A strange little plot, but kept me interested. ( )

Didn't finish. Story was too unbelievable. ( )

From the outside, the Fields family looks like your typical suburban household. Dad goes to work everyday. Mom stays home and looks after their three daughters, Sandy age eight, Lou age nine and Norma, ten. The children go to school and occasionally are seen around the neighborhood. No one questions when the family disappears for two weeks. What they don't know is instead of going to Disney for a family vacation militant and World War III-expectant dad forces them to live in an underground bunker as training for a nuclear disaster. It is the post-war early 60s after all. No one seems to notice middle daughter, Lou, as she does all the grocery shopping for the family, or that the mother is rarely seen outside.
Go inside and the Fields household is even less of a pretty sight. Mom, practically comatose, drinks to erase a terrible memory (involving Niagara Falls). Dad has a violent temper and is prone to attack whoever is in reach when he's in between girlfriends.
In the ten year span of the story the daughters get older and experience puberty and do so without a responsible parent to guide them. They are each on her own. The end results are disastrous. ( )

The year is 1969, and somewhere in an Ontario suburb, the Field family's fragile domestic peace is slowly coming to an end. The three Field sisters - Norma, Lou and Sandy - are each just trying to find their own place within their very eccentric, often miserable, sometimes hilarious family. However, the looming shadow over all of their lives is the tragically suspicious death of the family's first-born son - a secret which is never spoken of, but is nonetheless pervasive.

The Field household is ruled by Jim Field - a philandering, heavy-drinking used car salesman - who is keen on the militaristic discipline of his children, and on keeping up appearances for the neighbors. Despite his poor treatment of his wife, he is still oddly protective of her, insisting that his daughters watch her all the time.

His severely depressed wife Mary - a one-time dancer - has escaped into apathy and alcoholism a long time ago. Whenever her coffee cup is empty, her daughters rush to fill it with whiskey, for they realize she is living precariously in the wake of what happened to her baby son.

Each of the teenage daughters has her own way of coping with her dysfunctional family. They try to make their own experiences while struggling with their family duties and concern for their mother. The eldest daughter Norma is the most responsible member of the family; quiet, subdued and selfless, she overburdens herself with domestic tasks and responsibilities, patiently putting up with her father's antics. She is also the only one intent on keeping the memory of her brother bright, determined to discover the secrets surrounding his death.

The middle daughter Lou is the polar opposite of Norma. Lou fights for her autonomy within the family. She is the tough-talking, rebellious wild child; standing up to her father and loving her mother, even as she despises Mary's weaknesses.

The youngest daughter Sandy is not as responsible as Norma, nor as rebellious as Lou. Sweet-looking Sandy devotes herself to becoming a perfect woman; with her own naive sense of femininity and sexuality.

Each sister goes through her own rite of passage. They turn to drugs, sex, and schmaltzy fantasy - but repeatedly to one another. And, even after her death, the sisters still turn to their mother, and to the unusual love they discover their father still holds for her.

I must say that while this book dealt with some seriously dark issues, I found that there was a thread of humor running throughout the story that I could totally appreciate. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book - the story was well-written, easy to follow and the characters were sympathetically drawn. I give this book an A+! and look forward to perhaps reading more from Barbara Gowdy in the future. ( )

Set in the 1960's, this is a darkly funny story of three sisters - Lou the thin one, Norma the fat one and Sandy the pretty one - growing up with an alcoholic mother whom they adore, an authoritarian and slightly abusive father who has them spend their summer vacation in a bomb shelter, and their discovery about their parents first child, a boy who their mother mysteriously dropped over Niagara Falls. Their mother jumps from the roof of their house and the book ends with a trip to Niagara Falls to scatter their mother's ashes. ( )