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The Deception of Livvy Higgs – Donna Morrissey Blog Tour

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For two traumatic days, Livvy Higgs is besieged by a series of small heart attacks while the ghost of her younger self leads her back through a past devastated by lies and secrets.

The story opens in Halifax in 2009, travels back to the French Shore of Newfoundland during the mid-thirties and the heyday of the Maritime shipping industry, makes its way to wartorn Halifax during the battle of the Atlantic in World War II, then leaps ahead to the bedside of the elder Livvy.

Caught between a troubled past, and her present and worsening living conditions, Livvy is forced to pick apart the lies and secrets told by her greedy, prideful father, Durwin Higgs, who judges her a failure, and her formidable Grandmother Creed, who has mysteriously aligned herself with Livvy’s father, despite their mutual hatred.

Tending to Livvy during her illness is her young next-door neighbour, Gen, a single mother, social-work student, and part-time drug dealer. Overnight, a violent scene embroils the two in each other’s lives in a manner that will entwine them forever. In The Deception of Livvy Higgs, the inimitable Morrissey has written a powerful tale, the Stone Angel of the East Coast. – Publishers Website

What a book !  Not sure what to expect at first when I received the email about this particular book.  I actually had to stop and start a few times, just because of the nature of the book.  I had to get my head right so to speak so that I could delve into Livvy’s mind and her past bringing together past and present into this fantastic piece of literary fiction.

Livvy is having dreams, but in actuality she is having mini heart attacks.  She’s forgetting to go to the grocery store, feeding her cats, among other household chores.  Her younger neighbour who is a student and single mother helps her from time to time, but Livvy doesn’t want to depend on her all the time.  The dreams she is having have to do with her past – as a girl growing up in an upper class family where her father owns the general store – who decides if you are good enough for credit or not through the harsh winter months.  As the past reaches into the present, Livvy and Gen her neighbour come to blows about an incident that happens.  Will Livvy come to terms with her past, deal with it and live a calm existence in her last days? Or will Gen’s drama splinter that fragile relationship they have and drive them both on a path they aren’t meant to be on.

As both women go back and forth, it is almost a mirror image of the two in different times.  Both have made mistakes in their younger years, Both have made sacrifices for the good and bad.  Both have done things they aren’t proud of, but in the moment they did what they had to do to survive.  As we all go through life, I know in my own there are things that I have done that I am not proud of because of circumstances, and things that have happened I didn’t wish on anyone, but I learned from them and the mistakes I have made.  I cannot change any of it, but yet, if I could I don’t think I would.  It gave me things to think about, situations that have made me a better person, and strengthened my reserve to make me a stronger person.  In Livvy’s case, I believe that she needed to make amends for what she did so that she could finally let it go instead of hanging on to it for so long.  In Gen’s case, I think she learns from Livvy and her mistakes in a way that she can avoid them in the future if that makes any sense.  Both women are teaching and learning from one another, in different times if course, but the outcome and the lessons are still the same.  Do you want to be happy or do you want to be right?

Anger, Resentment, and hanging onto feelings for years or even decades isn’t good for you, come clean and be lifted of that weight to be able to be happy and free.  Donna has written a fantastic piece of Literary Fiction that will become a Canadian Classic!

 

Read an Excerpt - Donna on Facebook - Donna’s Website - 49th Shelf - Goodreads

 

For more reviews and commentary, check out the others on tour with Donna’s book!

September 18 Luanne –  http://luanne-abookwormsworld.blogspot.com/
September 19 Marci –  http://serendipitous-readings.com/
September 20 Aislynn –  http://www.stitchreadcook.com/
September 21 Nicole –  http://www.nicoleabouttown.com/
September 24 Allison –  http://bibliomama2.blogspot.com/

#56 – Caleb’s Crossing – Geraldine Brooks

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A richly imagined new novel from the author of the New York Times bestseller, People of the Book.

Once again, Geraldine Brooks takes a remarkable shard of history and brings it to vivid life. In 1665, a young man from Martha’s Vineyard became the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College. Upon this slender factual scaffold, Brooks has created a luminous tale of love and faith, magic and adventure.

The narrator of Caleb’s Crossing is Bethia Mayfield, growing up in the tiny settlement of Great Harbor amid a small band of pioneers and Puritans. Restless and curious, she yearns after an education that is closed to her by her sex. As often as she can, she slips away to explore the island’s glistening beaches and observe its native Wampanoag inhabitants. At twelve, she encounters Caleb, the young son of a chieftain, and the two forge a tentative secret friendship that draws each into the alien world of the other. Bethia’s minister father tries to convert the Wampanoag, awakening the wrath of the tribe’s shaman, against whose magic he must test his own beliefs. One of his projects becomes the education of Caleb, and a year later, Caleb is in Cambridge, studying Latin and Greek among the colonial elite. There, Bethia finds herself reluctantly indentured as a housekeeper and can closely observe Caleb’s crossing of cultures.

Like Brooks’s beloved narrator Anna in Year of Wonders, Bethia proves an emotionally irresistible guide to the wilds of Martha’s Vineyard and the intimate spaces of the human heart. Evocative and utterly absorbing, Caleb’s Crossing further establishes Brooks’s place as one of our most acclaimed novelists. - Publishers Website

I fell in love with Geraldine’s work when I read People of The Book a while back now, and have just loved this one just as much.  From the Great Harbour back in the 17th century,  which is now known as Martha’s Vineyard; she weaves the story around a young man who just happens to be one of the first native Indians to be accepted into Harvard/ Cambridge Universities respectively.

The characters are just as inviting and diverse as the landscape and politics that surround the area.  I loved Bethia, the way she asserts herself in a world that doesn’t yet accept women’s opinions or views on how just about anything is done, except for the household.  It was based on a real person, Caleb is the one who is fictionalized in the novel, but the background story is true as you will see when you open the pages.  Emotional, Gifted, Interesting, as well as inquisitive;  this book will have you clammering for the rest of her work for sure.

I do have a Q and A I will post after my review, so just go back to the main page of the blog.  I loved the answers to her questions!

Geraldine’s Website - Facebook - Book – Author – Reading Group Guide – Excerpt

The Household Guide to Dying – Debra Adelaide

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2009
Delia is dying of Cancer. She is also a very popular advice columnist and author on topics such as The Household Guide to the Kitchen, and other like titled books. Her style is that of some help and a bit of witty comments that keep her faithful followers coming back for more.

Since she has finally decided that she doesn’t want to continue with the chemotherapy, she has decided to organize her life and that of her family. So, she sets off on a journey that will take her to a place she never thought that she would be able to revisit again. Her husband thinks she is crazy for wanting to do this in her deteriorating condition by herself.

A small town where her and her husband met all those years ago, when she was 17 and pregnant, scared to be doing this all on her own. There is one person that she needs to find, but it is more of a task then she thought it would be, among the many memories and hard times that happened back then.

When everything does finally fall into place, she feels free enough to be able to finally relax and hopefully get her last Household Guide done before she actually dies. And making lists for her daughter’s weddings that she won’t be here for, and telling her husband who to marry after she is gone – which really makes him angry since she isn’t even gone yet.

When I was reading this poignant, poetic, introspective novel about life and living, I couldn’t help but think what would I do if I had the chance or be in the same predicament that she is in herself. Would I go back and soothe old wounds with friends, family and situations in general? Would I be as calm as she is when being faced with insurmountable memories of what happened in the past and be able to face them with the kind of dignity that she does. Sure, she has fallen from time to time, and made mistakes herself, but she is so strong and faces it with so much courage along with the love of her children and husband.

This book was long listed for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2009.

Penguin

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