Review/Reaction: Road Ends by Mary Lawson

Road Ends, published in 2013, was Mary Lawson's third novel and, from what I gather, when taken together with her first two novels (both of which I loved) Crow Lake and The Other Side of the Bridge, this completes a trilogy of northern Canada books for her. It's been a while since I've read those first two novels, but I remember very vividly how Lawson seemed to have come out of nowhere and jumped into my world as an author whose work I immediately loved and admired. Now, Road Ends confirms my initial reaction to Mary Lawson.

You would be hard pressed to find a more dysfunctional family than the Cartwrights of tiny Straun, Ontario. The family continues to grow year after year despite the bewilderment of the man who continues to create children with a woman who seems almost unaware of their existence after they pass through the toddler stage. Unfortunately for second-born Meg, she is the only daughter in this family of eight children. More unfortunately for Meg, she is also the only person in the family of ten who seems to have a clue as to how to run a household - so she begins to take over those duties at about six years old and continues them until she turns twenty-one.

At that point, Meg craves a life of her own and leaves for London to carve out one for herself. Of course, that's when the Cartwright family implodes. By the time three years have passed, no one seems to be in charge at the Cartwright home: Meg has a new baby brother she's never seen; her four-year-old brother is almost starving because there is seldom any food in the house that he can prepare for himself; her older brother Tom has become a recluse since the suicide of his best friend; two of her brothers have left home for life on the open sea; two others have stopped going to school; and neither of her parents even seem much aware of any of what is happening all around them.

Lawson uses flashbacks to good effect throughout most of Road Ends, although for most of the novel they serve more as flashes forward than as flashes backward. The novel begins in January 1966 as Megan is preparing to break the news to everyone that she is leaving home for a life on her own, but the second chapter is set in January 1969, some three years after Megan's departure. The novel's structure is one that alternates chapters between the points-of-view of Megan, Tom (her only older sibling), and Edward, their father. Cleverly, the author stays in "real time" in chapters about the deterioration of the family in Canada, but moves at an accelerated pace in the Megan-flashbacks until the two timelines finally converge deep into the novel. 

Along the way, readers learn what shaped all of the key characters into the people they became and why none of them (including the mother) seem to have anything approaching the emotional maturity that Megan has acquired. This is important because, with the exception of Megan, this is simply not a likable bunch of people. With a little patience, though, we learn enough about the past of each to at least empathize with them, and b the end of the novel, I felt as if I understood all of them despite how destructive each of them were to the family's stability and welfare.

But it was the end that I will always remember because of how I could see it coming way before I turned that last page. The feeling was like noticing an imminent car wreck seconds before impact of the vehicles; you know what's about to happen but keep hoping that you're wrong. I highly recommend all three Mary Larson novels that I've read now, and I'm looking forward to getting my hands on her latest.

Thanks to Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea for bringing Mary Lawson back to my attention. Diane's thoughts on the novel can be found here.