The Mill on the Floss

By George Eliot

The classic novel. According to Wikipedia: "Mary Ann (Marian) Evans (1819 – 1880), better known by her pen name, George Eliot, was an English novelist. She was one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. Her novels, largely set in provincial England, are well known for their realism and psychological perspicacity. She used a male pen name, she said, to ensure that her works were taken seriously. Female authors published freely under their own names, but Eliot wanted to ensure that she was not seen as merely a writer of romances. An additional factor may have been a desire to shield her private life from public scrutiny and to prevent scandals attending her relationship with the married George Henry Lewes."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Seltzer Books
• Release date: Mar 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9781455389216

George Eliot

George Eliot (1819–1880), born Mary Ann Evans, was an English writer best known for her poetry and novels. She grew up in a conservative environment where she received a Christian education. An avid reader, Eliot expanded her horizons on religion, science and free thinkers. Her earliest writings included an anonymous English translation of The Life of Jesus in 1846 before embracing a career as a fiction writer. Some of her most notable works include Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss(1860) and Silas Marner.

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Reviews for The Mill on the Floss

[koharteh-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is so funny and sometimes dark. It's like if Dickens had been a woman. Maggie Tulliver is one of my favorite literary characters right alongside Scout Finch & Francie Nolan and Scarlett O'Hara. I'm really looking forward to reading Middlemarch because it is supposed to be George Eliot's best.
This book, at times, reminded me of Great Expectations, the way the bumbling adults would make fools of themselves.
Anyway, a wonderfully surprising read and I highly recommend it.

[jigarpatel-6 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Stunning. The most enthralling George Eliot I have read thus far, I enjoyed The Mill on the Floss, her second novel, more than her better known Middlemarch and Silas Marner. Seemingly insignificant anecdotes shed light on siblings Maggie and Tom as they grow older, and it is their characterisation which I remember most. The finale felt extravagant, fabricated and Hardy-esque, set apart from the pastoral delicacy pervading the rest of the novel. While this doesn't suit my preference, it demonstrates George Eliot's versatility in illuminating drama as well as character.I won't spoil the plot, but will share a flavour of what you will find. Like George Eliot's other novels, the themes are pastoral life, struggle against circumstances, familial bonds, interplay of personalities. Specific to The Mill on the Floss, this is a story of growing up and falling in love. But this more than a well-told coming of age story. George Eliot is at her best and most entertaining in her psychological insights. Some examples are below.On Tom and a fellow pupil:-
If boys and men are to be welded together in the glow of transient feeling, they must be made of metal that will mix, else they inevitably fall asunder when the heat dies out.
On Maggie and her childhood persona:-
The world outside the books was not a happy one, Maggie felt: it seemed to be a world where people behaved the best to those they did not pretend to love, and that did not belong to them. And if life had no love in it, what else was there for Maggie?
You will find, to the irritation of some but joy of others, wonderfully witty metaphors:-
Imagine a truly respectable and amiable hen, by some portentous anomaly, taking to reflection and inventing combinations by which she might prevail on Hodge not to wring her neck, or send her and her chicks to market: the result could hardly be other than much cackling and fluttering.
I see George Eliot as a highly intelligent writer, but in this novel she also expresses deep feeling. Perhaps this is because The Mill on the Floss is supposedly the most autobiographical of her works. Even the minor characters are treated carefully. This is the novel which truly made me realise why George Eliot is considered a master of realism.
If, in the maiden days of the Dodson sisters, their Bibles opened more easily at some parts than others, it was because of dried tulip-petals, which had been distributed quite impartially, without preference for the historical, devotional, or doctrinal.
The love story is cleverly and realistically constructed, in words relevant even today. A few choice quotes:-
They had begun the morning with an indifferent salutation, and both had rejoiced in being aloof from each other, like a patient who has actually done without his opium, in spite of former failures in resolution.
Why was he not thoroughly happy? Jealousy is never satisfied with anything short of an omniscience that would detect the subtlest fold of the heart.
Love is natural; but surely pity and faithfulness and memory are natural too. And they would live in me still, and punish me if I did not obey them.
The Mill on the Floss is an excellent introduction to Victorian literature.

[angel93_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I got this book out as i thought, oh, i better read a classic as i hadn't read one for a while. I loved it! It is about Maggie, a frustrated girl who feels there should be more to life than the path she feels is mapped out for her. Her mother is rather vacuous, concerned with reputation and her father is feckless. She has a strong relationship with her brother Tom. It is difficult to sum up the storyline succinctly but Maggie's father loses a legal battle over the ownership of the river which leads him to financial ruin, in the meantime Maggie develops a friendship with Philip. Her brother discovers their friendship and makes Maggie swear she will not see Philip any more as he is the son of the lawyer who won who sent their father into financial ruin. Their father dies and Maggie goes away to teach. Some time later she returns to visit her cousin Lucy and she meets her fiance Stephen, a friend of Philip and they become helplessly attracted to one another. Maggie takes a boat ride with him and is on the verge of running away with him when she resolves to return. After this, Maggie is considered a fallen woman, disowned by Tom. Stephen takes all the responsibility and she is forgiven by Lucy and Philip, however Tom continues to shun her until the fateful night that the river floods, Maggie rows to rescue Tom however the water is too powerful and they drown in each others arms. I became so immersed in this book and moved at the level of understanding and eventual forgiveness in the characters, also Maggies stoic acceptance that she must live her life with the burden of her actions weighing upon her is so sad. Reunited at last Tom and Maggie return to the river that dictated the course of their lives. Well written, deeply moving,a skilled and beautiful book. I had tears in my eyes at the end...

[memccauley6 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book starts strong; with quirky, believable characters and a poignant setting that was obviously a well-loved memory of the author's childhood. I frequently laughed out loud at some antic of Maggie's or a description of her woodenheaded, morally upright Aunt Glegg.

Once the characters grew up, however, it degenerated into a tragic romance with Maggie as `Mary Sue', and the ending! - don't get me started.

[autumnc_12 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

If you can find an introduction or timeline with "George Eliot"s life prior to reading this story, it will be all the more poignat. I am pretty sure she is writing her own story- the social context is totally amazing, and makes it all the more meaningful. Major themes surrounding the plight of women in the late 1800s, but also incredibly humourous. "This is a puzzling world, if you drive your wagons in a hurry you may light on an awkward corner!"

[emmakendon_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Ooh, what an abrupt ending! I hadn't read any George Eliot, to my shame, and found this on my bookshelf. I'm so glad I picked it up, I thoroughly enjoyed all her observations and explanations of character and actions - a really mature, inspiring piece of writing. And I laughed so often. I think my favourite passage is her take on destiny: "'Character' - says Novalis, in on eof his questionable aphorisms - 'character is destiny.' But not the whole of our destiny. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, was speculative and irresolute, and we have a great tragedy in consequence. But if his father had lived to good old age, and his uncle had died an early death, we can conceive Hamlet's having married Ophelia and got through life with a reputation of sanity notwithstanding many soliloquies, and some moody sarcasms towards the fair dughter of Polonius, to say nothing of the frankest incivility to his father-in law."Eliot is a really generous writer. Tom is pretty reviled by some of the readers who have written reviews here, but I think that's unfair. Maggie's love can be pretty incomprehensible, towards Tom and more so towards Stephen Guest, who isn't drawn particularly clearly but doesn't seem to merit the devotion of either Maggie or Lucy. But Tom is drawn in great detail, and Bob's affection for him, Uncle Deane's respect for him and the aunts' frustration with hm together with his own pride and moodiness all make sense. How delightful that awful Aunt Glegg comes good at the end as well with regards to Maggie. And Philip's last letter to Maggie is a beautiful piece of sincerety, deep love and a tremendously powerful understanding of a strength of reasoning, introspection and thoughfulness that saves him (and everyone else) from his suicide.

[littlebookworm_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I really enjoyed this book, surprisingly, particularly the first half of Maggie's youth. She is an extremely attractive and likeable character. I do agree with the reviewer below me that the ending was a total cop-out, though. I think a more striking view of femininity and Maggie's individuality would have been her breaking away from her family, particularly her brother, and her friends and going off into a new life for herself. She was different, more intelligent as a child, and I believe that should have continued. Just my opinion, though - perhaps Eliot is trying to show that the world wasn't ready for Maggie yet.

[schmerguls · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

[SPOILER] This book really caught me. The super-charged melodramtic ending really hit me. The utter rapidity of its all-embracing solution jolted me: "The boat reappeared--but brother and sister had gone down in an embrace never to be parted, living through again in one supreme moment, the days when they had clasped their little hands in love, and roamed the daisied fields together." In this line, the whole book appears as a carefully sculpured whole--the long and rather dreary opening chapters are seen as an essential part to create the drama of the closing. The impact of the closing is so vivid, that the one-age Conclusion at first disturbed: but even it is just right: the following I thought overwhelming: "Near that brick grave there was a tomb erected, very soon after the flood, for two bodies that were found in close embrace; and it was visited at different moments by two men who both felt that their keenest joy and keenest sorrow were forever buried there." What a story--I now will certainly have to read more Geroge Eliot.

[charlie68_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Great book, one everyone should read.

[joeydag · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I read this a little too long ago to quite remember it well. I have an image of the mill being swept away by the end of the novel but I don't remember what it all meant.

I remember there was a sentence about a third of the way through the novel describing the state of the marriage between an aunt and uncle of the protagonist. The sentence was about a page long and started out indicating that the uncle was in the garden and as in a long spiral seemed to draw out the psychology of the marriage between the aunt and uncle and the aunt's philosophy of marriage and the uncle's manner of coping with his wife. It left me delirious. Twice in my life when I have walked into a book store that stocked "The Mill of the Floss" I have looked for and found this sentence. It bolsters me to still be entertained in rereading it even though I have no idea what the novel means.

[autumnesf · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Story of a family/girl's life. It drug on for far too long. Father loses mill after a lawsuit. Son and daughter have to leave school. Son has to support family. Father dies in disgrace. Daughter falls in love with cousins love. Girl disgraces family. No happy ending for any of the characters.

[pgchuis · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This has to be my least favourite George Eliot novel. It is just so depressing all the way through. The Tulliver siblings lose their home and social standing due to their father's litigiousness. Then Maggie, unable to marry the man she has promised herself to, falls for the "coxcomb", Stephen Guest. Nothing good happens to any one and all the characters make disappointing choices. The characterization is, as always in Eliot, excellent, in that each person is made up of a complex mixture of good and evil, wisdom and foolishness. I sent a long time thinking about Maggie and her failings and puzzling decisions and about Tom and his narrow-mindedness and even about Philip and the weight he placed on a promise drawn from a very young, inexperienced girl, so it clearly is brilliantly-written, but the hopelessness of the whole thing prevents me from giving it more stars.

[hemlokgang · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

If you love period literature, moral struggle, and enchanting heroines, you will love this novel by George Eliot. The main characters in this book are loveable, human, heartrending, and ridiculously funny. Eliot wrote this story of what she considered common folks and the struggles they live with day in and out. She describes the small town social hierarchy, the pride, and the honor of the people in this community, through the experiences of Maggie, a dark haired beauty who is both intelligent and moral. Her life is filled with strife, oppression, and also with two men who love her beyond all else. She loves her older brother, Tom, since childhood and lives her life trying to obtain his approval despite multiple roadblocks. You have to read the book to see how it all turns out! Themes in this book: Love, honor, pride, moral struggle, loyalty, family ties. Wonderful novel....I laughed, I held my breath, and I got teary.....great blend to find in one novel!

[mirrordrum · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

aaaaaarrrrrrggggghhhhh! great struggle and a lot of naught. i found it wearing e'en though i did finish it. i'm not sure i'm cut out for some of the classics. like this and ethan frome.

[raschneid_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I suspect between this novel and Middlemarch, George Eliot is becoming my favorite nineteenth-century novelist. I wish she were still alive so that I could write her fan letters.

The Mill on the Floss is funny and moving and philosophical. Eliot does so many different things well; she's witty and detached, and then she writes a love scene that makes your knees go wobbly. Middlemarch struck me the same way - it's incredibly romantic, and then it does things with that romance, crazy thematic plot things, that sometimes make you feel like the author has punched you in the stomach.

I think George Eliot and Joss Whedon would probably get along.

The novel is also cool because it's sort of a novel about adultery without actually being about adultery. It feels very modern and unflinching, the more so because George Eliot actually spent much of her adult life in a happy but socially-isolating relationship out of wedlock, so she had perspective on The System.

The last couple hundred pages are incredibly intense, perhaps the more so because I read them in one go on a very long train ride, most of which was spent on the edge of my (not very comfortable) seat. It's one of those novels whose ending is absolutely unguessable and yet feels vitally important; "Holy crap," I asked myself, "how is this going to end, and will I be able to live a happy and well-adjusted life after I finish it?"

I'm still working on that happy and well-adjusted part. The ending... well, is it ever an ending. Words like "mythic" and "apocalyptic" do not give it justice. I'm still not sure how I feel about it - in some ways she gave me just the ending I didn't want, but she did it in such a way that I had to admire. Also, it is very, very intriguing and makes me want to write essays about it, which is usually a good thing.

Great characters, great plot, great themes. A very well-rounded novel.

[michellech_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I think it will take me a few days to process this novel. Eliot brilliantly made me feel, care and relate to the characters. The novel follows Maggie and her family the Tullivers through happiness, loss and redemption. I absolutely loved Maggie but her striving to goodness drove me crazy. As I said I need more time to wrap my mind around the ending which was so devestating to me.

[jwhenderson_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

What a pleasure it is to read the novels of George Eliot. The sheer intelligence of the author shines on every page. In this, her second novel following closely after Adam Bede, she draws on her own experience to create a world of characters surrounding her hero & heroine, Tom and Maggie Tulliver.The story develops at a leisurely pace with the first two books devoted to the childhood of Maggie and Tom. As Tom goes off to be tutored, Maggie must stay at home and their lives slowly diverge until in subsequent books, as their father's world disintegrates in debt, they are found on opposite sides with their filial love tested again and again. One of the most impressive aspects of the novel is the complexity of these characters as created by Eliot. Tom distinguishes himself at the trading firm of his Uncle Deane and matures into a confident and courageous young man, repaying the debts of his father. Yet, his character is flawed in both his inflexibility and his inability to appreciate the needs of his sister Maggie. Maggie, who is significantly more intelligent than Tom, and self-taught, has developed from a somewhat over-emotional young girl into a sort of Christian ascetic based on her reading of Thomas a Kempis. She is forbidden friendship with Philip Waken, the son of the lawyer who bought her father's mill, and is prevented from developing the potential that is central to her character. The denouement of the novel leads it down the path of the tragic side of life if not true tragedy, but the complexity of the characters and realism of the world in which they live continues to impress.

[whicker_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

While a "Classic," The Mill on the Floss is not up par. Dry and entirely too many pages for the story told.

[jmoncton_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It is easy to fall in love with the heroine of this story, Maggie Tulliver. Although she wants to be the ideal Victorian female, she can't help herself. She is bold, affectionate, impulsive and passionate and just can't fill the role of the passive and obedient daughter. What Maggie wants more than anything is the love and approval of her older brother Tom. Tom is the opposite of Maggie. He is responsible and steady and where Maggie's personality overflows with warmth and affection, Tom is more cold and deliberate. Although Tom loves his sister, he can't help but disapprove of her inappropriate behavior. The Mill on the Floss follows Maggie and Tom as they grow from children into adults. The Tulliver family has owned the mill for several generations, but Maggie and Tom's father makes some poor choices and ends up losing the mill due to a legal dispute. Maggie and Tom's lives change as they have to work hard to survive, Tom entering business on the docks and Maggie working as a teacher. Although Maggie works hard to help out and be the obedient daughter, she continues to disappoint her family by first falling in love with the son of the man who caused the Tulliver bankruptcy and then falling in love with a man who is betrothed to her cousin.



Although I enjoyed the story and the writing, I was so disappointed with the ending. Maggie gives up everything to try to be that obedient daughter and finally get Tom's approval. It almost seemed like the 'moral' to this story is that reason is better than heart or passion. And Tom - what a smug condescending idiot! So undeserving of a sister like Maggie.

[greatrakes · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This novel has the best characterisation of any novel I've ever read, every motivation rings true, and every act falls from motivation. Eliot seems to have a perfect understanding of why men and women act the way they do: of how they are trapped by the past into certain patterns of behaviour; patterns that seem wilful from the outside, yet seem fated and unavoidable from within. I enjoyed the book, unreservedly, for the first two-thirds, then, after the death of Mr Tulliver, the book became irritating. Maggie Tulliver became spiritual, then lovelorn, then melodramatic. Tom Tulliver became withdrawn and mean-spirited. This may have been exactly how they would have acted, but they began to depress and annoy me, and I was glad when they drowned.

[amyfaerie · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

One of my favorite classic novels.

[lizpatanders · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Some people really dislike the prose of George Eliot, but I disagree. This was the first novel of hers which I read and I thoroughly enjoyed. The plot is entertaining and she has great character development. I also remember going to my professor and saying that I wanted to write about nature, religion and something else (probably romance) in this novel, and then realizing that there was no way that a roughly six page essay could encompass all of those topics. I really enjoyed watching how these characters relationships with others affected their emotional journeys throughout the book. A great read.

[bunwat_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a beautifully written novel. Its got some journeyman flaws, its a little uneven and lumpy in a few spots, but on the whole its exceptionally well drawn, all the characters are wonderful and it has an unshakeable sense of place, of being rooted in all the complex interlinking minutiae that make up the ecology of a real landscape and a real society.

So why four stars? Because eventually I just got fed up with watching people kick Maggie Tulliver around. If she'd ever once gotten even a little bit angry with any of the many mostly well meaning people who treat her like complete crap, if she'd ever even tried to fight back, even if she failed, well I'd be so on her side. But as it is, its like reading an exceptionally beautifully written Mr Bill show. Watch Sluggo and Mr Hand take away absolutely everything that makes Maggie's life worth having one by one by one, and stomp on her head in passing. Oh NOOOO Mr Bill!

At some point, for me, it just becomes too melodramatic, too "may I have some more sir," and I end up just irritated with the character and the author. Get up and DO something woman! Stop letting everybody kick you around the landscape, what are you, a punching bag?

YMMV*

*Your mileage may vary.

[lukerik-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed this. The opening chapters are very funny and Maggie is adorable. I like it when she pushes Lucy into the pond and how this and other early things pre-figure events later in the novel. Very clever. I liked how the aunts act as a Greek chorus early on, later replaced by the authorial voice. It must have been a very personal novel for Eliot to write. I heard that her brother refused to speak to her for 20 years, but she never let's herself be overcome by emotion. My sister refused to speak to me for 12 years for the same reasons.

[m.belljackson · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

After beautiful opening descriptions, an energetic plot, beginning and concluding with an embrace in the Floss, is slowed to tedium by the endless Tulliver and Dodson womens' conversations and their fixations.Maggie Tulliver showed a wonderful rebellious strength in a family with an often cruel older brother, a flighty mother,and an over indulgent father. Unfortunately for her and George Eliot's readers, she descends into a pointless chasmof self-chastising morality, broken only when she overcomes pity to agree to marry one man, then falls in love withher cousin's boyfriend. The only mystery in the predictable plot comes when Maggie and Tom, river people who knew better, take a rowboat out into a flood.

[homeschoolbookreview · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Maggie Tulliver, who is age seven when the story opens, lives at Dorlcote Mill on the River Ripple at its junction with the River Floss near the village of St. Ogg’s in England, with her father, who owns the mill, mother, and older brother Tom. The novel spans a period of ten to fifteen years, beginning with Tom’s and Maggie’s childhood and including her father’s ongoing battles with a lawyer named Wakem, the Tullivers’ consequent bankruptcy resulting in the loss of the mill, and Mr. Tulliver’s untimely death. Tom has been in school with Philip Wakem, the lawyer’s hunchbacked, sensitive, and intellectual son, and Maggie has grown fond of Philip, seeing him secretly. To help repay his father’s debts, Tom leaves his schooling to enter a life of business, but in his hatred of the Wakems, he forbids Maggie’s seeing Philip, and she languishes in the impoverished Tulliver home, renouncing the world after reading Thomas à Kempis’s The Imitation of Christ. Some years later, Tom has been successful and able to restore the family’s former estate. Lucy has been away teaching school but returns to visit with her cousin, Lucy Deane. Her acquaintance with Philip is renewed and he still loves her, but Stephen Guest, a young socialite in St. Ogg's who is Lucy’s fiancé, is also attracted to her. Maggie enjoys the clandestine attentions of Stephen, but when he substitutes for the sick Philip in taking her on a boat ride and proposes that they stop in Mudport, and get married, she rejects him and makes her way back to St. Ogg's, where, rejected by her brother Tom and almost everyone else except her mother, Tom’s friend Bob Jakin and his family, in whose home she takes lodgings, and the minister, Dr. Kenn, who engages her as governess for his children, she lives for a brief period as an outcast, though she does reconcile with both Philip and Lucy. When the flood comes, Maggie sets out in one of Bob’s boats to rescue Tom, and together they head to rescue Lucy, but their boat capsizes and the two drown in an embrace, thus giving the book its Biblical subtitle, “In their death they were not divided.” I have always liked Eliot’s Silas Marner because it is, in the final analysis, a tale of redemption. However, The Mill on the Floss is not primarily a tale of redemption. In fact, the book is somewhat autobiographical in that it reflects the disgrace that the author herself felt while involved in a lengthy relationship with a married man, George Henry Lewes, although there are differences. No actual immorality is portrayed in the book, and towards the end, Maggie does make the right choice. There are a little bad language and some references to drinking alcohol, using tobacco, and dancing. Biblical quotations and allusions abound throughout, but I am not sure that the book represents a truly Biblical worldview. A certain degree of fatalistic determinism is at play throughout the novel—in fact, on one occasion Maggie says, “Our life is determined for us”—although Maggie’s ultimate choice not to marry Stephen demonstrates a final triumph of free will. Some latent feminism also occurs in that the cultural norms of her community seem to deny Maggie her intellectual and spiritual growth. Many of Eliot’s observations about the nature of people and society are interesting, with some of which you may agree and others you may not, but occasionally her social commentary goes on and on to the point of becoming boring. Like The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, in the right hands The Mill on the Floss could be used to teach a good lesson on not being judgmental, but due to the “titillating” nature of the story I would recommend that it not be inflicted on anyone under age eighteen.

[amilofinn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is an epic Northern tale of a chalk and cheese brother and sister, Maggie and Tom Tulliver, trying to make their way in the world. Much of the time I feel they are both round pegs in square holes, neither cut out for what conventional life has in store for them. However brother and sisterly love seems to be the thread that binds them together thoughout their entwined and estranged lives to the dramatic climax of their story.

[wagner5sarah35 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I finished it! Less than 24 hours until the book club meets and I've finished this 600-page odyssey. (Forgive me if I spend a little time congratulating myself.) Anyway, this novel is primarily a brother and sister story, as the trials of Tom and Maggie Tulliver are chronicled and explored. Maggie certainly emerges as the more sympathetic sibling (a bias of the author, perhaps?), but the influence of society and gender roles weighs heavily on both Tom and Maggie throughout the novel. Nevertheless, George Eliot brings this novel to a perfect close and I have never felt so satisfied with such a sad conclusion.

[gypsysmom_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book continues, sort of, the story started in Three Day Road. Xavier, the WWI soldier who came home missing a leg and with a dependence on morphine in Three Day Road, lived a long life and fathered at least 3 children, Antoine, Will and . One of the narrators of the book is his son Will and the other narrator is his granddaughter, Annie. Will's narration is from a hospital bed where he is in a coma although we don't know, until the very end, what caused it. Annie's story is told to Will in the hopes that the words will get through his coma.Will used to be a bush pilot until something happened to his wife and children when he gave up flying. The story about his family is a tragedy that Will never really got over. He drinks a lot and hunts and traps for a living. One day he runs afoul of Marius Netmaker, a drug pusher and all round bad guy. Marius' younger brother, Gus, and Will's niece, Suzanne, had run off south together. Suzanne is gorgeous and becomes a highly sought after model in Toronto and Montreal and New York City. Gus, it appears, is the southern connection for the Netmaker drug enterprise but suddenly he and Suzanne disappear. Annie goes to Toronto for a holiday with her friend Eva but ends up staying to look for Suzanne. She meets a mute Anishinabe, Gordon (also known as Painted Tongue), when she is beaten up by some white punks and Gordon saves her. He becomes her protector but not her lover as Annie travels in the path of Suzanne.Will and Annie share a lot of characteristics and when I think about it, Xavier had many of those characteristics as well. They are all impulsive and jump into situations without a lot of forethought. Xavier and Will and to a certain extent Annie developed dependencies on drugs and alcohol. However, on a positive note, they all care deeply about their friends and when they fall in love it is long-lasting. Of course, they all have a deep tie to the natural world. Will spends months living by himself and supplies his needs with fish and game. Annie teaches Gordon how to trap when they come back to Moose River. They acknowledge the gifts of the Creator and don't take more than the land can spare.I've grown quite attached to the Bird family. This past week the Globe and Mail had a question and answer session with Joseph Boyden and my question to him was whether he was going to fill in the events of the intervening years between Three Day Road and Through Black Spruce. This was his answer:Indeed, in the third instalment of the trilogy, I've figured out a way where I can both look back through history to the time when Xavier returns home from the war and even move forward a few years into the future in a way that I hope works well. I guess we'll just have to wait and see...Well, I'm waiting Joseph and I hope it won't be too long.

[quoddy_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

My personal favourite of all Eliot's works. It seems to me to be one of the very few books of it's time which showed that there is true passion in sibling love. It has the sweetest taste of tragedy I have ever had.