Review Summaries

• Readers often praise the epistolary structure and the emotional movement within the sisters' relationship. The density created by period detail and small-town atmosphere is also widely seen as part of the book's appeal.

Reviews

• Clara Callan (Kindle)

  Could not put this down but easy to pick up since it's written in epistolary form ... I shall definitely buy the paperback for my bookshelves and another read.

• Where Chestnut and Church Streets intersect. LOVED this book!

  I haven't read a bad Richard B. Wright book yet. They are all EXCELLENT. And CLARA CALLAN is no exception. Easy to see why it won both the Giller Prize and the Governor General's Award in Canada. I was reminded of old classic potboilers I had read forty and fifty years ago - books like MILDRED PIERCE or SO BIG. By this I mean this is simply old-fashioned storytelling, and in the most literary sense. Clara Callan's story is told in the form of letters and her personal journal, and spans the years 1934-38, with an important Afterword tacked on. The title character is a woman who will linger in my imagination for a long time. Clara is a thirty-ish small town school teacher in Ontario in the mid-1930s, on her way to spinsterhood, when a series of unexpected events occur which irrevocably change her humdrum life. I hate to say anything more than this, because it would be so easy to spoil this finely crafted tale. And there is her younger sister, Nora, who goes off to New York City where she becomes a star on a radio soap opera, "The House on Chestnut Street." Meanwhile, against this backdrop, Clara's life on Church Street, back in tiny Whitfield, begins to reflect those of the soap opera folks. I mean, somehow, Wright has managed to craft an utterly human drama that is ... well, it's like a soap opera, and absolutely, grippingly believable, and is simply, as so many blurbs and trailers often say, "compelling human drama." The years between the wars come alive in these pages. I've already mentioned the MILDRED PIERCE comparison, and, in fact, Clara is, at one point, fascinated by James M. Cain's even more famous book, THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE. As a school teacher, Clara is a reader, and one who appreciates classical music (she plays the piano too) and fine literature, but she is not above indulging her curiosity in pulp magazines like True Detective. Hence, perhaps her interest in Cain. She also knows poetry, Shakespeare, and other writers of the era. Taylor Caldwell is mentioned peripherally, as a 'new writer' (her first novel, DYNASTY OF DEATH, was a sensation in 1938). I know I have not done justice to CLARA CALLAN, mostly because I don't wish to give anything away that might spoil the story. But trust me, this is just a wonderful, eminently readable novel. A rare treat for book lovers like me. I loved it. - Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER

• near perfect

  wonderful writing; small town Ontario of the 1930's perfectly captured in fictional letters of 2 sisters.

• It was recommended as a book club selection and I did not ...

  Book was well written and interesting information about the 1930's. It was recommended as a book club selection and I did not think I would enjoy the letter format (had read another similar book and did not enjoy reading it) - I did enjoy this one. Other books I recently ordered are again for book club selections and will be read over the next number of months. Always enjoy Andre Rieu music.

• I enjoyed Clara Callan very much

  Yes, I enjoyed Clara Callan very much. In the beginning my feeling was that Richard Wright was being presumptuous taking on speaking through the voices of women but soon realized he could make it work and I just continued to read with pleasure. Marjorie Smeaton

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