A couple of friends are really into Lawson, and I can certainly see the appeal, and this was over all very good, even if this felt a little "first novel bites off more than it can chew."

The story follows a split timeline of a university professor in Toronto looking back at her childhood in a farming community in Northern Ontario, with a very heavy theme of "the tragedy that befell us." In flashbacks, the kids are duly orphaned, and I'm really glad that the novel tells us almost right away that all four survive, because teenagers looking after a toddler and living next to a lake felt like it was going to end poorly. But no, the tragedy isn't the dead parents, and the toddler lives; it's something else. (Which shouldn't have reminded me as much of the Punch parody of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde as it did (that cannot be divulged until the very last chapter of this interesting narrative.), especially when I actually liked the way the narrative kept reframing itself.

A lot of this book is about what counts as a tragedy, according to whom, and how that changes with age and shifting perspective, and that part of it was perhaps a little too neatly done. (The characters also keep talking about free land that no one else wanted, and then there's an Indigenous community across the lake, but not any mention that maybe someone did want the land. But the book could've been expecting the reader to draw that line themself.)

Which shouldn't distract from this being a really good book (but apparently did). Lawson's prose is absolutely gorgeous, and I loved her depiction of small town life, especially the kids, who were all delightfully childlike (for good or ill) rather than being too cutesy. It's also often hilarious. The view of the childhood world changes as the main character grows up, but age doesn't always add clarity for her. It's a really great character study of someone so shaped by double blows of family expectation and tragedy that she can't even see what's been done to her, or who she's become. The realisations and coming together at the end felt both satisfying and earned.

I understand her later books are more grim, so may not revisit the author, even though I'm glad I read this one.