The Cure For Death By Lightning by Gail Anderson-Dargatz
Thanks to Darcie Freisen Hossack for this re-view:
I already know that Gail Anderson-Dargatz’s new title, Turtle Valley, is under the Christmas tree with my name on it. And hopefully, besides sating those who’ve been waiting anxiously, it’s a book to win over a whole new crop of readers for this author, who’s not only one of Canada’s finest, but most engaging.
While I wait to peel back the wrapping and act surprised though, I’ve been reading Dargatz’s Giller nominated The Cure For Death By Lightning and realizing what an uphill scribble it must be for any pen hoping to outdo such a beautifully told story.
In The Cure For Death By Lightning, Beth is a teenager growing up in the desperately beautiful Shuswap area, south of Kamloops, British Columbia. And while World War II rages overseas, taking away all but a few of the young men, it goes largely unnoticed by Beth, except for the flour her mother hoards behind her headboard, and the nightly blackouts that are little but an exercise. For Beth, a far greater war is at home with a father whose head wound from a previous conflict excuses every kind of abuse, while isolating Beth, and the entire family, from the community.
Told in a language as vivid and haunting as any artist’s brushstrokes, The Cure For Death By Lightning may be Dargatz’s finest work to date. A master at colouring in details that snatch the reader’s breath away, the prose is nevertheless controlled and without a note of excess or falseness. This is a title to be read again and again and again.
The Cure for Death by Lightning
by Gail Anderson-Dargatz
Originally published by Knopf Canada
