ABOUT
THE BOOK

Here is a gorgeous, slow burning story of families growing up and tearing each other apart in the rural ‘badlands’ of Northern Ontario, where tragedy and hardship are mirrored in the landscape, and even setting too much store by education can be a subtly dangerous thing. For the farming Pyes, life is a Greek tragedy where the sins of the fathers are visited on the sons, and hideous events occur – offstage. Centre stage, are the Morrisons whose tragedy looks more immediate if less brutal, but is in reality insidious and divisive. Orphaned young, Kate Morrison was her older brother Matt’s protégé, her curious fascination for pond life fed by his passionate interest in the natural world. Now an invertebrate zoologist, she can identify organisms under a microscope but seems blind to the tragedy of her own emotional life. She thinks she has outgrown her family – Luke, Matt and Bo, who were once her entire world – but can’t seem to outgrow her childhood or lighten the weight of their mutual past.