Waiting for Joe

By Sandra Birdsell

After you've lost it all — job, house, savings, future —what have you got left? A piercing new novel of our times by one of Canada's finest fiction writers.

On a chilly early morning in late spring, Joe Beaudry and his wife, Laurie, wake up in circumstances that would challenge saints: they are on the lam in a stolen motorhome on the edge of a Walmart parking lot in Regina, Saskatchewan. They've gone bust, spectacularly: lost the house that was Joe's gift from his dad, lost the business Joe started when he got married, and stuck his ancient father in a nursing home in Winnipeg so they could flee their creditors. Joe knows the reality of the situation, and is trying to raise enough cash to get them both to Fort McMurray where he hopes he can find work. But Laurie, even though she watched Joe trash their high-end appliances with a sledgehammer when the yard sale didn't deliver enough cash, somehow thinks it's only temporary, and maxes out their last credit card on wardrobe and hair dye and wishes and dreams. For Joe, it's the last straw in a marriage that once seemed star-crossed and now seems simply unworkable.

Pushed to figure out what to do next, Joe simply takes off hitchhiking, leaving Laurie waiting for Joe, and Joe wondering how he will ever find meaning in a world that has disappointed his every expectation. The road for both of them provides surprising answers...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Sep 14, 2010
• ISBN: 9780307359186

Sandra Birdsell

Sandra Birdsell is an award-winning writer, the author of The Two-Headed Calf (shortlisted for the 1997 Governor General's Award), Night Travellers, Ladies of the House, The Missing Child and The Chrome Suite. Among other awards, she has won the WH Smith/Books in Canada First Novel Award and the Gerald Lampert Award for New Fiction. The Town That Floated Away is her first children's book. She lives in Regina, Saskatchewan, but grew up in Morris, Manitoba -- a town that truly did, one day, float away.

Reviews for Waiting for Joe

[lynnb_64 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Joe and Laurie have lost everything: their business is bankrupt, they've lost the house Joe's father had given them...so they head west from Winnipeg in a stolen RV, with Joe hoping to find work in Fort McMurray. As the book opens, we find them parked at a Walmart in Regina, where Joe is working for a few days to make enough money to complete the trip. But after a quarrel with Laurie, Joe starts hitchhiking west, leaving her with the RV in the Walmart parking lot.Through various flashbacks, we learn about the backstory...how Joe and Laurie lost their mothers, how they found each other, Joe's childhood with his father, Alfred and best friend, Steve. This really is a story about Joe -- about how he re-evaluates his life as he finds himself starting over in middle age. It's a strong character portrayal and very well written. Good stuff!

[icolford · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Joe Beaudry's RV business has gone bust and so he and his wife Laurie sell everything and hit the road, driving from Winnipeg to Regina before parking their motorhome in the lot next to WalMart. Joe has told Laurie they will go to Fort McMurray, where he will get work. But they never make it that far. The truth is that Joe doesn't know what he wants to do and doesn't know if Laurie even figures in his half-formed, ever-changing plans. He has not shared these doubts with his wife, who also doesn't know that the motorhome is stolen, that Joe drove it off the RV lot before the new owner was in a position to know the difference. Plagued by self doubt, terrified of an uncertain future and fleeing a past in which he has repeatedly made poor choices and disappointed those he loves, Joe takes off, leaving Laurie waiting for him in Regina while he hitchhikes to Vancouver to seek out some old friends he thinks might be able to save him. Birdsell's novel is a suspenseful and brutally honest examination of how life forces us to compromise and conveys the harsh message that in the final analysis we must lay sole claim to our flaws and failures. Brilliant and unsentimental.

[deltaqueen50 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I found Waiting For Joe by Sandra Birdsell a rather sad story but well put together and it really makes you think about what you would do if you lost everything – your business, your home and your savings. Joe owned a business that sold recreational vehicles, but after 9/11, people weren’t doing a lot of travelling and his business goes into foreclosure. After they lose their house, Joe deposits his father in a nursing home, steals an RV and he and his wife head out, deciding to go north to the oil boom town of Fort McMurray. They get as far as Regina, and while parked in the Walmart parking lot, Joe and Laurie quarrel and Joe realizes that Laurie will always live beyond her means and can’t control her spending. This is the final straw for him in a marriage that has been slipping for years and he simply walks away. This is a very introspective read about how life’s events impact families, in this case, Joe, Laurie and Joe’s elderly father, Alfred. Each one sifts through their past thinking about both the good and bad choices they have made and how they have come to this low point. Joe through his stubborn pride and indecision and Laurie through her compulsive shopping which fuels her guilt and shame. The author uses these inner revelations to expose her characters motivations, but I found that these many flashbacks distracted from the immediacy of the story.Waiting For Joe didn’t quite reach the heights I was hoping for. The book seemed mired down by it’s dwelling on the complicated histories of the main characters. Although I was looking for a slightly different story, the author's writing was excellent, immersing the reader in this bleak contemporary story.