Search - The Way the Crow Flies

The Way the Crow Flies
Author: Ann-Marie MacDonald

“The sun came out after the war and our world went Technicolor. Everyone had the same idea. Let’s get married. Let’s have kids. Let’s be the ones who do it right.” — — The Way the Crow Flies, the second novel by bestselling, award-winning author Ann-Marie MacDonald, is set on the Royal Canadian A... more »ir Force station of Centralia during the early sixties. It is a time of optimism -- infused with the excitement of the space race but overshadowed by the menace of the Cold War -- filtered through the rich imagination and quick humour of eight-year-old Madeleine McCarthy and the idealism of her father, Jack, a career officer.

As the novel opens, Madeleine’s family is driving to their new home; Centralia is her father’s latest posting. They have come back from the Old World of Germany to the New World of Canada, where the towns hold memories of the Europeans who settled there. For the McCarthys, it is “the best of both worlds.” And they are a happy family. Jack and Mimi are still in love, Madeleine and her older brother, Mike, get along as well as can be expected. They all dance together and barbecue in the snow. They are compassionate and caring. Yet they have secrets.

Centralia is the station where, years ago, Jack crashed his plane and therefore never went operational; instead of being killed in action in 1943, he became a manager. Although he is successful, enjoys “flying a desk” and is thickening around the waist from Mimi’s good Acadian cooking, deep down Jack feels restless. His imagination is caught by the space race and the fight against Communism; he believes landing a man on the moon will change the world, and anything is possible. When his old wartime flying instructor appears out of the blue and asks for help with the secret defection of a Soviet scientist, Jack is excited to answer the call of duty: now he has a real job.

Madeleine’s secret is “the exercise group”. She is kept behind after class by Mr. March, along with other little girls, and made to do “backbends” to improve her concentration. As the abusive situation worsens, she is convinced that she cannot tell her parents and risk disappointing them. No one suspects, even when Madeleine’s behaviour changes: in the early sixties people still believe that school is “one of the safest places.” Colleen and Ricky, the adopted Metis children of her neighbours, know differently; at the school they were sent to after their parents died, they had been labelled “retarded” because they spoke Michif.

Then a little girl is murdered. Ricky is arrested, although most people on the station are convinced of his innocence. At the same time, Ricky’s father, Henry Froelich, a German Jew who was in a concentration camp, identifies the Soviet scientist hiding in the nearby town as a possible Nazi war criminal. Jack alone could provide Ricky’s alibi, but the Cold War stakes are politically high and doing “the right thing” is not so simple. “Show me the right thing and I will do it,” says Jack. As this very local murder intersects with global forces, The Way the Crow Flies reminds us that in time of war the lines between right and wrong are often blurred.

Ann-Marie MacDonald said in a discussion with Oprah Winfrey about her first book, “a happy ending is when someone can walk out of the rubble and tell the story.” Madeleine achieves her childhood dream of becoming a comedian, yet twenty years later she realises she cannot rest until she has renewed the quest for the truth, and confirmed how and why the child was murdered.. Publishers Weekly, in a starred review, called The Way the Crow Flies “absorbing, psychologically rich…a chronicle of innocence betrayed”. With compassion and intelligence, and an unerring eye for the absurd as well as the confusions of childhood, , MacDonald evokes the confusion of being human and the necessity of coming to terms with our imperfections.

ISBN-13: 9780676974089
ISBN-10: 0676974082
Publication Date: 2003
Pages: 736
Rating:

Currently 4.5/5 Stars.

4.5 stars, based on 3 ratings

Publisher: Knopf Canada
Book Type: Hardcover
Other Versions: Paperback
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Member | Amazon | Write a Review

Top Member Book Reviews

Patricia W. (she-reads) reviewed The Way the Crow Flies on 12/11/2005 + 47 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 2

I could not put this book down------------A wonderful read!!
Altho it is a hardcover and very hard to read in bed-------somehow I managed

Share/Like this Review?

Gretchen F. (MOMSBOOKS) reviewed The Way the Crow Flies on 8/4/2007 + 64 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 1

A very long, almost monumental book. It's about Madelilne from age 9-32. What happens to her at 9 is what she becomes. It is also about her family, her dad Jack, A Canadian Air Force Officer, his wife Mimi, an Acadian, therby sprinkling French phrases throughout the book, and her older brother Mike.It is also about Madeline's school chums and their combined school experiences. After about 400 pages I thought it should be over...but it goes on and on, kind of draggy until the last 25-50 pages where there is a total flip flop as vaious questions are answered and mysteries solved. A good read...revolves around child sexual abuse which in 2003 was still fresh enough to make it an Oprah's Book Club choice.

Share/Like this Review?

Read All 8 Book Reviews of "The Way the Crow Flies"

Please Log in to Rate these Book Reviews

Tricia K. (Tarheel) reviewed The Way the Crow Flies on 4/5/2011 + 46 more book reviews

I loved this book. It had such great depictions of growing up in the 1960s Kennedy space era. I found the characters so interesting and the scenario so believable. I couldn't put it down!

Share/Like this Review?

Linda L. (lakelinda) reviewed The Way the Crow Flies on 11/10/2006 + 108 more book reviews

I loved this book! Brings back memories for all baby boomers and sensitive and compulsively readable for all.
In The Way the Crow Flies, Ann- Marie MacDonald takes us back to the early 1960's, a time of optimism infused with the excitement of the space race and overshadowed by the menace of the Cold War - a war filtered through the imagination of Madeleine McCarthy, a spirited eight-year-old. Unaware that her father, jack, is caught up in his own web of secrets, she at first welcomes her family's posting to a sleepy air force base in Ontario. But then tragedy strikes, and a local murder intersects with global forces. As tension builds, Jack must decide where his loyalty lies, and Madeleine learns about the ambiguity of human morality - a lesson that will only become clear when the quest for the truth, and the killer, is renewed twenty years later.

Share/Like this Review?

Melissa C. reviewed The Way the Crow Flies on 5/27/2011 + 16 more book reviews

Not as good as Fall on Your Knees by the same author, but still very good!

Share/Like this Review?

Victoria (YSB) - reviewed The Way the Crow Flies on 11/30/2009 + 636 more book reviews

I really enjoyed this book. I liked the style and the setting of the '60s. It did drag a little and the murder that whole book wrapped around was left a little unmotivated, without much punishment or resolution. Still, it was an absorbing read, with a very unique style of writing that I really liked. I would definitely read more by her, though I think it would be subject dependent because I liked the young narrator much better than the older one.

Share/Like this Review?

Read All Book Reviews of "The Way the Crow Flies"

Book Wiki

Real Places

Centralia, ON

Genres:

Literature & Fiction >> General >> Contemporary
Literature & Fiction >> Authors, A-Z >> ( M ) >> MacDonald, Ann-Marie

Search - The Way the Crow Flies

Top Member Book Reviews

Please Log in to Rate these Book Reviews

Book Wiki

Loading...