Author: Joanna Goodman

I follow a group on Facebook called Literary Hoarders. When this book was promoted I checked at our library and, although it was out at the moment, it was in their collection. I picked it up just a few days ago and I couldn’t put it down.

Maggie and Gabriel live next to each other in rural Quebec and begin meeting in the cornfields that border their properties. Maggie’s father is a staunch Englishman while Gabriel’s family are French. Although married to a Frenchwoman himself, Maggie’s father forbids her from seeing Gabriel. Maggie is sent to live on a distant farm where she finds herself pregnant. Maggie is uncertain whether her baby is Gabriel’s or the result of her rape by her uncle. Maggie cuts off all contact with Gabriel. When the baby is born Maggie’s father makes arrangements for it to be taken away and Maggie only catches a glimpse of her daughter. The book follows the lives of Maggie and her daughter, Elodie (“Melody without the M”).

It is a fact that during the 1950’s in Quebec unwanted and unadopted children were placed in orphanages run by the Church. Under Duplessis reign in Quebec he initiated a scheme to turn all orphanages into mental institutions thereby acquiring more Federal funding for the province.

Elodie has never been adopted and is eventually diagnosed as mentally retarded; her life in the orphanage was not good, but life in a mental hospital was almost unbearable. Although it isn’t an easy path, Maggie, Gabriel and Elodie eventually are able to connect.

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