A Good House by Bonnie Burnard 1999 Giller Prize Winner

The beginning of A Good House by Bonnie Burnard reminded me of the beginning of the movie Far From Heaven (2002). the book starts by following Stonebrook Creek from the countryside into the small town of Stonebrook, describing the countryside and the town, until the creek passes the house of the Chambers family. This is how Far From Heaven, and the melodramas of Douglas Sirk  to which it was paying homage, also began. I used to go to the movies on Saturday and sometimes also Sunday afternoons at our neighbourhood 2nd run theatre, and I saw most of his movies. I could hear the movie theme music playing in my head as I read these opening paragraphs. It was a very cinematic opening.

The story follows the life of the Chambers family from 1949 to 1997. Bill Chambers returns from World War II with several missing fingers on his right hand. He comes back to his wife Sylvia and their children Patrick, Daphne and Paul and tries to lead a happy normal life. A lonely young boy, Murray McFarlane attaches himself to the family and soon becomes accepted as one of them. Each chapter moves the family along chronologically...1949, 1952, 1955,1956. Then there are more years between the chapters...1963, 1970, 1977, etc. until 1997. Sylvia dies and Bill remarries Margaret.  Some of the children marry, there are grandchildren and divorces and an unmarried mother. There are tragedies, happiness and misunderstandings.  I would say it was a melodrama, but there wasn't that much drama.

Ms Burnard has a great eye for detail and description, but perhaps it was the interval of years that kept the characters at a distance. Sometimes between the chapters a character got divorced, but the reader only learned about it as it affected the future and was looking back at the divorce. I didn't feel the immediacy of the moment or the emotions. I enjoyed the story, partly because of the timing...it covers the years when I was a child and became an adult. It documented the same times in which I grew up. But I was never engrossed in the story or the family.

The Scotiabank Giller Prize is considered a prize to recognize "Literary Fiction."  For me this books falls more in the category of "Popular Fiction."  I decided to see what other books were nominated for the prize in 1999. The other four finalists were: Pilgrim (Timothy Findley), Am I Disturbing You ? (Anne Hebert), The Mark of the Angel (Nancy Houston), and Summer Gone (David MacFarlane). I haven't read any of these books, so I can't say that I would have chosen one of them instead. I may read one or two of them to see what I think.

NEXT: 2000  Mercy Among The Children by David Adams Richards and Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje.

In 2000 there were two winners of the Scotiabank Giller Prize. After this Jack Rabinovitch declared that juries must choose only one winner. I will do one blog for each book, starting with Mercy Among the Children. I tried to another book by David Adams Richards and I didn't like it and I didn't finish it. I actually stopped reading before I was 1/3 of the way through it. So I am approaching this as a chore. I hope this book will be different. Since I read Anil's Ghost in 2001,  I will re-read it for the blog.