Jacqueline Baker

2.5 stars

This is set near the Sand Hills in Saskatchewan near the Alberta border. It starts in 1909, but quickly moves on to the next generation. I wouldn’t have known it from the story, but the majority of the farmers living nearby are German immigrants, (I think) via Russia.

All these things should have been more interesting to me with a German (via Russia) family background, and I grew up in Southern Sask and have been to the Sand Hills.

I feel like 2.5 might even be a bit generous. There was one storyline that was (somewhat) interesting, but mostly this was boring. I wasn’t all that interested, and I was confused by who some of the characters were and how they related to the story. Well, they were all in the same town/area, but otherwise… Drove me nuts the one character was simply called “the boy”. Seriously? He doesn’t have a name? Come on!… (mere)

In the midst of the Great Depression, Arthor Crandle is desperate for employment. He eagerly accepts a position as a live-in secretary/assistant for H.P. Lovecraft, a reclusive unpublished author and shut-in. When Arthor arrives, he discovers an elegant, two-story colonial with some rooms converted into one-room apartments. The only job instructions he receives are to perform the simple tasks left in writing for him and to not enter his sanctum where he sleeps, dines, and writes during the evening hours. When Arthor begins seeing a young girl dressed in a nightgown playing in the garden, he begins to investigate the house's current and past occupants.

Although the premise of this Gothic novel had promise, it did not live up to my expectations. Although simply okay in my opinion, the plot lacked dramatic tension and suspense.… (mere)

This is a novel about immigrant German families in the early 1900s in the Prairies. We see the practical-mindedness and fortitude, the superstitions and ghosts brought from the old country to the new.
I appreciated the complexity and unrelenting weight of circumstance that kept building throughout the novel, the layering of interwoven stories, the nuanced description of the Prairie landscape that colours events. Baker's focus is both close--we hear the thoughts of a boy confused by adult subterfuge--and sweeping. At times the community speaks in a dialogue of several voices.
This an accomplished and complex novel. I look forward to reading this author again.… (mere)