Unless

Carol Shields

This is the first Shields novel I've read, having never gotten around to reading The Stone Diaries. Rita is a housewife and a writer (of "light fiction"), married to a doctor, with three daughters. A happy existance. Until her oldest daughter, 19 year old Norah takes to living on the street and wearing a sign on which she has written the word "goodness". She refuses to speak to anyone. We don't know what has prompted all of this and neither does anybody else. As the story unfolds we see Rita living her daily life while trying to make sense of Norah's behavior, trying to come to terms with this tragedy in their lives. The main strength if this novel is the narrator's voice. It is absorbing which keeps you reading. Otherwise, I thought the story was built around a pretty thin device - the daughter and her odd behavior. I had a hard time believing this premise and then when the reason for her behavior is revealed I believed it even less. It's not a bad book, mind you, I just expected better from Shields considering all the hoopla surrounding Stone Diaries.