Stony River

By Tricia Dower

Stony River, New Jersey, 1955: On a sweltering June afternoon, Linda Wise and Tereza Dobra witness a disturbing scene. A pale, pretty girl who looks about their age is taken from Crazy Haggerty’s house by two uniformed policemen. Everyone in Stony River thought Crazy Haggerty lived alone. The pale, pretty girl is about to enter an alien world, and as Tereza and Linda try to make sense of what they’ve seen, they’re unaware their own lives will soon be shattered as well. Set in a decade we tend to think of as a more innocent time, Stony River shows in dramatic and unexpected ways how perilous it was to come of age in the 1950s with its absent mothers, controlling fathers, biblical injunctions, teenaged longing, and small-town pretence. The threat of sexual violence is all around: angry fathers at home, dirty boys in the neighbourhood, strange men in strange cars, a dead girl, and another gone missing. An engrossing novel about growing up, finding your voice, and forgiving your family, Stony River is a brilliant story from a remarkable new Canadian voice.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Release date: Jul 24, 2012
• ISBN: 9780143186472

Tricia Dower

Tricia Dower was a business executive before reinventing herself as a writer in 2002. Having resided in sixteen different towns and cities across North America, Dower now lives and writes in Victoria, British Columbia. With a degree in English literature, she has worked as a teacher and in marketing, advertising, human resources, and corporate communications. Dower’s short fiction has appeared in Room of One’s Own, The New Quarterly, Hemispheres, Cicada, NEO, Insolent Rudder and Big Muddy. Silent Girl is her first book.

Reviews for Stony River

[lynnb_64 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I loved this book!This is a story sent in the late 1950s in a small New York town. It centers around three teenaged girls: Linda. Tereza and Miranda. Linda is still largely an innocent child, struggling with her weight, and a mother who appears to be clinically depressed. Tereza has grown up too fast and deals with an abusive step-father. Miranda was kept locked away from the world by her father, until his unexpected death thrusts her, and her young son, into society. The story revolves around these girls, and around the plight of women more generally in this time period. Women are victims of crime, and of society's norms that dictate appropriate behaviour and roles for them. So much is left unsaid...never talked about...and the young women must navigate a future for themselves. The author is especially skilled at setting a mood and tone for the time and setting. Recommended!

[tobinelliott · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Dower creates three very distinct female leads in this novel, and each one could carry a book on their own. Instead, Dower introduces the initial question of the book, through Miranda, then eases the reader through years of each girls’ life, and the paths they choose along the way. She makes the mid-1950s come alive and, while giving us the standard view of America at that time, she also lifts up the veil and shows us the dark places. Dower takes on the extremely tough and touchy subjects of incest and mental illness, then masterfully plays them out, along with many other themes throughout the novel. Well done.