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As a writer, I learn something from every book I read. These are the ten best books I read in 2013. Please check the links to the blog archive for a fuller discussion of each book.

1. Human Chain, by Seamus Heaney

I was saddened to learn of Heaney's death this week at what seems to me now the young age of 74. In his honor I salvaged this 2010 collection of his poetry from the depths of my to-be-read pile. In these poems he brings together and shares tesserae from all of his ages—climbing with Jim Hawkins into the ship's rigging, buying a used copy of the Aeneid, being carried on a stretcher, hearing funeral bells toll. Heaney fashions the final mosaics, examining the questions that absorb us at the end: what is the use of a life, my father's life, my own?

2. Speak, Memory, by Vladimir Nabokov

Rereading this remarkable memoir has been even more delightful than the first time. And more awe-inspiring. From the poetic beauty of his sentences to the intricate structure of the book, Nabokov's consummate writing skills are on display.

3. Twilight of the Superheroes, by Deborah Eisenberg

Stumbling across Eisenberg's short story “Another, Better Otto” resulted in one of the most satisfying reading experiences I've ever had. Immediately I hustled to the library and laid my hands on this collection, which includes that story along with five others, and sat down to savor them. Eisenberg's tales stretch out to give us a complex world with characters who tantalise the reader with their many facets.

4. Prospero's Daughter, by Elizabeth Nunez

As the title declares, this novel retells the story of The Tempest. Set in 1961 on Trinidad and the small island of Chacachacare off its coast, Prospero's Daughter portrays the intersection of a handful of lives as England's empire withdraws. This story is enthralling, keeping me up nights to finish it. Nunez's descriptions are gorgeous. Like its precursor, this is a story about power, the power of knowledge, the power of love, the power of courage, the power of integrity. It brilliantly brings out the relationship of power to class and race buried in Shakespeare's play.

5. Authenticity, by Deirdre Madden

Finding a new favorite author is a lovely bit of serendipity. Set in Dublin, this story revolves around two artists and is about art: the joys and costs of pursuing your gift and the consequences of ignoring it. It is simply a good story well-told, a rare and remarkable accomplishment. This Irish author has published several novels, and I will be trying to get my hands on every one of them.

6. Nothing Gold Can Stay, by Ron Rash

I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of stories set in North Carolina. The various accents of the readers enhanced the verisimilitude of the characters and their environment. What makes these stories so powerful is the way he goes deeply into the characters. While the plots often take surprising turns, you won't find slick tricks here, just good, strong story-telling. The folks who populate them are so thoroughly imagined and so carefully presented that I feel I know each and every one of them.

7. The Crime of Julian Wells, by Thomas H. Cook

Philip Anders, a middle-aged literary critic, is shocked by the death of his best friend, the successful writer Julian Wells, at the home Julian shared with his sister in Montauk on Long Island. Though the two have known each other since childhood, Philip cannot imagine why Julian would commit suicide. To answer that question, Philip begins retracing Julian's footsteps, trying to learn where things went sideways. The writing is masterly; the pacing magnificent. I love an intelligent read like this, one that challenges my preconceptions and delivers a satisfying conclusion.

8. The Cat's Table, by Michael Ondaatje

A young boy—only eleven—is sent alone by ship from Colombo to London where he will join the mother he hasn't seen in four or five years. For his meals he is seated at the Cat's Table, the one farthest away from the Captain's Table and clearly reserved for the least important passengers. This is a story that you can read lightly, chuckling over the boys' adventures and mourning their frayed innocence, or you can pay closer attention. The book is dense, as one person in my book club said, with motifs and themes that all tie together. Ondaatje's books always reward close attention. This one, too, is a masterpiece worth reading and rereading. It is a Boy's Own adventure of knives and dogs and mischief, and at the same time a coming-of-age story. Memories are dismantled and reused; the mysterious motives and knotted hearts of adults are unwound; and the secret scars of childhood laid bare.

9. House of Breath, by William Goyen

Published in 1949, this first novel explores the hold memory has on us, those earliest memories, of childhood's dark cellars and magical woods, of the family that looms like a race of giants. Snippets of memory repeat and repeat, creating our own personal mythology. These are the memories of Boy Ganchion, called up on a dark night in strange city. I had to adjust to reading this memory-packed stream-of-consciousness style, so the first few chapters went slowly. I felt that, like Boy, I was struggling to sort out and make sense of the overwhelming rush of memory. However, a semblance of structure emerged, and the power of the prose grew on me. The last few chapters are simply magnificent, culminating in a celebration of what it means to be alive in the world, carrying our own particular past.

10. Collected Poems, by Hope Mirrlees

Born in 1887, Mirrlees was a poet, novelist, and translator who is best known for her fantasy novel, Lud-in-the-Mist (1926), and an influential modernist poem, “Paris” (1920). “Paris” chronicles a day's trek through that city, starting in the underground, wandering the streets, and finishing up at dawn in her room on the hotel's top floor. Her fragmentary, stream of consciousness style was new to British poetry when Hogarth Press published “Paris”. She acknowledged the influence of Jean Cocteau's poem _Le Cap de Bonne-Espérance”, and her poem became a bridge between French experimental poets and British writers. Her erudite references and use of footnotes are believed to have influenced her close friend, T.S. Eliot, in “The Wasteland” which he began the following year. I recommend this rediscovered masterpiece. Take your time with it.

What were the best books you read in 2013?

Anne Tyler has long been one of my favorite writers. Her stories are set in my neighborhoods and feature their eccentric inhabitants. In my love-hate relationship with Baltimore, the quirkiness of its denizens is definitely a plus. While not glossing over their peculiarities, Tyler always treats her characters with compassion.

This 2012 novel is set in motion when Aaron is visited by his recently deceased wife, who was killed when a tree crashed into their house. He mourns for Dorothy, so traumatized by her loss that he does not expect to return to the house, even once it has been restored. Only 35, Aaron displays the fussy crankiness of an old man. Stolid and reticent, he rejects offers of help, throwing out the many casseroles deposited on his doorstep, though meticulously washing and returning the dishes. This is nothing new to him. Handicapped by a withered right arm and leg, he has spent his life fending off the well-meant assistance of his mother and older sister. Dorothy's serious and independent demeanor broke over him like a refreshing wave, and he does not know how to bear life now without her.

With his sister, he works for the family-owned vanity publishing business. One of their big successes is a series of short books for beginners: The Beginner's Wine Guide, The Beginner's Dinner Party, The Beginner's Colicky Baby. Although his co-workers urge him to take time off, he buries himself in work.

When Dorothy—short, plump and plain—begins to appear, walking beside him, sitting next to him in the mall, even conversing with him, he becomes obsessed with finding the right conditions to make her reappear.

I am reminded of one of my favorite films: Truly, Madly, Deeply. Nina is so tormented by grief at the loss of her husband that he takes pity on her and returns. Her joy is gradually tempered by the day-to-day frustrations of living with someone—he keeps the heat turned way up because he is always freezing and brings his ghost friends over for movie night—until finally she is ready to move on. It is the most wrenching film I've ever seen, capturing both the reckless fun of being in love and the despair of letting go.

Aaron's story is milder, but still deeply felt. I particularly love his tenderness toward his unglamorous wife. “She had a broad, olive-skinned face, appealingly flat-planed, and calm black eyes that were noticeably level, with that perfect symmetry that makes the viewer feel rested . . . She wore owlish, round-lensed glasses that mocked the shape of her face. Her clothes made her figure seem squat—wide, straight trousers and man-tailored shirts, chunky crepe-soles shoes of a type that waitresses favored in diners. Only I noticed the creases as fine as silk threads that encircled her wrists and her neck. Only I knew her dear, pudgy feet, with the nails like tiny seashells.”

It's a delightful story, filled with misunderstandings and kaleidoscopic shifts in relationships. There is much humor, but it is never cruel. And through it all, for me at least, the familiar details of my particular world, as Aaron walks my streets, shops at my grocery, visits my Apple Store. Tyler celebrates the small events in a life, an ordinary life, such as that of the person next door to you.

Is there a novel set in your town that you particularly like?

As the year ends, it seems like a good time to consider what (or whom) we are ready to say goodbye to.

What are you ready to let go of?

This has been a “hinge” year for me and my family, a year of fundamental changes, some the culmination of years-long endeavours, others pure chance. Music remains a constant, especially the intersection of song and story. These are the songs I listened to over and over.

Waltz of the Floating Bridge, Jeremiah McLane
Time Will End, Jeremiah McLane
Claudy Banks, Finest Kind
By The Green Grove, Finest Kind
Cielos Sin Fronteras, Pablo Peregrina
Chapulin, Pablo Peregrina
Una Cicatriz, Pablo Peregrina
Stay Home , Josh Hisle
Whiskey At Home, Josh Hisle
Not Alone, Patty Griffin
Antigua, Jacqueline Schwab
Mendocino Morning, Jacqueline Schwab
Helena, Bare Necessities
Portsmouth, Bare Necessities
Heidenröslein, Bare Necessities
Tan Dun: Desert Capriccio, Yo-Yo Ma: Silk Road Ensemble
Mamiya: Five Finnish Folksongs For Cello & Piano – 3. Miero Vuotti Uutta Kuuta, Yo-Yo Ma: Silk Road Ensemble
Trad: Mido Mountain, Yo-Yo Ma: Silk Road Ensemble
Trad: Mongolian Long Song, Yo-Yo Ma: Silk Road Ensemble
War Requiem, Op. 66: Requiem aeternam, Benjamin Britten
War Requiem, Op. 66: I. What Passing Bells for These Who Die As Cattle?, Benjamin Britten/Wilfred Owen
War Requiem, Op. 66: IX. Lacrimosa dies illa, Benjamin Britten
War Requiem, Op. 66: X. Move Him Into the Sun, Benjamin Britten/Wilfred Owen
War Requiem, Op. 66: XVII. It Seemed That Out of Battle I Escaped, Benjamin Britten/Wilfred Owen
War Requiem, Op. 66: XVIII. Let Us Sleep Now…In Paradisum, Benjamin Britten/Wilfred Owen

What have you been listening to?

This memoir of Bryson's childhood in the 1950s, told with his special brand of gentle humor, turns out to be as much about the culture in the U.S. during that decade as about his personal experience. Much was familiar to me, since we are near-contemporaries, so I most enjoyed the bits that fell outside my experience: delivering newspapers, digging through layers of long underwear to pee, watching a tornado move across the horizon. Life in Des Moines, Iowa turns out to be remarkably like life in the Baltimore neighborhood where I grew up. Like me, Bryson was turned loose most of the day to find his own adventures. Unusually for the time, both his parents worked at the local newspaper, which to him mostly meant that dinners were rushed affairs, food thrust in the oven by his mother as she ran in and left to burn while she tore around trying to do the million and one other household chores.

Of Iowa, he says it “has always been proudly middling in all its affairs. It stands in the middle of the continent, between the two mighty central rivers, the Missouri and Mississippi, and throughout my childhood always ranked bang in the middle of everything—size, population, voting preferences, order of entry into the Union.” As such, it makes an appropriate setting for this tale of middle class life during the decade when the U.S. middle class was at its most prosperous.

My favorite part is where he talks of visiting his grandfather's farm. I loved his description of the church potluck suppers with their endless meatloafs with bizarre toppings and Jell-O molds filled with bizarre ingredients—“marshmallows, pretzels, fruit chunks, Rice Krispies, Fritos corn chip”—which were familiar to me from a memorable pot luck supper in Osawatomie, Kansas in 1965. His grandfather's barn was a terrifying place filled with old machinery and old manure. He says:

Even scarier were the fields of corn that pressed in on all sides. Corn doesn't grow as tall as it used to because it's been hybridized into a more compact perfection, but it shot up like bamboo when I was young, reaching heights of eight feet or more and filling 56, 290 square miles of Iowa countryside with a spooky, threatening rustle by the dryish late end of summer. There is no more anonymous, mazelike, unsettling environment, especially to a dim, smallish human, than a field of infinitely identical rows of tall corn, each—including the diagonals—presenting a prospect of endless vegetative hostility. Just standing on the edge and peering in, you knew that if you ventured more than a few feet into a cornfield you would never come out.

Since much of his humor comes from this kind of exaggeration, I felt some concern that readers not as familiar as I with that decade would think that even the true things were exaggerations. Examples include his description of the amount of radiation given off by the bombs so casually tested near populated areas—in 1958, he tells us, “the average child . . . was carrying ten times more strontium [the chief radioactive product of fallout] than he had only the year before”—and the hysteria about communism that led to so many lives being ruined without any proof at all. It is somewhat comforting to be reminded that even back then, foolish congressmen spouted insane pronouncements displaying their prejudices, such as John Rankin from Mississippi saying, “‘Remember, Communism is Yiddish. I understand that every member of the Politburo around Stalin is either Yiddish or married to one, and that includes Stalin himself.'”

In some cases, Bryson thoughtfully includes photographs, such as one of the many ads showing a woman at work, perfectly dressed from the waist down, but above that wearing only a bra, with the caption: “I dreamed I went to work in my maidenform bra.” Without such proof, one would be justified in believing such ads couldn't possibly have been published in all kinds of magazines, so must be an exaggeration.

Such misogynism is only one example of how the 1950s were not the perfection today's ranting politicians would like us to believe and bemoan the loss of. Occasionally he refers to the prejudices whose blatant expression was considered acceptable in those days, but this is Bryson's story of one aspect of 1950s culture, the one he experienced. It is a story of growing up white and well-to-do in the middle of a prosperous U.S. that was filled with optimism about the future despite fears of communism and atomic war. I enjoyed the book and am glad to add his experience to the multiple other facets that make up the prism of this decade.

What books about the 1950s have you read?

I've heard a lot about what a great writer Mary Gaitskill is. Looking through the descriptions of her books, though, they seemed to be about subjects that didn't interest me: obsession, addiction, porn, and what sounded like self-conscious flirting with sexual kinks. I pictured a smiling two-year-old sneaking looks at you out of the corner of her eye as she reaches for the glass bowl she's been told not to touch.

What I found is something quite different. If the mark of a great writer is her ability to immerse you in her world and the life of her characters, Gaitskill is a great writer. Even more so given the flimsy material she chose to work with in this novel.

We first meet Alison when she is, by her own account, old and sick, her beauty gone. She's in her forties, which tells you a lot about her right there. She reflects on her life, running away from home at 15, eventually becoming a model. However, since she is shallow and undisciplined, we cannot expect a deep and disciplined narrative. It jumps around in time, held together by a tenuous web of associations. Supremely self-centered, we cannot expect Alison to understand, much less help us comprehend, the other people in her life, including Veronica, the odd friend she makes while working as an office temp before going back to modeling.

If this sounds like a book you don't want to read, think again. Alison is curiously innocent, like a Parzival set adrift in the whirling, wicked world of 1980s New York and Paris. Despite her self-centeredness, she has no sense of who she is; there is an empty space at her center which she fills with the reflections of herself in others' eyes. She runs away from home because that is what teens do in the tv movies that scare her parents. The only thing she seems to know about herself is that she is beautiful, and she knows that not because she admires herself, but because everyone tells her so (though two modeling agents say that her breasts are “not good”). She takes up with an agent in Paris, not because she loves him but because he expects her to.

That lack of self-knowledge is why she is drawn to Veronica, a much older, ugly and flamboyant copy-editor. Obnoxious and rude, Veronica speaks her mind. She says, “‘Prettiness is all about pleasing other people . . . I don't have to do that anymore. It's my show now.' She said these words as if she were a movie star.”

One of Gaitskill's techniques that I loved is the way Alison describes some key moments in terms of ten pictures. Of the conversation quoted above, she says, “Imagine ten pictures of this conversation. In nine of them she's the fool, and I'm the person who has something. But in the tenth I'm the fool, and it's her show now. For just a second, that's the picture I saw.” It's an extraordinary way to show both how much it takes to pierce Alison's insensitivity and how she changes her view of herself based on what other people see.

Alison is proud of herself for befriending this woman who is old and ugly and, eventually, ill. Veronica contracts AIDS from her beloved bisexual on-again/off-again boyfriend, Duncan, who can't be bothered with protection even when he knows he is sick. We are enveloped in the frantic hedonism of the early days of the AIDS epidemic, when so much was rumored and so little understood, when it seemed as though there would be no tomorrow, no need to save any of yourself for a mythical old age.

Although we never really get to know Veronica, since we see her only through Alison's narcissistic eyes, we see her effect on Alison, who comes to regret bragging to others about the peculiar old woman she has befriended.

The writing is indeed excellent. Other reviewers have talked about her word choice and word-pairing, how her sentences seem to hold you off while hinting at their secrets. I liked the interplay of “old” Alison's story with her “wicked” youth. I liked the motifs that, like knots in a net, keep the whole flimsy tale from dissipating into air. This story will stay with me for a long time.

What books have you liked in spite of yourself?

If you've followed this blog, you know that I read a lot of books each year. I also subscribe to the London Review of Books, read other reviews online, and am a member of “Goodreads”: www.goodreads.com/author/show/1453712.B_Morrison. When my son moved to Canada, he introduced me to a slew of wonderful authors who were unknown here in the U.S., several of whom I now count among my top ten favorite authors. Since then, I've made an effort to learn about books by writers from a variety of countries, nearly always in translation unfortunately, but still widening my experience. I've also attended Toronto's International Festival of Authors several times.

All this is to say that I've at least heard of a lot of authors. Still, my friend whom we'll call DAP managed to stump me when he said that his favorite author was Vardis Fisher. That's not a name easily forgotten! I'd never heard of him. So of course I consulted my wonderful local library and selected this book.

Mountain Man is Fisher's most famous book. It's the basis for the film, Jeremiah Johnson starring Robert Redford, a film I've never seen (my film knowledge is much more limited than my knowledge of books!).

Named Samson for his huge size, Sam Minard left his family back in New York state for a brief trip to see the still-unsettled west and fell in love with the mountains and the independent life he found there. Strong and self-reliant, he knows where in the wilderness he's likely to find his friends, the other mountain men who sell furs to purchase the few necessaries, like coffee and tobacco, that they cannot provide for themselves.

Reveling in his freedom and the beauty of his world, Sam responds with the music he learned from his father: “He had learned that playing Bach and Mozart arias [on his mouth organ] when in enemy country was not only good for his loneliness; the music filled skulking Indians with awe.” Many of the descriptions throughout the book use musical terms, as he hears symphonies in the stars and opera in the storms.

Sam is about to add two commitments to his currently loose ties with the other mountain men, one accidentally and one on purpose. He comes across a woman, Kate Bowden, who in a blinding rage has just killed the four Blackfeet who killed her three children. Her husband has been carried off by the rest of the band, and now she has dropped to her knees beside her children and lost all sense of anything outside of them.

Sam buries the children and builds her a little house, though she still seems completely unaware of him and the food he puts in front of her. He has to move on, but spreads the word among his friends and they look in on her when they are near.

He has to get on because he is ready for a wife and knows who he wants, the daughter of a Crow chief. This part of the story alone is worth reading the book for, the negotiations with her father, the way he and the young woman get to know each other without a common language, the way he reacts to this tumultuous change in his life.

I loved this book. The characters fascinated me, especially Kate and the trajectory of her life, but also Sam. The descriptions of a west that no longer exists enthralled me. And I loved all the stories about the other mountain men that they told each other, many of them lies or exaggerations, but true for all that. At one point he imagines what the others are up to at that moment: “in what deep impenetrable thicket tall skinny Bill Williams had hidden from the red warriors, his high squeaky voice silenced for the night; by what fire with its cedar and coffee aroma Wind River Bill was spinning his yarns and saying, ‘I love the wimmins, I shorely do'; in what Spanish village short blond Kit Carson was dancing the soup dance with black-eyed senoritas; what tall tales Jim Bridger was telling to bug-eyed greenhorns from a wagon train that stopped this day at his post to get horses shod and tires set . . .” Scattered throughout Sam's story are these tales of men who relished the independence of life in the mountains.

I'm grateful to my friend, DAP, for recommending this author. What books have your friends recommended that you've liked?

Gardam has been one of my favorite authors since I was introduced to her via “Old Filth”: , recommended by the ever-reliable folks at my local indie bookstore, The Ivy. Her stories remind me a bit of Barbara Pym's because they are about the charming and extraordinary lives of ordinary people. In the memoir workshops I lead, I always say that everyone has a story to share. The most humdrum life has trials and triumphs and moments of grace. Often, reading obituaries of people I never met, I think Wow! I wish I'd known that person.

Even more than Pym, though, Gardam's work reminds me of Ann Tyler's. Tyler is famous for her eccentric characters, portrayed with understanding and compassion. Having grown up in the neighborhood where Tyler often places her characters, I can attest to their accuracy. So perhaps we are all eccentrics and oddballs; some people just hide it better.

In this story, six-year-old Polly Flint is left by her father at a remote yellow house near the Irish sea. After he hands her over to her two aunts, her late mother's sisters, he takes himself off to his ship. Two months later he went down with his ship.

I expected a Jane Eyre sort of story, but Gardam is never predictable. Polly's aunts, pious spinsters, assume from the first that she will be with them always, not as a duty to be undertaken, but as a member of the family. “Never in all the years did they suggest that they had been good to me or that there was the least need for my gratitude, or that I had in any way disturbed their lives.”

For Polly, who has lived in foster homes since her mother's death when Polly was one, she might as well be stranded on a desert island, so isolated from the world does she feel, growing up in the old wooden house. When she stumbles upon Robinson Crusoe in the library, she recognises her soul-mate and life's guide.

And what a life it is! At every turn, when I think I know what is coming next, Gardam outwits me, spinning her tale in another direction. We follow Polly as she grows up, as the twentieth century's wars and evolutions change her enclosed world.

I loved the characters, so unusual and yet so real I felt I must know them. I loved the descriptions: “It was the light at first that was troublesome—the light and the space of the yellow hose. Light flowed in from all sides and down from the enormous sky . . . Here the wind knocked the clouds about over the hills and the marsh and the dunes and the sea, until the house seemed to toss like a ship. I remember that I clutched on to things a good deal.”

Gardam deals efficiently with the challenge of adjusting Polly's first-person voice as she ages. Polly's relationship to the book changes too as she grows, but she never ceases to turn to it for guidance. She never ceases to admire Crusoe as a man and what he accomplished. Some members of my book club felt the references to Crusoe were overdone, but I thought they came at just the right intervals.

This is a lovely read, funny at times and sad at others. I was enchanted by the people Polly meets and what she makes of them. Her life, however ordinary-seeming, is rocked by strong tides and shaken by a family's small rivalries and secrets. I highly recommend it. If you've read any of Gardam's books, what did you think of them?

Going to a performance of Britten's War Requiem by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra seemed an appropriate way to end a week that began with Remembrance Day. Britten wrote it to commemorate the rebuilding of Coventry Cathedral, destroyed in 1940 in the devastating bombing raid that killed so many. Coventry and Dresden have always stood as bookends for me of the horrors of the then-new tactic of aerial bombardment.

I want to write about the War Requiem this week instead of a book because music, too, tells a story. That's why I publish my playlist each year. We have more than music here, though. The libretto alternates the words of the requiem mass with poems by Wilfred Owen, the WWI poet who, along with Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves and others, dropped the heroic classical references in order to write poems that honestly and directly portrayed life in the trenches and under fire.

Owen's work is a personal favorite; reading his poems sent me on a two-decades-long tramp through the literature of the Great War: poetry, history, letters, memoirs, novels, even a magnificent book by Rose E. B. Coombs, Before Endeavours Fade, that gives directions for finding the old WWI battlefields under present-day towns and farms. The world, the western world anyway, changed forever in August, 1914.

I'm a writer not a musician, but in Britten's magnificent achievement I see the same elements of structure that we look for in novels and other stories: an initiating incident, scenes that vary in intensity but ultimately build to a climax, and a resolution in which the protagonist—and we, ourselves—are changed.

In each scene we want to see the same progression in miniature. In Britten's piece, too, we see each movement varying in emotion, reaching a climax and resolution. The first movement, Requiem Aeternam, starts with the sound of the bells, a motif that will return throughout. Starting gently, with the chorus singing the mournful words “Lord, grant them eternal rest”, the tension builds with drums. Then it quiets again for to a children's choir (backed by an organ) singing of praise and homage, before the chorus returns. Next the orchestra and chorus fall away and the tenor and chamber ensemble take up the racing, angry music and words of Owen's “Anthem for Doomed Youth”: “What passing bells for these who die as cattle? / Only the monstrous anger of the guns.” The poem too follows the same story progression, moving from anger to reflection, and finally to a sad and tender ending “And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.” The bells signal the return of the chorus with the gentle, haunting Kyrie: “Lord, have mercy upon them.”

From there we move into the Dies Irae movement, the day of wrath, with Britten's score bringing to life the bugles, the shattering rifle fire. Its sections move through majesty, vengeance, and supplication, ending with the stunning Lacrimosa section. The soprano singing “On this day full of tears” alternates with tenor's impassioned delivery of Owen's poem “Futility”, which starts: “Move him gently into the sun”, before ending with the chorus singing the Pie Jesu: “Gentle Lord Jesus, grant them rest.”

I won't go through the whole thing, but just say that each movement weaves together these elements: the chorus, orchestra and soprano delivering the traditional requiem mass in all its glory and mystery; the tenor and baritone backed by the chamber ensemble giving us Owen's words as though he and the other grey boys stood there telling us how it really was; and perhaps most heart-breaking of all, the children's choir with their open faces, reminding us that the soldiers once were beloved babies and, at the same time, that these children will in their turn become soldiers in future wars: “Was it for this,” Owen cries, “the clay grew tall?”

I'm sure there are subtleties to the music that I'm missing. I mentioned the motif of the bells. I love the use of motifs and symbols in stories. Paul Scott is a master at their use, not just in his masterpiece, The Jewel in the Crown, but in all his novels. Another motif that Britten uses here is the tritone that the bells sound, that recurs in various ways throughout the work. A tritone is an interval between two notes: three whole tones apart; the bells here are C and F#. It is a dissonant sound, not enough to set my teeth on edge but enough to make me uneasy. The tritone was known in the Renaissance as “the devil in music”—also the name of a terrific mystery by the late Kate Ross—adding symbolic resonance.

There is a progression in Britten's selection of poems from more general to more personal, ending with “Strange Meeting”, where Owen speaks of escaping battle down a tunnel, where he encounters a man who rises from the sleepers there, a man who talks of the “undone years” and “The pity of war”. He says, “I am the enemy you killed, my friend.” The poem ends with the haunting line “Let us sleep now.”

The tenor and baritone repeat this line over and over, in a canon with the children, the chorus, and the soprano singing the In Paradisum: “Into Paradise may the Angles lead thee” and a reprise of the Requiem Aeternam, immensely gentle and tender, powerful in its silences. Then finally the chorus's hushed Requiescant in Pace: “Let them rest in peace. Amen.”

Dressed in buckskins, 19-year-old Ryan Long Pine sends his canoe into Canada's busy Kingston harbor. It is 1837 and he stands out: “Not yet an anachronism, he was a curiosity”. Alone in the world except for the raven who accompanies him, Ryan is not looking for adventure; he is looking for a job. Armed with good carpentry skills learned from his father and trapping skills learned from a stint with a family of Algonquins, he can fend for himself. His work ethic quickly endears him to the shipbuilder where he first applies.

Full of adventure, this story covers the period of the Patriot War, in which rebels attacked Canada eleven times, attempting to liberate it from British rule. The Patriots were a grass-roots organization of Canadians who had run afoul of the British and sympathetic Americans who wanted to extend their republican ideals to their neighbors.

Although he suffered injustice in his native Ireland and on arriving in Canada, Ryan has buried his resentment. His only goal is the quite ordinary one of wanting to find work and make a life for himself. As an Irishman, he refuses to fight for or take orders from the British who still run the colony, but he's not a fire-breathing revolutionary either. He just wants to be left alone. That's all he asks for.

McLaughlin's prose is smart and competent. Backstory is parceled out neatly, and there is a good mix of narrative and scenes. Dialect is used sparingly, with just enough to give the flavor of speech without being overdone.

One thing that would enhance this story is a little more complexity to the characters. Ryan is all good. He doesn't drink or smoke. He's honest and hard-working, trustworthy, loyal, brave, clean and reverent, as the oath goes. On the other hand, the bully he encounters is all bad: dishonest, mean, and vengeful. And ugly to boot: “an unkempt and overweight hunter. . . his jowls shook as his teeth mangled a plug of tobacco. . . his narrow eyes pits of hatred”. Vivid writing, to be sure, but some character shading would make the story more interesting.

This is a good example of a plot-driven story, as opposed to a character-driven story. And it's a terrific plot. Ryan falls in with Bill Johnston, the famous smuggler and river pirate in the Thousand Islands and begins helping with his smuggling operations. Johnston, like many other characters, are actual historical persons; McLaughlin's research is impressive. Ryan also gets involved with the Patriots and participates in some of their daring operations.

It's an exciting tale, tempered by scenes of celebration and solitude. Ryan falls in love with Johnston's daughter, Kate, and is torn between the undertakings of war and the joys of domesticity. Unfortunately, the ending rather trickled away without the expected climax, historically accurate but a bit disappointing. Still, I liked the way it echoed the beginning.

I knew nothing of the Patriot War before reading this novel and am grateful for the opportunity to expand my understanding of U.S./Canada relations. What historical novels have you enjoyed?

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a digital copy of this book free from the author. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Michalski's novel, winner of Best Fiction from Baltimore's City Paper, is the story of Stanley Polensky and Calvin Johnson, thrown together in the trenches of WWII, their forced intimacy creating an unlikely friendship between the shy Polish boy from Baltimore and the tough Midwestern farmboy. It is also the story of a girl named Ela Zdunk, who lives with her mother outside the small mountain village of Reszel in Poland in 1806. Ela helps her mother find flowers and roots to use in the tinctures and medicines that Barbara sells or trades to the villagers. They, of course, believe she is a witch; they fear her and propitiate her with gifts of food, enabling Barbara and Ela to scrape out a life of sorts. Until the Prussian soldiers come.

At first the stories of Ela, Stanley and Johnson seem to have nothing in common beyond the existence of an herb discovered by Barbara and given to Stanley by his mother as he departs for war. The herb conveys eternal life.

Not long ago, I read with great interest Julian Barnes's, Nothing to be Frightened of, an honest examination of his fear of death, lightened by his wit and learning. Similarly, Nabokov's Speak, Memory is concerned with trying to escape death. He says, almost like an incantation, like a prayer: “Everything is as it should be, nothing will ever change, nobody will ever die.”

But what if we do not die? Michalski examines this idea through the interleaved stories of her three main characters: Ela, Stanley and Johnson. Eternal life is a mixed blessing when those around us, those we love, continue to age and pass on. This device, the only fantastical element in a thoroughly realistic novel, underlines the loneliness that is a part of the human condition. Our connections to each other are tenuous at best, but stretched to the breaking point when these characters whom we come to care about try to find the kind of loving relationship where they can feel at home.

Normally I dislike novels that jump around between characters and time periods, but I felt safe in Michalski's hands. She limits each section to one character and time period and provides enough detail to ground the reader instantly at the start of each section. Also, each character's story is told chronologically, which is a comfortingly familiar structure. The remaining slight unease from the dislocation of time and place between sections reinforces the ideas explored in the story.

One factor that usually suffers when moving between a number of separate stories is pacing. It is hard enough in a single narrative to maintain a pace that steadily builds while also having enough variation to hold the reader's interest. How much harder, then, to distribute the pace across three stories. However, Michalski succeeds brilliantly to the point where I had to put aside other responsibilities to race to the end.

Michalski, who has also published several collections of short stories, delivers her tale in prose that seems almost transparent. It is a good mix of natural dialogue, effective description, and brief narrative. Reading it seems as effortless as breathing. The occasional subtle references to other books and stories reward those who recognise them without tripping up those who don't.

The book defies categorization. It's not purely realistic but neither is it science fiction. Perhaps all you need to know is that it is a good read and will—if you allow it—provoke thoughtful and intense conversations with yourself and others about the use we make of our lives and how we touch and care for others. I hope that Julian Barnes reads it because I am sure he will find comfort here.