It's not an easy thing to write a novel about a family. Of necessity--and as the narrative years advance--characters proliferate, success and tragedy accrue, events maneuver to the fore with faintly arbitrary impetus. First-time novelist Bonnie Burnard, however, evades such worn grooves with the purest renunciation: a patient and lovely voice. In A Good House, awarded Canada's Giller Prize in 1999, Burnard documents an Ontario family over half a century with unadorned, deliberate, and tender sympathy.

Flush with post-World War II optimism, veteran Bill Chambers and his wife Sylvia settle in to the business of raising their three young children. Bill logs full days at the local hardware store; Sylvia strings the family's clothes out to dry in the backyard and proffers dinner punctually. Her wasting health, however, leaves her husband yearning for a contentment now stolen and her children disquieted by the sudden tenuousness of their security. When Sylvia dies and Bill remarries, his staunch and pragmatic bride Margaret displays a three-fold capacity: she allows him his sluggish and methodical affection; she preserves Sylvia's memory with untainted regard; and she cultivates a deft empathy with her stepchildren.

Burnard's meticulous pacing nearly, but never quite, upstages the story itself, although her unwieldy and expanding cast of characters occasionally threatens such harm. Margaret is the real wonder of the book. While the requisite affairs, divorces, and funerals intervene--and as Bill declines excruciatingly into a belligerent stranger--she summons a reserve of affection, the source of which is admirably opaque. She perseveres in "hoping as mothers and fathers almost always do that the difficulties could be examined, could be broken apart and fixed one by one by one." Burnard's tale is dignified and generous. --Ben Guterson


From Publishers Weekly
In 1952, 12-year-old Daphne Chambers falls from a trapeze and is left with a permanently asymmetrical face. In 1955, Daphne's mother, Sylvia, dies of cancer at age 40. From these two life-altering events, Canadian short story writer Burnard spins her engrossing debut novel, a traditional generational saga that unfolds with quiet grace and measure. Told from a variety of points of view, the book traces the upheavals and affirmations of the very ordinary Chambers family of Stonebrook, Ontario, from 1949 to 1997. The year after Sylvia's death, her husband, Bill, an injured WWII vet, remarries. His new wife, the unflappable Margaret, who used to work with him at the town hardware store, helps him raise his three children. Paul, the baby, becomes a hockey star and eventually a farmer, marrying young; oldest brother Patrick, a lawyer, is destined to be the keeper of family secrets; and middle child Daphne makes an eccentric choice for that time and place: she'll become the single mother of two daughters. As the years pass, the family, in nuclear and then extended form, gathers around the kitchen table to celebrate and to mourn. There are no saints, no Jobs, no Hamlets in Burnard's tale, just flawed people making the best possible choices given the passions and options of the moment, choices that sometimes require disingenuousness, stonewalling and outright lies. Changes in the initially remote town of Stonebrook are a significant strand in the narrative weave. Flashes of sly humor and an ability to avoid sentimentality are some of Burnard's skills, and the narrative's calm flow (once one gets past an initial excess of detail) builds to a deeply moving story of the truths of family life. 50,000 first printing; major ad/promo; author tour. (Sept.) FYI: A bestseller in Canada, this novel won the 1999 Giller Prize. Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
This 1999 Giller Prize winner and Canadian best seller takes as its canvas 48 years in the lives of an Ontario family, beginning with hardware-store owner Bill Chambers and his wife, Sylvia, who soon dies. The book seeks not to dazzle but simply to present the highs and lows, the experiences ordinary and extraordinary, of a "normal" family. Yet the characters are so fully realized that one feels one has lived with them and knows them, as usually happens in Trollope's novels or in those of another Canadian, Carol Shields (although Burnard takes in several lives, while Shields generally focuses on one). Even the understated titleDit isn't really a book about a houseDhas something to say about its solidity and graceful prose. One can even forgive Burnard occasional gaffe, like having one of her characters own a Mustang in 1963. This could easily become an Oprah book. Highly recommended.-DRobert E. Brown, Onondaga Cty. P.L., Syracuse, NY Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
This wondrous story of a Canadian family progresses much like the creek it describes, moving calmly and steadily, occasionally slowed by a clause-laden sentence, sometimes diverted from its main course, keeping its pace in the face of the unexpected. Bill and Sylvia Chambers marry in 1936 and have three children--Patrick, Daphne, and Paul--before Bill goes off to war, returning without "the three most useful fingers of his right hand" to work at the local hardware store. In the six decades that follow, the family (along with close friend Murray McFarlane) experiences the joys and heartbreak--a deforming accident, more than one untimely death, a damaged child, children born out of wedlock, divorce--that life brings. What is remarkable is not what occurs but how it is told: first-novelist Burnard displays such grace and insight into the human heart that her book seems to embrace the reader. Winner of the 1999 Giller Prize in Canada, this is a novel to savor. Michele Leber
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

FROM OUR EDITORS

A Discover Great New Writers Selection

In Canadian short-story writer Bonnie Burnard's deeply moving novel, we meet the Chambers family: Bill and Sylvia and their three children, an ordinary family from Ontario. Beginning in 1949, we follow the Chambers for the next fifty years through the many joys and disappointments of their lives: a childhood accident, a tragic illness ending in death, and a remarriage for Bill. Some of the children choose a traditional route, marrying and having children of their own. One forges her own very new path. The clan expands and changes; marriages fail and careers bloom. But despite the heart-aches and difficulties each member of the family faces, there is never a lack of love to be found. With writing so clear and crisp it rings with honesty and grace, Burnard's characters work their way under your skin and into your heart-an auspicious debut.

"Beautifully written. The ordinary moments of life become luminous, lovely, under this compassionate eye."
—Elizabeth Strout, author of Amy and Isabelle
"The finest novel published in some years￯﾿ﾽIts grace, its generosity, its humanity are present on each of its pages."
—Carol Shields, author of The Stone Diaries

FROM THE PUBLISHER

A Good House begins in 1949 in Stonebrook, Ontario, home to the Chambers family. The postwar boom and hope for the future color every facet of life: the possibilities seem limitless for Bill, his wife Sylvia, and their three children.

In the fifty years that follow, the possibilities narrow. Sylvia's untimely death marks her family indelibly but in ways only time will reveal. Paul's perfect marriage yields an imperfect child. Daphne unabashedly follows an unconventional path, while Patrick discovers that his happiness requires a series of compromises. Bill confronts the onset of old age less gracefully than anticipated, and throughout, his second wife, Margaret, remains, surprisingly, the family anchor.

Author Biography: A resident of London, Ontario, Bonnie Burnard is the author of two award-winning story collections. A Good House is her first novel. A number one bestseller in Canada, it received the 1999 Giller Prize, one of Canada's most prestigious literary awards; previous winners include Alice Munro and Margaret Atwood.

FROM THE CRITICS

USA Today

A Good House is a true book, one to be treasured and shared with a sister, father or best friend.

Publishers Weekly

In 1952, 12-year-old Daphne Chambers falls from a trapeze and is left with a permanently asymmetrical face. In 1955, Daphne's mother, Sylvia, dies of cancer at age 40. From these two life-altering events, Canadian short story writer Burnard spins her engrossing debut novel, a traditional generational saga that unfolds with quiet grace and measure. Told from a variety of points of view, the book traces the upheavals and affirmations of the very ordinary Chambers family of Stonebrook, Ontario, from 1949 to 1997. The year after Sylvia's death, her husband, Bill, an injured WWII vet, remarries. His new wife, the unflappable Margaret, who used to work with him at the town hardware store, helps him raise his three children. Paul, the baby, becomes a hockey star and eventually a farmer, marrying young; oldest brother Patrick, a lawyer, is destined to be the keeper of family secrets; and middle child Daphne makes an eccentric choice for that time and place: she'll become the single mother of two daughters. As the years pass, the family, in nuclear and then extended form, gathers around the kitchen table to celebrate and to mourn. There are no saints, no Jobs, no Hamlets in Burnard's tale, just flawed people making the best possible choices given the passions and options of the moment, choices that sometimes require disingenuousness, stonewalling and outright lies. Changes in the initially remote town of Stonebrook are a significant strand in the narrative weave. Flashes of sly humor and an ability to avoid sentimentality are some of Burnard's skills, and the narrative's calm flow (once one gets past an initial excess of detail) builds to a deeply moving story of the truths of family life. 50,000 first printing; major ad/promo; author tour. (Sept.) FYI: A bestseller in Canada, this novel won the 1999 Giller Prize. Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

Library Journal

This 1999 Giller Prize winner and Canadian best seller takes as its canvas 48 years in the lives of an Ontario family, beginning with hardware-store owner Bill Chambers and his wife, Sylvia, who soon dies. The book seeks not to dazzle but simply to present the highs and lows, the experiences ordinary and extraordinary, of a "normal" family. Yet the characters are so fully realized that one feels one has lived with them and knows them, as usually happens in Trollope's novels or in those of another Canadian, Carol Shields (although Burnard takes in several lives, while Shields generally focuses on one). Even the understated title--it isn't really a book about a house--has something to say about its solidity and graceful prose. One can even forgive Burnard occasional gaffe, like having one of her characters own a Mustang in 1963. This could easily become an Oprah book. Highly recommended. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/1/00.]--Robert E. Brown, Onondaga Cty. P.L., Syracuse, NY Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

Valberg - Entertainment Weekly

[A] tender novel...by the book's ending, your level of attachment to this family, whose reservoirs of decency and humor run deep, may surprise you.

Carol Shields - The Ottawa Citizen

The finest novel published in some years in our country. Its grace, its generosity, its humanity are present on each of its pages...The Australian novelist Patrick White once announced that he had no interest in "plots," that he was only concerned with writing about life going on toward death. This is precisely the narrative arc Bonnie Burnard has chosen and so brilliantly brought into being. It is a daring feat, and one that will move the reader to recognition and, at times, to tears. Our literature needs this kind of real wealth, our own lives given back to us in the form of enduring language.Read all 17 "From The Critics" >

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

A Good House is a deep read. You keep finding more and more satisfaction in the unshowy craft, the unique vision of this writer who can tell you hard truths, hopefully. — (Alice Munro, author of The Love of a Good Woman)