Tip of the Iceberg

Rating:
Summary: Nicely Done
Review: I thought this was just beautifully done. The father, both of the parents, are so well-drawn in it. And the alternation of northern lore with the author's personal story works perfectly: O'Connor's voice is so specific and true, you stay with him as he swings between eskimo legends, a natural history of the northern parts of the continent, and a wildly funny drunken bar room contretemps, easily finding meaningful connections between it all. The main story is wrenching with a beautiful payoff. Read this book!

Rating:
Summary: Two Paths in the North
Review: I work with the author. So much for full disclosure. And I had been told by another colleague before I read it that his book was wonderful. I wasn't prepared, though, to be overwhelmed, and I was: by the richness of its style, the honesty of its emotion, the entertainment of its anecdote, the relief of its humor amid pain and personal discovery. O'Connor travels two paths in search of answers about the emotional chill in his childhood home in Canada and the strange allure of cold climes. This yields on one side beautifully drawn pictures of smalltown life in which O'Connor's growing self-awareness and his tracking of family history coalesce. On the other, its offers perfectly rendered vignettes and lore about famous explorers, plain life and survival in the frigid north. Sometimes the juxtaposition seems impossibly apt, yet never forced. Along each trail run themes in varying proportions of love and hurt, sacrifice and estrangement, distance and intimacy, ambition and constraint. Through it all runs a classically balanced voice, blunt and eloquent and wry in confronting simple or hard truths. There is finally and happily about the book a physical irony in which I regretted its ending so soon but relished the knowledge that I could always find time to return time and again to a book as modest in size as it is grand in reward.

Rating:
Summary: Perfect for Father's Day!
Review: In its social contours, its family drama, and its rare, sweet honesty, this book makes an enveloping read for anyone, woman or man. But in its insistent unfolding of a son's search to understand his father, it speaks to men and their lives in an unusually heartful way.

Rating:
Summary: Two Paths in the North
Review: O'Connor's beautiful language is as smooth as ice, as clean as fresh snow. This is a haunting, mysterious story of family secrets, which the author tells partly through direct memoir narrative and partly through metaphorical history and legend of the far north. I found the scenes of O'Connor's boyhood to be particularly well drawn: the ways in which he conjures child logic and perception are magical. Touching, strange, cathartic.

Rating:
Summary: Son looks to the north
Review: O'Connor's beautiful language is as smooth as ice, as clean as fresh snow. This is a haunting, mysterious story of family secrets, which the author tells partly through direct memoir narrative and partly through metaphorical history and legend of the far north. I found the scenes of O'Connor's boyhood to be particularly well drawn: the ways in which he conjures child logic and perception are magical. Touching, strange, cathartic.

Rating:
Summary: A Beautiful Memoir
Review: What a beautiful memoir! The setting, a small town in central Canada, was almost exotic to me. The writing is poem-like, clean and meditative. With his gentle voice, Mr. O'Connor takes you to the world of the sensitive boy whose longing and wonder towards his mysterious father is so vividly felt. The beautiful images in the book will remain with me for a long time. I highly recommend this special work.

Rating:
Summary: A Beautiful Memoir
Review: What a beautiful memoir! The setting, a small town in central Canada, was almost exotic to me. The writing is poem-like, clean and meditative. With his gentle voice, Mr. O'Connor takes you to the world of the sensitive boy whose longing and wonder towards his mysterious father is so vividly felt. The beautiful images in the book will remain with me for a long time. I highly recommend this special work.