Unless - Carol Shields

This is my second book for The 2nd Canadian Book Challenge, Eh?

Carol Shields' final novel, Unless is about a 44-year-old writer and translator, Reta Winters, whose oldest daughter suddenly and inexplicably drops out of college and life in general to panhandle on a street corner in Toronto with a cardboard sign around her neck that reads "Goodness".

As Reta tries to carry on as normally as possible during this crisis, (taking care of her family, writing a second novel, and helping her mentor, a famous French writer who seems to be a cross between Simone de Beauvoir and Germaine Greer translate her memoirs) she is constantly trying to figure out what brought Norah to this point. Norah's father thinks it was one traumatic event. Reta is more of the "last straw" school of thought. What happened?

Unless reminds me a lot of a novel I read earlier this year, How To Be Good. It would be interesting to read and compare these two novels side-by-side. Nick Hornby's novel bristles with wit and intelligence, as his characters grapple with how far you can take "goodness" in your everyday life and still live reasonably.

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The subject of goodness has a more serious tone than in Hornby's novel, but there's also humor in Shield's novel of a wryer sort, especially when her beloved editor dies and she has to deal with his replacement. The new editor betrays himself as a complete ass as he attempts to steamroll Reta with his own ideas about fiction writing and turn her into merely a mouthpiece. (A male author would have decked him, and I was rooting for Reta to do just that.) He's both absurd and pathetic because Reta has been giving an elegant and thoughtful commentary about the nature and craft of writing throughout the novel.

Unless was a satisfying read on many different levels. I highly recommend it, and I'm looking forward to reading two other Shields books that I've chosen for this challenge, Dressing Up For The Carnival and Larry's Party.