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About the author and blogger ...

Anne Goodwin writes entertaining fiction about identity, mental health and social justice. She has published three novels and a short story collection with Inspired Quill. Her debut, Sugar and Snails, was shortlisted for the Polari First Book Prize. Her new novel, Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home, is rooted in her work as a clinical psychologist in a long-stay psychiatric hospital.

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Forestry and fatherhood: The Mountain Can Wait by Sarah Leipciger

5/5/2015

6 Comments

 
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Tom Berry is a forester in northern Canada. He’s a decent chap, drawn to the wilderness, trying to do right by his family and his employees. But he doesn’t really do feelings, and feelings are what he needs to guide him when his grown-up son, Curtis, is stuck in despair about some woman. Instead of listening, the ever-practical Tom sets to work on repairing a leaking tap.

At nineteen, Tom wasn’t ready for fatherhood. Four years on, he wasn’t ready for his unstable wife to leave him with young Curtis and his four-month-old sister, Erin. But he thinks he’s done okay, raising them to be independent, teaching them the countryside survival skills he values. It irks him that Curtis has never been much of a hunter, that teenage Erin now prefers to keep to her room. But he accepts that his kids are reaching the age when they’ll no longer needed him, when he’ll be free to retreat to the cabin in the forest he’s always dreamt of; perhaps, if he’s lucky, his part-time girlfriend, Carolina, will join him there.

He’s out on a job, camping deep in the forest with his team planting trees in their thousands, when the news comes through of a hit-and-run incident back home, a young woman left to die alone at the side of the road. Tom is too immersed in his own problems to pay much attention: one of his foremen has been cheating on the company, putting Tom’s whole enterprise at risk. But then Curtis goes missing and the police come looking, forcing Tom to reconsider his priorities and whether he can finally give his son what he needs.

The Mountain Can Wait is a poignant tale of fatherhood in the context of a work setting unfamiliar to me, but which the author, Sarah Leipciger knows well. While I appreciated learning about Canadian forestry, I’d have preferred to have arrived at the family crisis a little sooner than halfway through. Nevertheless, an impressive debut; thanks to Tinder Press for my review copy. If you like novels about the forested wilderness, you might also want to check out my reviews of The Wolf Border, Our Endless Numbered Days (featuring much more misguided father) and The Snow Child. For another father failing to recognise what his child needs from him, see Everything I Never Told You.

Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
6 Comments
Charli Mills
5/5/2015 03:38:15 pm

Of course I love novels about forested wilderness, and enjoy your reviews of them! I hadn't thought of it as a genre, but perhaps, like the character, there is a longing for readers to escape the emotional demands of life and seek the solitude of the mountains. Interesting point about the placement of the family crisis. It sounds like a hero's journey and in subtler tales, the point of entering the cave does come later. I'll have to think on that when I read this book.

Reply
Annecdotist
6/5/2015 08:10:14 am

I thought of you as I was writing the review, Charli, so glad you like the sound of it. I'm not sure it's a real genre, but it seems to be developing into one here. I think the work and its associated dilemmas is very well portrayed, so I didn't mind too much waiting, but I do think it's a bit of a risk delaying the human drama so long.

Reply
Norah Colvin link
10/5/2015 04:24:42 am

The variety and quantity of books you read continues to astound me. I do like the sound of this one. I'm not sure that the crisis coming later in the book would be a problem for me, as long as the characters were constantly developing until then.

Reply
Annecdotist
11/5/2015 06:58:22 am

Thanks, Norah. Good point, I think the characters were developing and, to be fair, the crisis was foreshadowed in a kind of prologue. Enjoy!

Reply
Val
7/7/2015 08:15:09 am

I have not read this book yet but I have done a lot of reading about the book. A recurring theme or idea that seems to come up in many reviews is that the environment in which we live shapes us. And that is something that Leipciger writes a lot about in this book. I would love to have a discussion going on with examples as to how the authour goes about doing this. I am very interested in this idea. I can't wait to actually pick up a copy and start reading it.

Reply
Annecdotist
7/7/2015 11:39:44 am

Thanks for your comment, Val, and welcome to my blog. That's a big, but important question on how to reflect the impact of environment on character in our writing. I do hope you enjoy The Mountain Can Wait when you come to read it.

Reply



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