Donna Morrissey

A brother and sister leave Newfoundland to work in the oil fields of Alberta to provide financial assistance to their ailing father and other family members.

What They Wanted

Edwin Lang

I enjoyed the book. It was a good story, evoking a little of the Newfoundland hardiness and the wild west of Alberta's oil / gas rigs. It left me thinking this morning what a human can bear, what losses, what guilts? We’re such fragile beings. And how does each of us bear it forward? It’s said that God does not burden us beyond our ability, but one wonders if everyone’s spirit is so full of the fortitude required to survive, or lucky enough to have someone to hold you together. In Canada, I was thinking, which except perhaps for Quebec having had Catholicism imbued deeply into its spirit, we’re a country formed primarily by utilitarianism and protestantism – every man for himself, and what practical value are you providing, exactly? Morrissey’s mention of the depletion of the oceans and the drilling and fracking we are doing in Alberta to shore up our supplies of energy – the by-product of which seems to result in a blighting of everything beautiful we have to help our spirits soar – reminded me of the briefest of episodes in which Drew Carey finds a slight bit of lettuce in his burger and exclaims ‘ what the hell …’ and rips it out. It is hard to enjoy the right to be and possess the right to be understood in these circumstances. As Donna Morrissey writes in chapter 12 ‘we are but solitary souls, seeking little more from the moment (than these two rights)'. And the characters, as each of us does to some degree, face that challenge too. I thought that the author constructed a good story, that held together and one’s interest even in a rereading. Sylvie was an interesting character, her mother’s hope. And for us Chris seemed, with his ability to see and his art, a blessing right out of Isaiah. Edwin

What They Wanted

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