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Mary Swan

Autor(a) de The Boys in the Trees: A Novel

9+ Works 351 Membros 21 Reviews

About the Author

Mary Swan is the winner of the 2001 O. Henry Award for short fiction and has been published in several Canadian literary magazines, including The Malahat Review and Best Canadian Stories 92, as well as American publications such as Harper's, the Ontario Review, and Sudden Fiction Continued. She mostrar mais lives with her husband and daughter near Toronto, where she works in the library of the University of Guelph mostrar menos
Image credit: © Emma Porter

Obras de Mary Swan

Associated Works

Prize Stories 2001: The O. Henry Awards (2001) — Contribuinte — 123 cópias

Etiquetado

Conhecimento Comum

Nome padrão
Swan, Mary
Outros nomes
Swan, Mary L.
Data de nascimento
1953
Sexo
female
Nacionalidade
Canada
País (para mapa)
Canada
Locais de residência
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Guelph, Ontario, Canada
Educação
York University
University of Guelph
Ocupação
Librarian

Membros

Resenhas

Okay but forgettable. At least, I've forgotten it. Even the blurb doesn't jog my memory. The rating was assigned at the time of reading.
½
 
Marcado
ParadisePorch | outras 17 resenhas | Jul 6, 2022 |
Sort of compelling, but pretty much a downer.
 
Marcado
Siubhan | outras 17 resenhas | Feb 28, 2018 |
My Ghosts follows several generations of the McFarlane family over a period of approximately 150 years. The book is divided into different sections with several different narrators often, as is the way with families, with the same names. The book begins in 1879 with Clare, one of six siblings and ends in the present with another Clare. The original Clare is a 16-year-old orphan living with her six brothers and sisters in a poor area of Toronto and, from her, we learn the themes of the tale. Clare spends a great deal of her time thinking about, well, time:

“Thinking about what it is and why it is. Thinking about how it can be Eternal, and yet gone forever."

Time and memory and the interconnectedness of families are the major themes of this novel. But time here is not always linear. Each section moves the story forward but within the sections, it is much more fluid as each narrator shares their memories as they ponder their lives and their pasts. And, in the way of memory, the sections are divided into short vignettes, sometimes following some set order but often seemingly random:

"how strange it was, how you could go years without thinking about a thing, but then it popped up"

And as important as memory is, so are the gaps in memory. Although, we may not remember the previous generations, they trail us like ghosts, sometimes in a single memory or in a name, sometimes in a familial trait, and sometimes in the repeated family legends and, as time and memory change, so do the stories and their outcomes.

The last section belongs to the second Clare. She is older, retired, and recently widowed. She has sold her home but, when her new house is not ready for occupancy, she takes the time to follow an earlier path and reclaim earlier memories. Like the first Clare, she thinks a great deal about time:

“They’ve always happened, she realizes, these moments when she seems to wake up and wonder where she’s been, sometimes for years. I’m a ghost haunting my own life, she thinks, and then says, ‘What on Earth does that mean?’”

My Ghosts is both beautiful and haunting in its portrayal of one family over generations and about how time and memory define us. It is also, in some ways, frustrating in that we only learn small fragments of these characters, many of whom we wish to know better but, then, isn't that the way of families as time and memory shift and bend and our ghosts slowly fade but never fully disappear from our collective memories, their legacy remaining if only in the shape of an ear.
… (mais)
 
Marcado
lostinalibrary | outras 2 resenhas | Nov 7, 2013 |
For full disclosure, I did receive an uncorrected proof of this book as a First Reads Giveaway.

This book was one of the most difficult for me to read and finish in a long time. The premise was interesting for me - following a family through many generations - however, the execution was horrible. Separated into different parts, only 1 of the 3 "parts" actually has a timeframe listed which lead to confusion on my behalf as to when the story was occurring. Another problem was a lack of character development; each chapter seemed to be from another character's perspective but after completing the chapter I'd find out that it was the same character, a different person than I had thought, or a totally different timeframe than I thought the events were occurring in. Overall this book was confusing. I am not really sure what the plot is other than following a family through blurred and undefined generations. Many of the relationships between characters were further confused by giving multiple characters the same first names! A great idea but poor execution.… (mais)
 
Marcado
JEB5 | outras 2 resenhas | Oct 30, 2013 |

Prêmios

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Associated Authors

Estatísticas

Obras
9
Also by
1
Membros
351
Popularidade
#68,159
Avaliação
½ 3.4
Resenhas
21
ISBNs
22
Idiomas
2

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