Lily’s Story
Don Gutteridge’s big, atmospheric novel Lily’s Story begins in rural Lambton County, Ontario in 1840. It follows the title character, Lily, through the whole of her life, beginning in unsettled years on the open frontier, the hardships and simple joys of frontier living. Moving forward at a steady, month-by-month pace (this is a very long novel with very small font-size, a commitment of time and energy even for a dedicated reader of historical fiction) we pass through the events, personal and historical, that shape her life and the lives of her loved ones.
We watch them experience the fitful, often violent growth of their country, the expansion of the first railway systems (and the unrest that expansion often provoked), Canada’s entry into the First World War, the continent-wide ravages of the ‘flu epidemic that followed the war years, and social upheavals that ushered Canada into the modern era.
Through all of this, readers see Lily grow and mature, and Gutteridge’s skill with local-sounding dialogue is such that even his minor characters feel fully fleshed out. This is broad-scale national history told from a very intimate-scale perspective, and although the narrative can therefore sometimes flag in places where the balance between the two isn’t quite right, the end result is immersive.
One comment, at $32.95 the book is somewhat expensive. I wonder if it would have been better split into more than one volume?
