A TOWN CALLED SOLACE

Written by the acclaimed author Mary Lawson, 'A Town Called Solace’ is set in Northern Ontario in an insular small-town community. The story is told through the eyes of three characters, an octogenarian widow, a young male divorcé and an 8 year old school girl. ‘A Town Called Solace’ is a beautifully written story of ordinary people navigating loss and heartbreak but ultimately finding solace.

Eight year old Clara lives with her parents and her outgoing, forthright elder teenage sister Rosie, in the backwater Canadian town of Solace. Their neighbour is Mrs Orchard, in her eighties who lives alone with her cat Moses, whom Clara regularly visits and feeds. Clara’s life unexpectedly falls apart when Rosie goes missing, Mrs Orchard ‘goes away’ and a strange man, Liam Kane inexplicably moves into Mrs Orchard’s house.

As Clara’s parents try to hide the whole story surrounding Rosie and Mrs Orchard from her because they think she won’t understand and it will be too upsetting, she finds an unlikely honesty in Liam who finds it impossible to lie to this lonely and enquiring young girl. Meanwhile we meet Elisabeth Orchard who is nearing the end of her life in hospital. She begins to share ghosts of her past and her connection to this stranger suddenly living in her house.

This may all sound rather tragic but humour and warmth runs throughout the narrative.

If you are fans of Anne Tyler, then Mary Lawson’s books are a definite must. They absorb the remoteness of Ontario’s wilderness and Lawson perfectly captures the vulnerability of a child who finds herself caught up in other people’s emotions and overlooked when tragedy hits her family. You may dream to leave such a small rural town as this but sometimes ‘solace’ is found where you least expect it.

‘Crow Lake’ by the Canadian writer Mary Lawson was in the Den's original favourite books and now in the Den's library.