This multi-generational story about women in Newfoundland was a joy to read.
The setting
The story is set in Rabbittown, St. John’s, and is told through the eyes of the three central Holloway women; Ellen, Audrey and Rachel.
In 1936, when Ellen’s family was still young, she opened up a corner grocery store below the living space of the house she bought with her husband, Wes. Over the years, this store becomes as much a part of the story as the characters. We meet all the neighbours as they come in to do their shopping, and we get to listen in on the neighbourhood gossip they bring with them. Everyone knows everyone, for better or for worse.
She learned more about her neighbours in those first days of shopkeeping than she had in six months of living on the street. She learned that Myrtle Hiscock was frustrated with her sickly husband and would give anything to go back out home to Spaniard’s Bay where she came from, but there was nothing to do there but fish and her husband was too weak to go out in boat ever again. She learned that the police had been called in to break up yet another fight between the two men who owned land down on Liverpool Avenue, and that one man had beaten the other with his own wooden leg in an argument over the property line. She learned that Mrs. Hynes was worried sick that her oldest daughter was only being led along by that young Ivany fellow, that he would get her in trouble and leave her. She learned that Mrs. Kelly’s daughter really did get in trouble, with Leo Nolan, but they were getting married and nobody was asking questions.
We witness the changes over the years to the shop and the purpose it serves to the community. It goes from a fully stocked grocery store to more of a convenience store for snacks and cigarettes. (It’s easy to forget how much people used to smoke until you read about it!)
The various family members take their turn working in the shop; the young ones take their shifts after school and on weekends. They grow up and move on, and others take their place.
As the years go by and we see the changes in the shop, we also see changes in the neighbourhood and in St. John’s. Young people going away to work more and more, the fisheries running dry, girls attending university rather than getting married right out of high school, no longer expected to marry “their own kind”.
Music
Music plays a big part in the lives of the Holloways, starting with Wes who liked to play hymns and folk songs on his accordion in the living room on Sunday afternoons. References to music over the years include Hank Williams Sr., Ron Hynes, Great Big Sea, and Blue Rodeo. Some of the Holloways enjoy their music in the privacy of their living room, while others prefer to listen to it or play it in the park and at the bars, with varying degrees of success.
The war years
When the American soldiers are stationed in St. John’s during the war, Ellen’s daughter Audrey is at just the right age to be interested.
It wasn’t just the crisp uniforms: the Americans had bigger, shinier teeth, and the sugary drawl of their accents made the Newfoundland boys’ voices sound like the yip of angry crackie dogs nipping at the soldiers’ heels.
And when one of the young men proposes to her, she takes it as her chance to get out of boring Newfoundland and go to the United States. Unfortunately, things don’t work out the way she imagined. The US was not as exciting as she had hoped, Harry not as wonderful, and the weather much too hot for her – the heat and the smell of everyone made her want to write to her sister that it was “like living up in the crack of someone’s arse“. And that is how she ends up back home. She brings her son Henry with her, and as she helps out in the shop, Ellen helps out with Henry.
Her anchor then was the thought of home, this house and this store and this street, here waiting for her at the end of her train ticket. Steadfast and sure, all right. ‘Fastened to the Rock’ which cannot move.
The structure
The book is divided up into chunks of time, starting in 1936 and ending in the mid-nineties. Each chapter within these sections is narrated by one of the three women. Each section is separated by a “musical interlude”, usually narrated by either Wes or Henry Holloway, allowing us a small glimpse into the minds of the men.
The Characters
The women of the family are the focus of the novel, but the men’s voices are just as strong. And the background characters – cousins, siblings, nieces and nephews, friends and neighbours – also make up an important part of the story, emphasizing the vast network of family and support spreading out from the roots – the women who live above the shop in Rabbittown, St. John’s.
Packed with goodness, and an exquisite last paragraph, this is a story about life. There are births and deaths, joys and sorrows, a cast including both young and old, kind and crusty, characters who embrace change and ones who are resistant to it. Through it all there is family, and what it means to be a part of it.
Further reading:
Trudy Morgan-Cole grew up, and still lives, in Rabbittown, St. John’s.
Interview with Trudy Morgan-Cole at Atlantic Books Today: “In a lot of my writing, I feel like I’m trying to hear and to re-create for the reader, the voices of characters—largely, though not exclusively, women characters—who didn’t make it into the headlines of history. Theirs are the kinds of stories that fascinate me.”
Review at The Miramichi Reader: “It is the creative editing and layout of the storytelling that makes this novel stand out. While it mainly sticks to a chronological format, it does, by means of the Interludes, give foregleams of the years to come.” “Most Anything You Please is one of those novels you cannot say enough good things about.”
Thank you to Breakwater Books for sending me a copy of this book!
Consumed by Ink 
This presses so many buttons for me: Newfoundland, multi-generational, family store, community gossip . . .
I don’t think I’ve read anything by Morgan-Cole although the library seems to have several of her titles. THIS goes on my list now, and perhaps more in the future. Thanks for steering me toward her!
It hit so many of my buttons, too. I’ve been meaning to read one of her books for a long time, so I was very happy to be sent this one in the mail. Sometimes an extra little nudge is all one needs. 🙂
As I was reading this, I was thinking how much you like this book. 😉
Oh, good. I’m glad it shows through! I actually found this review very hard to write – at first I was saying too much, and then I couldn’t get it to flow. It’s still pretty disjointed, but I figured it was better to say something than nothing. 🙂
This sounds wonderful. The quotes you’ve pulled out are enough for me to put it on my list alone but I’m also a sucker for multi-generational stories.
It really is wonderful. If I had to use a metaphor to describe it, it would be like a warm bath infused with peppermint oil for a little zing!
Appetite even more whetted…
Sounds like a fun read: realistic, interesting characters. I’m in.
Great!
This sounds like a perfect feelgood read. Definitely need to find this one 🙂
You won’t be disappointed!
*chuckle* The nostalgia we feel for the old days of the corner shop is tinged by the reminder about the gossip that went on there too!
Haha! True! Although, it still might be better than the on-line variety of gossip. 😉
Oh I can see why you enjoyed this book, it must have that special ‘maritime/small town’ feel where so much revolves around who leaves, who comes back, etc.ps- I’ve always wanted a store like that close to me!
I remember the corner store where I grew up was a busy place – always people going in and out. And it was nice for us kids to have a place like that we could walk to with our friends to buy chips or giant freezies. 🙂
Sounds charming.
I need to write up my thoughts on this one too Naomi. It was such a good book!! That ending was perfection and you’ve captured so much of what I loved about it too. Really happy to have been able to read this one!
Loved the ending! I found it hard to say everything I wanted to say without writing a book. I’ll be watching for yours!
Have you read any of her others?
No! I had no idea there were so many to choose from either! Have you?
I haven’t. But I’ve wanted to since her last book came out. I’m so glad I finally read one!
This sounds like a great book… i love the multi-generational books with strong women and am adding this to my wish list!
One of the things I like so much about this book is its ordinariness. But not ordinary to us, because it’s someone else. If that makes any sense… 🙂
I love the premise of this – setting it in a shop is a great idea. It sounds wonderful!
It kind of made me want to open a shop… even one with groceries instead of books. 🙂
I wonder to which city the woman moved that made it feel like she was living up the crack of someone’s ass. I have guesses!
Southridge (South Ridge?), Louisiana. It could be fictional, but it was definitely rural. 🙂
My first guess was Brooklyn. My next guess was Detroit. HOT summers in Detroit, but no air.
Melanie: you often ask JUST the question that my own brain was muttering! 🙂
Huzzah! Brain twins activate!
This sounds completely charming, but then there’s that peppermint analogy. So maybe not completely charming. I do love the idea of a shop as a central location. I loved the scenes in LMM’s books which alluded to the general store (and the mercantile took a much more prominent role in the Kevin Sullivan film) and I loved it in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books too (although the stories themselves are obviously all about the settler experience because the Ingalls family was a settler family).
I loved when Laura got to go to town with Pa, or when the whole family went in together. Did they get peppermint sticks when they went to town, or am I thinking of something else?
I can’t remember if they get the sticks when they go into town together or loose bits of candy (which, sometimes, also, Pa brought home for them in a small bag too). In Little House in the Big Woods, they do get red-and-white striped peppermint sticks for Christmas in their socks though. And in Farmer Boy Almanzo gets a nickel’s worth of horehound candy sticks (but his family was from someplace else initially, I think, so not the same store). Clearly the candy was WAY too important to you and to me too. Notice how we are not concerned with how they learned to break a colt or make bullets.
And the vanity cakes!!
This sounds lovely! I must have been on a blogging break when you posted the review, I think, so I’m glad you highlighted it in your “best of”. I love the writing in the quotes.
It was a beautiful read all the way through!