Road to Thunder Hill
- Publisher
- Inanna Publications
- Initial publish date
- Nov 2012
- Category
- Literary, Contemporary Women
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781926708287
- Publish Date
- Nov 2011
- List Price
- $22.95
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9781926708515
- Publish Date
- Nov 2012
- List Price
- $45.00
Classroom Resources
Where to buy it
Description
Over the years Trish and Ray have forged a stable family life, despite a rocky beginning almost twenty years earlier — living with their friends on a communal farm that ended badly. Now they are all coming to terms with life in their forties, but Trish has turned angry and insecure. She suddenly finds herself faced with an ailing marriage, a teenaged daughter who would prefer to live with her alcoholic grandmother than at home, and an annoying half sister, Olive, who Trish has been taught to believe is no blood relation. This cheery take-charge half sister, now living in Trish’s childhood summer home, seems bent on destroying the last shreds of Trish’s sense of self. When a freak April snowstorm hits Thunder Hill and the power goes out, Trish finds herself in a compromising situation with her hermit/hippie friend, Bear James, who also happens to be her husband’s closest friend. Later, when forced to seek refuge at her half-sister’s home, Trish feels she’s living a nightmare, one which drives her to face her past. Will the future hold anything for Trish other than that of becoming “a bitter old woman” and “immature freak,” accusations her daughter Gayl has flung at her recently?
About the author
Connie Barnes Rose was born in Amherst, Nova Scotia and moved to Montreal where she completed her undergraduate and graduate degrees at Concordia University. She published her first short story in 1987 in Fiddlehead Magazine and went on to publish stories in a variety of magazines and anthologies, such as Scribner's Best of the Fiction Workshops (1997), and local anthologies such as Telling Tales, New Fiction from Quebec. In 1997 she published her collection of linked stories entitled Getting Out of Town, which was short listed for two prestigious awards, The QSPELL Award and the Dartmouth Award. She lives in Montreal, teaches Creative Writing at Concordia University spends her summers in Nova Scotia. In 2005 she won the C.B.C. Short Fiction Award.
Editorial Reviews
Barnes Rose has that rare talent for character building that can make a novel pop from its pages, each character fully drawn, rich and utterly believable. Trish is complex: whip smart but resolutely unpretentious; self-possessed and critical, yet at the same time vulnerable and profoundly loving. The half-sister character, Olive, is one of the most comical and deftly delivered characters I have encountered in a novel in a good while. Barnes Rose also has a gift for gracefully moving her reader about in the plot line, dropping hints about stories in a character's past or future. Unlike some authors who abuse this technique, Barnes Rose manages to relieve the tension of that flashback or foreshadowing at just the right time, gently teasing us forward like a host mentioning a surprise desert at the door, thus making the whole meal all the more appetizing.
User Reviews
A great read
Road to Thunder Hill (Inanna Poetry & Fiction) by Connie Barnes Rose reads like the stories of Alice Munro: set in a small town in the rural area, girls'/women's coming of age experiences, and with vivid details of day-to-day life. The novel starts with the protagonist, Trish, waiting for her husband, Ray, to come home on Thunder Hill, giving a hint that their marriage is on the rock. Following the story, the reader wondered about Trish's relationship with her family members: Is her husband faithful? Would her teenaged daughter who lives with Trish's mother return home? Will Trish find a solution to her midlife crisis? As the story went on, the reader would know the answers.I enjoyed the lively dialogue and many picturesque scenes. The narration in the first person in present tense makes the reader feel close to the protagonist and see her inner world clearly.