadian north, and there is nothing to do but the best we can.

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Starred review from July 1, 2014
With her mother pregnant with yet another child, 21-year-old Megan Cartwright is desperate to leave their small town in Ontario's forbidding north country, where she is buried under the relentless demands of caring for a household that seems teetering on the brink of collapse. The only one she is close to is her older brother, Tom, and he, too, is fading away as he grieves over his best friend's suicide and his once-promising, abandoned career in aeronautics. Eventually, Meg does manage to settle in England and create the life she's always wanted. Then Tom calls with a tale of a family in free fall: their youngest brother is practically feral, their teenage brothers are in trouble with the law, and their parents have retreated so far into their own private hells as to be incapable of providing even basic needs. Meg is their only hope for survival, and only Tom knows what her return to Canada will cost her. Best-selling novelist Lawson's (The Other Side of the Bridge, 2006) dark and woeful tale of responsibility and loyalty abounds with perennially affecting themes of familial dissolution that will appeal to reading groups who enjoy probing the reasons behind essential life choices.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2014

Fed up with being mother, housekeeper, and nurse to her rowdy brothers, Megan suddenly abandons her isolated Canadian village for London. Lawson is a No. 1 best-selling author in her native Canada and an award nominee in the UK, where she now lives.

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