Book Review: What is Left the Daughter

Well, here we are in February and I'm just getting to my first book review of the year! Not a good start. I think I'm only down two books, maybe three...

What is Left the Daughter by Howard Norman, Format: Kindle Edition, File Size: 306 KB, Print Length: 256 pages, Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1 edition (July 6, 2010), ASIN: B003U4VES0

Rating: 3 of 5 STARS
Source: Read about it somewhere...

This was my second book to read on the Kindle. Although the book was a bit of a disappoinment, the reading experience wasn't. I continue (with some surprise) to really enjoy reading books electronically. I've always been a die-hard printed book fan and thought e-books just weren't for me, but I suppose it's time to say I was wrong. However, that said, I still think printed books are better and can't imagine ever totally moving over to electronic. Some books, especially those you are learning from, just have to be read in print. Entertaining novels? Another story.

So, to the book at hand - What is Left the Daughter. I've never read anything by Howard Norman. This was an interesting, if a little disjointed, plot so even though I'm not giving it a stellar rating, I would definitely read another book by him.

What did I like? It was set in Nova Scotia, an area I know nothing about so it was interesting to read about it. Also, the time period was WWII which often makes for a story full of historical insight.

What didn't I like? The story started off with the information that the main character's parents had both killed themselves by jumping off different bridges within an hour of each other because they were in love with the same woman. But that part of the plot wasn't ever really tied in or fleshed out. It was like some bizarre overture to the whole book that just hovered there. Also, I didn't find any of the characters extremely likeable.... There wasn't anyone I was particularly rooting for.

Here's the product description from Amazon:

Seventeen-year-old Wyatt Hillyer is suddenly orphaned when his parents, within hours of each other, jump off two different bridges--the result of their separate involvements with the same compelling neighbor, a Halifax switchboard operator and aspiring actress. The suicides cause Wyatt to move to small-town Middle Economy to live with his uncle, aunt, and ravishing cousin Tilda.

Setting in motion the novel's chain of life-altering passions and the wartime perfidy at its core is the arrival of the German student Hans Mohring, carrying only a satchel. Actual historical incidents--including a German U-boat's sinking of the Nova Scotia-Newfoundland ferry Caribou, on which Aunt Constance Hillyer might or might not be traveling--lend intense narrative power to Norman's uncannily layered story.

Wyatt's account of the astonishing--not least to him--events leading up to his fathering of a beloved daughter spills out twenty-one years later. It's a confession that speaks profoundly of the mysteries of human character in wartime and is directed, with both despair and hope, to an audience of one.

I think Mr. Norman is a good writer... this book just fell a little flat for me.