What They Wanted - Donna Morrissey

I should offer a disclaimer about this book. I received it as a wonderfully unexpected gift from that kind and clever wordsmith, Gifted Typist. And what I received was not only a solid hardcover edition that felt so substantial in my hands, but a copy that was autographed to me by the author, a personal friend of the dear typist. With that kind of introduction and those personal connections, of course I wanted to love this novel.

In What They Wanted, Donna Morrissey explores the dynamics within a family who are clinging to a way of life in an isolated Newfoundland outport, as filtered through the eyes of the eldest, the only daughter, returned home following her father’s heart attack. Sylvie has long been trying to entice Chris, the middle son, the talented artist, away from this limiting life and into an academic life where his gift and his dreams can blossom. However, when Chris insists instead upon following Sylvie back to Alberta’s oilpatch to make some quick money to bolster the family’s failing resources, the tensions within the family come to a head.

Sylvie has always had a volatile relationship with her mother, whom she sees as having essentially abandoned her in favour of lavishing excessive devotion upon the preferred child, Chris. In turn, her mother feels betrayed by Sylvie’s abandonment of the family, made far worse by the fact that now two of her children have gone into the world far beyond the insulated world of Newfoundland’s hostile yet embracing coast.

And when the brother and sister find a world of machismo and a perplexing hierarchy in the oil rigs, they struggle to deal with the family’s past and with existing relationships that haunt them. When tragedy strikes, it comes not as a shock, but rather as a culmination of an encroaching sense of dread that these are people who are in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I admit that I had a couple of difficulties with What They Wanted. Initially I had some problems with the colloquialisms used in this book. Morrissey’s characters speak in a broad Newfoundland dialect, and it felt a trifle odd to me, uncertain as I was of the authenticity of this particular vernacular. I think this is largely a result of the flap that E. Annie Proulx caused when she wrote The Shipping News in a Newfoundland dialect that most people concur was simply fabricated. However, since Morrissey is herself from Newfoundland, I will take it on faith that the way in which her characters speak is authentic.

I also found it hard to understand the degree of animosity between Sylvie and her mother. I found myself wanting to smack their heads together at times, to tell them to suck it up and put their issues of estrangement behind them. To me, the intensity of their relationship felt a little overwrought and not entirely believable, but perhaps that’s simply because that sort of relationship has never really entered into my sensibilities.

However, the raw pain with which Morrissey imparts the tragedy in the novel is entirely and painfully believable. It was rather hard to read, the aftermath of the accident, so intensely naked was the grief. But through the overwhelming loss and guilt and isolation that Morrissey explores in the grieving, comes an understanding and ultimately a catharsis.

What They Wanted is a gripping and at times wrenching novel. Despite the small quibbles I had with it, I was left with a lasting memory of this particular family, of the strength of blood ties and the bonds of loss.