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Strange Heaven
 by Lynn Coady
Goose Lane Editions, 1998.

Reviewed by Michael Bryson

And you thought your family was crazy. Pick up Lynn Coady's award-winning first novel and learn something new about dysfunctional family systems. Coady's protagonist is an unwed teenage mom who gives her baby up for adoption then plops herself in a mental institution. Halfway through the novel the girl goes home for Christmas and the reader sees her family ain't any more sane than her fellow asylum inmates. This is a book with more honesty and grit that a hundred other first novels. It deservedly won Coady the Air Canada Award (for writers under 30) and snared a nomination for the Governor General's Award, Canada's top literary prize. A marvelous new voice out of the Maritimes. A great book. Read it!

Michael Bryson is the editor of The Danforth Review.
 

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The Danforth Review is produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. All content is copyright of its creator and cannot be copied, printed, or downloaded without the consent of its creator. The Danforth Review is edited by Michael Bryson. Poetry Editors are Geoff Cook and Shane Neilson. Reviews Editor is K.I. Press. All views expressed are those of the writer only. International submissions are encouraged. The Danforth Review is archived in the National Library of Canada. ISSN 1494-6114. 

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We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts which last year invested $19.1 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada. Nous remercions de son soutien le Conseil des Arts du Canada, qui a investi 19,1 millions de dollars l'an dernier dans les lettres et l'édition à travers le Canada.