What Is Left The Daughter: A Novel

By Howard Norman

Howard Norman, widely regarded as one of this country’s finest novelists, returns to the mesmerizing fictional terrain of his major books—The Bird Artist, The Museum Guard, and The Haunting of L—in this erotically charged and morally complex story.

Seventeen-year-old Wyatt Hillyer is suddenly orphaned when his parents, within hours of each other, jump off two different bridges—the result of their separate involvements with the same compelling neighbor, a Halifax switchboard operator and aspiring actress. The suicides cause Wyatt to move to small-town Middle Economy to live with his uncle, aunt, and ravishing cousin Tilda.

Setting in motion the novel’s chain of life-altering passions and the wartime perfidy at its core is the arrival of the German student Hans Mohring, carrying only a satchel. Actual historical incidents—including a German U-boat’s sinking of the Nova Scotia–Newfoundland ferry Caribou, on which Aunt Constance Hillyer might or might not be traveling—lend intense narrative power to Norman’s uncannily layered story.

Wyatt’s account of the astonishing—not least to him— events leading up to his fathering of a beloved daughter spills out twenty-one years later. It’s a confession that speaks profoundly of the mysteries of human character in wartime and is directed, with both despair and hope, to an audience of one.

An utterly stirring novel. This is Howard Norman at his celebrated best.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jun 29, 2010
• ISBN: 9780547487090

Howard Norman

HOWARD NORMAN is a three-time winner of National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, and a winner of the Lannan Award for fiction. His novels <em>The Northern Lights</em> and <em>The Bird Artist</em> were both nominated for National Book Awards. He is also author of the novels <em>The Museum Guard, The Haunting of L, What Is Left the Daughter,</em><em>Next Life Might Be Kinder</em>, and <em>My Darling Detective</em>. He divides his time between East Calais, Vermont, and Washington, D.C.

Book preview

Copyright © 2010 by Howard Norman

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [e-mail] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

hmhbooks.com

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Norman, Howard A.

What is left the daughter / Howard Norman.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-618-73543-3

1. Life change events—Fiction. 2. Germans—Canada—Fiction. 3. World War, 1939–1945—Canada—Fiction. 4. Nova Scotia—Fiction. I. Title.

PR9199.3.N564W47 2010

813'.54—dc22 2009044460

Author photograph © Emma Norman

eISBN 978-0-547-48709-0

v5.0419

FOR EMMA

I can’t swim at all, and it is dangerous to converse with an unaccustomed Element.

—ERASMUS

What Is Left the Daughter

MARLAIS, today is March 27, 1967, your twenty-first birthday. I’m writing because I refuse any longer to have my life defined by what I haven’t told you. I’ve waited until now to relate the terrible incident that I took part in on October 16, 1942, when I was nineteen.

Your mother, Tilda Hillyer, frequently consulted The Highland Book of Platitudes, which had 411 pages. She had it practically memorized. She found instruction and solace in that book, even the solution to certain puzzles about life. But I thought all those platitudes put together avoided the fact that life is unpredictable. For instance, after moving hotel to hotel here in Halifax for many years, I’ve finally returned to my childhood house at 58 Robie Street, which I never thought I’d set foot in again.

In fact, it’s now three A.M.—I scarcely sleep anyway—and I’m writing at my kitchen table.

Two Sundays ago, I stopped in at Harbor Methodist Church. On occasion I do that. More out of nostalgia than present faith, to say the least. Anyway, when I entered the church Reverend Lundrigan was recounting some ancient parable or other in which an elderly woman listens to her son hold forth about how much heartbreak, sour luck and spiritual depletion can be packed into a life. But talk as he might, the man from the parable fails to address the one thing his mother is most curious about. What of your daughter? she asks. Have you seen her? How is her life? Do not doubt that wonderment may be found when you find her again. Turns out, the man hasn’t seen his own daughter in ages. Rain, wind, hunger, thirst, joy and sorrow have visited her all along, the woman says. Yet her father has not. She listens more, all the while experiencing a deeper and deeper sadness, until finally she says, And what is left the daughter? She doesn’t mean heirloom objects. She doesn’t mean money. She doesn’t care about anything like those. She says, I think you have a secret untold that keeps a distance between you and her and the life you were given.

Well, Marlais, you know how people talked in biblical times. Still, when I left the church, I thought, Strange how you can’t predict during which happenstance you might take something to heart. And right then and there I understood that all I had to leave you, really, is what I’m writing here. I’ve read some of the English poet John Keats, and he said something to the effect that memory shouldn’t be confused with knowledge. Of course, I have no way of knowing if, after you’ve read a paragraph or two, any curiosity you might’ve had will abruptly sour to disgust, or worse. Yet I hope you’ll see these pages through. And that whatever else you may think, whatever judgments you come to, please at least accept the knowledge that I’ve always loved you, without cease.

How Your Father Became an Apprentice in Sleds and Toboggans in the Village of Middle Economy, Nova Scotia

In The Highland Book of Platitudes, Marlais, there’s an entry that reads, Not all ghosts earn our memory in equal measure. I think about this sometimes. I think especially about the word earn, because it implies an ongoing willful effort on the part of the dead, so that if you believe the platitude, you have to believe in the afterlife, don’t you? Following that line of thought, there seem to be certain people—call them ghosts—with the ability to insinuate themselves into your life with more belligerence and exactitude than others—it’s their employment and expertise.

My parents are such people. How else to describe it? Let me try. Last evening, for instance, I sat at the table. It was lightly raining. I was having a cup of tea, listening to a Beethoven quartet (Quartet No. 9 in C Major, my favorite) on the nightly classical radio program, when suddenly the broadcast was interrupted by static. Maybe I take things with the radio too personally, but I got the uneasy feeling—I’ve felt this many times—the static was really my mother’s and father’s indecipherable tidings from the afterlife. Were they trying to tell me something? What was the message?

I imagine that your mother informed you of this—maybe she didn’t—but let me say it directly. My own mother, Katherine, and my father, Joseph, leapt from separate bridges in Halifax on the same evening. I was seventeen. Oh, it was quite the scandal. It made for bold headlines in the Halifax Mail (page two the day after it happened, page four the following day; the war was on, so most of the front page was reserved for Allied victories and setbacks, and Axis atrocities). So there I was, a spectacle for every Haligonian to pity, victim of a SORDID LOVE TRIANGLE, orphaned all of a single hour, on August 27, 1941, between six and seven o’clock, not quite dusk at that time of year, but almost. Odd as it might sound, the first thing I experienced, past the initial shock, was embarrassment. And when I returned to school the day after the funerals, I could hardly breathe for the shame and embarrassment of it all. That may not reflect well on me, but it’s the truth. Of course, at night the weird sadness found me, and everything familiar to my life, absolutely everything, had suddenly become unfamiliar.

It’s been twenty-six years, then, since my father leapt from the Halifax-Dartmouth Toll Bridge, connecting Highway 111 to the Bedford Highway, my mother from the toll bridge connecting North Street to Windmill Road. Rough waters that day under all bridges, Bedford Basin to Halifax Harbor, wild dark skies and gulls more catapulted and buffeted than flying here to there, all of which I could see from my high school on Barrington Street. Anyway, I keep the clippings in a mint-wood box. Among their headlines are UNUSUAL LOVE NEST RESULTS IN TWIN SUICIDES and MYSTERY WOMAN CAUSES FAMILY TRAGEDY.

Have you ever read the poet Emily Dickinson? She says that to travel all you need to do is close your eyes. Here at 58 Robie some nights, I close my eyes and I’m back on August 27, 1941, sitting on the porch when the first of two police cars pulls up in front of our house. Imagine, only ten or fifteen minutes before, I’d gotten a phone call telling me what’d happened. And here I’d been complaining to myself: Where is everybody? Am I going to have to make my own supper?

First page to last, The Highland Book of Platitudes, originally published in Scotland, does not contain a platitude that addresses a woman falling in love with a woman, and a man falling in love with the same woman. Yet that was the situation with my parents—and this included our next-door neighbor Reese Mac Isaac. In 1941 Reese Mac Isaac was thirty-five years old. Her hair was the color of dark honey, she was slim and dressed smart, and was, to my mind, as lovely and mysterious as any woman you’d see in an advertisement for perfume in the Saturday Evening Post. My family didn’t have a subscription, but you could find copies in the lobby of the Lord Nelson Hotel, on Spring Garden Road across from the Public Gardens.

In fact, Reese was employed as a switchboard operator at the hotel. Also, she’d taken acting lessons, and in 1937 had appeared in Widow’s Walk. It was a picture about a woman whose husband’s fishing boat capsizes in a storm on the same night she’d been dallying with the handsome village doctor. Out of guilt and remorse, the woman goes mad and spends the rest of her nights in a widow’s walk atop her house. For the few months that it was being filmed, Widow’s Walk was all the gossip. Referred to as an all-Canadian production, most of it was shot near Port Medway—they’d even built a temporary lighthouse.

In the heart of winter the following year, Widow’s Walk played in Halifax and I went to see it with my parents. Just after the opening credits, Reese Mac Isaac appeared on screen. She played a hotel switchboard operator! Hold on, please, she said, and listened through an earpiece. I’m sorry, your party is not answering. Try again later, please. This scene took all of thirty seconds. Still, I was impressed, and though Widow’s Walk had no true movie stars in it and box-office-wise it fell short of popularity, I imagined all sorts of associations. I wondered, Had Reese met Loretta Young? Had she met Tyrone Power? Had she met Jean Harlow? When the meager audience filed out of the theater, I said, Pretty lucky of them to find someone with firsthand experience with switchboards like Reese has!

Right there on the sidewalk my parents fell apart laughing. My mother said, Darling, I hate to point out the obvious, but Reese Mac Isaac’s cameo took place in the switchboard cubby she actually works in, six A.M. to three P.M. every day but Sunday.

Hardly a big stretch, my father said.

I don’t care, I said. She did well with what she was given.

A week after the funerals, as I lay on the sofa drinking whiskey to try and help me sleep, I realized that I didn’t begrudge my father that he loved Reese Mac Isaac. The same went for my mother, all received morality notwithstanding, for which I didn’t give a good goddamn, not in the least. I knew that my parents no longer loved each other. Since I was eight or nine I knew it, even earlier. Civility had become their mainstay. Civility bowed and curtsied—Good night, dear—as they went to separate bedrooms.

I suppose that I was happy enough that we all still lived under the same roof. Besides, in high school I was captain of the fencing team, and fencing, in 1941, had most of my attention. I’d placed well in tournaments as far-flung as St. John’s, Newfoundland. (I quit fencing after my parents died, just somehow lost the connection to it.) And though I’d been quite friendly with Reese Mac Isaac, had even paid the price of a ticket to see her play a handmaiden in a stage production of Romeo and Juliet, I can’t say that I knew much about her. However, one summer night when I was fifteen, I caught sight of Reese dressed in a nightgown—it looked silky—with a pattern of outsized lilies, exotic nightwear for Halifax, I thought. She was watering the three plants on her kitchen sill with an eyedropper. My thought was, That’s being frugal, though it might be stinginess.

Truth be told, after my parents’ suicides, for days on end my emotions roughed me up, and I went from seething anger to stupefying bewilderment to sadness that put me to bed at odd hours. What’s certain is that it was during this period my sleepless nights began. My parents are buried in Camp Hill Cemetery. Their funerals were an hour apart, each officiated by Reverend Carmichael, then at Harbor Methodist, the church with which my parents had a hit-or-miss affiliation.

Chapter and verse, Reverend Carmichael’s services were standard. The fencing team attended. My mother had been an accountant at HMC Dockyard, and many of her colleagues paid their respects. My father owned a stationery and typewriter repair shop on Grafton Street, and I can recall his business partner, Mr. Amoury, at the graveside, along with Mrs. Amoury and their two daughters. When he and I shook hands, I noticed that Mr. Amoury had typewriter ribbon smudges on his fingers.

When all was said and done, I handed Reverend Carmichael fifty dollars in an envelope. He looked inside and shook his head and said, You know, I usually charge fifty dollars each, but this was—and he couldn’t find the next word. Then he left. During both services it had been drizzling, but afterward people held their umbrellas closed. As they milled about, I didn’t have a single direct conversation. Instead, I walked around half in a daze, mostly eavesdropping, I think. For instance, there was Oliver Tapper, who wrote the Canadians at the Front column for the Sunday Mail. Oliver, who had published a collection of patriotic poems, was a regular customer at my father’s shop, often in a panic, claiming some emergency deadline. On the wet grass of the cemetery he said, Look, there’s poor Katherine not ten feet away, and there’s, right in front of us, poor Joseph. All this good air to breathe and guess who gets to breathe it, none other than that—harlot! That wretched failed actress!

What are you saying, Oliver? Mrs. Tapper said. "You want fairness? You want her punished for sordid immoralities? Well, those were shared, don’t forget. And besides, we’re at a funeral. Please mind your language."

Oh, I almost forgot, the most peculiar newspaper headline was accompanied by a photograph of me, the one taken for the high school yearbook: LOCAL BOY ORPHANED BY BRIDGES. As if I weren’t already seventeen, hardly a boy. As if it were the bridges’ fault, not human nature’s.

You only live the life right in front of you. All day at school on August 27, which was just the fifth day of classes in the autumn 1941 term, I had no idea how my parents’ fates were being determined. We’d all had breakfast together. My father had been chatty; my mother wasn’t sullen. Later, though, I pieced a few things together from the newspaper accounts and from conversations—call them that—I had with the police officers who’d been sent out to the bridges.

Officer Dhomnaill, who was born in Ireland and still retained the accent, told me about my mother. I tried talking her down, he said. You try and make the person in distress confide what makes them happy in life. You try and work with that if at all possible. See what I mean? And I’m sorry I failed. Very sorry in the end I failed. I could see that Officer Dhomnaill was honestly shaken.

Didn’t she at least say goodbye to me? I asked. Because she didn’t leave a note.

Being so fraught as your mother was, he said, and what with the wind high on that bridge making it so difficult to catch every last word. But I think she said, ‘I suppose this will be all over the radio. No matter. I have nothing to be ashamed about.’

Okay. All right, then. Thank you.

My job’s hardly all peaches and cream, Dhomnaill said. Your mother was my first jumper. Some police never get one. Don’t please let that word offend you. It’s just a police word.

I understand.

I’m sorry for what happened.

I’m afraid I shut the door in his face.

When it came to my father, an Officer Padgett delivered the report. He knocked, and I stepped out on the porch again. We shook hands and he said, I know Officer Dhomnaill stopped by earlier.

Yes, he did.

So I am speaking to Mr. Wyatt Hillyer, then. Correct?

Correct.

Wyatt, just let me say my piece. Officially say it. So I can get back to the station house, and say I said it, and do my paperwork. Leave you with your private thoughts, eh?

Fine.

He consulted his notebook. I arrived to the bridge at six-fifteen P.M., he said. "I climbed up close as possible to your father. He looked tired. To me he looked tired. He said, ‘For a long time I’ve had this private joke. So private I never told my wife. It’s what I want on my gravestone. What I want on my gravestone is: I just knew this would happen!’ He checked his notes again. And your father said, ‘Both women were damn interesting, each in their own way. There it is. Tell my son, Wyatt, to forgive me, please. Ask him to at least try.’ I asked him what’s his name, and he said Joseph Hillyer. So I said, ‘Joseph, do you like the steaks at Halloran’s?’ Since in our training we’re taught to try and persuade a person back into normal daily life. You mention a popular restaurant. Or you ask which church they attend. But your father let go of the bridge."

I stepped back inside and shut the door and watched through the window as Officer Padgett got into his car. There seemed no apparent reason, but he kept his siren on the whole way down the block.

Naturally, my aunt Constance Bates-Hillyer and my uncle Donald Hillyer drove in from Middle Economy to attend the funerals. They also stayed on to help me get things in order, settle my parents’ estate, so called. It consisted of 58 Robie Street, completely paid for, a modest life insurance settlement, $1,334 in a savings account, and my mother’s collection of radios. I have absolutely no idea of the worth of these radios or how to find out, my uncle said. We can look into that later.

All told, my mother had fifty-eight radios. The sound of radio voices or music had almost nightly drifted into my bedroom, the volume turned up when my parents wanted to deafen me to their quarreling. Among her collection was a 1938 International Kadette, a white Silvertone, four different Bakelite models, and a Philco Transitone. She had two Fada radios, a 1939 RCA from the Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco (she didn’t attend), a Zenith Model 835 and other wood-frame sets. She had a Crosley chrome radio, an RCA Victor La Siesta, which featured a colorful painting of a man in a sombrero sitting near a tall saguaro cactus with mountains and clouds in the distance. She had a Kadette Topper, an Emerson Snow White model that had an inlaid design of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (they were creepy), and three Detrola Pee Wee models, red and white, black, and blue and white. There were three small molded-plastic radios made by the F.A.D. Andrea Corporation, RCA and Crosley. She had a Bendix with a fake mottled mahogany casing, and that one had standard broadcast and shortwave bands and could operate on both AC and DC power. In the last three years of her life, my mother preferred novelty sets adorned with popular celebrities. For instance, there was a Stewart Warner set with a decal of the famous Dionne quintuplets, who’d been taken away from their parents but kept together in a foster home. My mother followed that story religiously. Heartbreaking, she said. It’s really too much to bear. On the decal, the Dionne quints appeared to be about three years old. They were standing together, all hope and smiles.

On September 15, my aunt and uncle and I took a walk down to the harbor. We each held a paper cup of coffee and stood looking at the ferries, tugs, freighters and ocean liners. The steamer Victoria was boarding. We were close enough to see the passengers walking up the gangway, and suddenly I thought I saw Reese Mac Isaac. It was unseasonably cold, and she was wearing a camelhair coat and black scarf, holding a suitcase, though I imagine her wardrobe trunk was already on board ship. At one point she turned as if to gaze back at Halifax, and I saw her face in full. It was Reese all right. I must’ve let out a gasp or made some other involuntary sound, because my aunt said, What’s the matter, dear?

Nothing, I said. Nothing at all. Except I was just thinking how grateful I am for all you’ve done. I haven’t been much of a nephew to you. I hardly ever visit.

That’s all right, dear, my aunt said. When you have visited, we always had a lovely time.

Wyatt, my uncle said, the way you’ve been looking at those passengers makes me think you’d like to be on that steamer to New York. I’ve noticed some handsome women getting on board.

"Donald, it sounds like it’s you wishes that for yourself," my aunt said.

Small laughter all around. I’ve really only traveled anywhere with my fencing team, I said. I’d like to see New York someday, though.

You’re going to need a trade, Nephew, my uncle said. Constance and I talked this over. Would you consider sleds and toboggans? I can use an apprentice. Someday I might leave the business to you, say it’s still thriving as it’s been lately. In fact, I’ve got orders backed up from three provinces, plus Maine and Vermont in the States.

Don’t forget that family from Sweden who stopped to ask directions and admired your handiwork, my aunt said.

They spent a good hour with us, he said.

Well, people from those countries—Sweden, Denmark, Norway and the like—appreciate snow toboggans, even in summer, my aunt said.

Lord help us, I’ve just had a sorry thought, my uncle said. What if that Swedish family wants to pay me in Swedish money?

I’d deal with the problem right away, my aunt said. Discuss it in a letter ahead of time. Then just hope the war lets a letter get to Sweden.

Sound advice, Constance, he said. I’ll want to set their minds at ease that our provincial banks know how to handle such a transaction.

The Victoria pulled in its gangway. Should I sell the house, do you think? I said. I mean, if I take you up on your generous offer.

"I wouldn’t

Reviews for What Is Left The Daughter

[laytonwoman3rd · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

As the daughter he has not seen since she was a very young child approaches her 21st birthday, Wyatt Hillyer attempts to explain to her--in a long letter--the events that led to her existence, and what she should know about his life both before and after her birth. He feels he has nothing else to leave her. Luminous prose, and a story full of heart.

[richardderus · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

 The Publisher Says: Howard Norman, widely regarded as one of this country's finest novelists, returns to the mesmerizing fictional terrain of his major books—The Bird Artist, The Museum Guard, and The Haunting of L—in this erotically charged and morally complex story.Seventeen-year-old Wyatt Hillyer is suddenly orphaned when his parents, within hours of each other, jump off two different bridges—the result of their separate involvements with the same compelling neighbor, a Halifax switchboard operator and aspiring actress. The suicides cause Wyatt to move to small-town Middle Economy to live with his uncle, aunt, and ravishing cousin Tilda.Setting in motion the novel's chain of life-altering passions and the wartime perfidy at its core is the arrival of the German student Hans Mohring, carrying only a satchel. Actual historical incidents—including a German U-boat's sinking of the Nova Scotia-Newfoundland ferry Caribou, on which Aunt Constance Hillyer might or might not be traveling—lend intense narrative power to Norman's uncannily layered story.Wyatt's account of the astonishing—not least to him—events leading up to his fathering of a beloved daughter spills out twenty-one years later. It's a confession that speaks profoundly of the mysteries of human character in wartime and is directed, with both despair and hope, to an audience of one.An utterly stirring novel. This is Howard Norman at his celebrated best.I CHECKED THIS BOOK OUT FROM THE LIBRARY. USE THEM OFTEN, THEY LIVE AND DIE ON OUR PATRONAGE.My Review: When an author of Howard Norman's stature uses the epistolary storytelling technique, the chances of disappointment...always higher when this difficult-to-master form is used...shrink back into insignificance. As expected, then, this read was a master class in what and how to make of the epistles in question.Wyatt's parents aren't alive as we meet him. I got a strong intimation that he, looking back on a whole family's life pretty passionately (if unhappily) lived, didn't feel they were alive before they each committed suicide for mixed-up love of the same woman. If I had to guess (Author Norman doesn't over-explain anything, ever) I'd say Wyatt's life more complicated than most from the very beginning. His letter to his largely unseen daughter, however, is all about putting forward the facts of her paternal family's life as he recalls them. It felt to me as though Author Norman's telling of the tale was direct and honest; so Wyatt, then, wasn't aware even in retrospect of his life's peculiarly high levels of complexity.In The Highland Book of Platitudes, Marlais, there's an entry that reads, "Not all ghosts earn our memory in equal measure." I think about this sometimes. I think especially about the word "earn," because it implies an ongoing willful effort on the part of the dead, so that if you believe the platitude, you have to believe in the afterlife, don't you? Following that line of thought, there seem to be certain people—call them ghosts—with the ability to insinuate themselves into your life with more belligerence and exactitude than others—it's their employment and expertise.With all the arousal hormones Wyatt's story begins with, and given the fact that he's writing to his twentyish daughter, this is a story pretty much guaranteed to be about the erotic charge that a messy life provides and more importantly about its costs. Wyatt's unrequited love for a person in his family circle who is not a relative is the stuff of life. I suspect it was deeply relatable to anyone who's ever been part of a blended or a found family. The object of his affections, herself an added person (one whose family isn't a birth family), falls madly in love with someone socially inconvenient: A German émigré, and this story's set during World War II. So there's another level of relatability, as what adult has made it this far without an unrequited love?My whole life, Marlais, I've had difficulty coming up with the right word to use in a given situation, but at least I know what the right word would have been once I hear it.The problem this inability brings with it, or perhaps the character trait it points up, is that of passivity. Wyatt is not a doer but a done-to. Nothing that happens in his (passive, epistolary) account of his life to the daughter he doesn't know is as a result of his actions. The one truly, damningly awful thing he's involved in, and for which he is now seeking his daughter's forgiveness, is a result of his inaction, his inability to stand for something.I realize I've sometimes raced over the years like an ice skater fleeing the devil on a frozen river.–and–I refuse any longer to have my life defined by what I haven't told you.But what he does, this man of inaction, is write the young woman a letter. How typical of him...make an effort but make it ineffectually. What a letter does is enable him to remain inactive yet still offer, as if from behind a wall, an accounting of the young woman in question's heritage. What happens as a result? We never know; Author Norman's story is of Wyatt, not Marlais.You'll have to decide if that's a deal-maker or -breaker for you. I fall on the line between those poles. I need to feel a story is complete, fulfilling its brief, to really lose myself in it. The musicality of Author Norman's line-by-line creation can draw one along for a good while but there's always that need to have some story pay-off for me. I was not all the way satisfied...I wasn't dissatisfied...there was a strange liminality in this tale of passive inaction's consequences. I would recommend you read the book. I wouldn't recommend it to you, however, of you're in the mood for a propulsive plot-driven thrillride. Does the read repay the effort? It did for me—mostly.I think Author Norman turned me into Wyatt!

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

Excellent story with interesting characters. Perhaps the plot stretched believability?

[tshrope · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I think this book is really 3.5 stars, but this is not a choice on this rating system. So I err towards the lesser (since I’m not sure if this book will have made a lasting impression-only time will tell.)

First off it is really difficult to talk about this book without giving away all of the plot lines. Suffice it to say quite a bit happens to Wyatt Hillyer, and most of it is bad.

Wyatt is mostly a bystander in his own life, and because of that is rather pathetic, in yet, we still empathize with him, a sign of a good writer. Norman is a succinct writer who tells this multi-layered story in less than 300 pages, complete with 2 suicides, a murder, a love triangle and a love child (not born out of the love triangle). He knows how to hold the reader’s attention and although this is not a “suspense-thriller” novel there is suspense and tension throughout the story. And lastly he has a dry, wiry sense of humor which was unexpected but surely welcomed.

I listened to this on audio and Bronson Pinchot was the reader. He did a fine job and I would definitely recommend it for a fast listen (only 7 hours)/read.

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

It’s a given—Howard Norman always reveals his substantial humanity, elegance, humor, and talent in his beautiful writing. With this novel, he also knows how to get your attention from the start. Our main character/narrator is Wyatt Hillyer, a seventeen-year-old who loses both his parents within hours of each other. They both jumped to their deaths from separate bridges, because of their love for the very same woman. Wyatt then ended up living with his aunt and uncle in Middle Economy, Nova Scotia. Wyatt works diligently making toboggans and sleds with his uncle Donald, and becomes fixated on his adopted cousin, the ravishing Tilda. (I love the use of the language around the word “ravishing” in the book—it’s very seductive.) Unfortunately, for Wyatt, after he fell madly in love with her, Tilda meets, and quickly falls for and marries Hans, a young German student. The story takes place during WWII and involves the death of a well-liked local woman who dies when a German U-boat sinks a coastal ferry. Because of the war, tensions and prejudices against Germans were already high, but it rose to the level of violence with the sinking. When Wyatt becomes involved as an accessory to a murder, he ends up in prison for a number of years. Norman’s writing depicts all these feelings of love and hate in a very believable way that runs throughout the book. Norman never seems to misstep in his writing. I always feel for his characters and believe their actions make sense to them at the time. The entire book is narrated by Wyatt as a message to his 21-year-old daughter Marlais, a daughter that he hasn’t seen in almost twenty years. This book came out about a decade ago, and while I love all his writing, his latest book, The Ghost Clause, was one my very favorite books that I’ve read this year.

[timbazzett · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wow! This little book with the odd title packs one helluva punch. WHAT IS LEFT THE DAUGHTER was recommended by a writer friend whose wife is from Nova Scotia where this novel is set. They both enjoy books about that region. Me too - I'm a big fan of the fiction of Linden MacIntyre's Cape Breton trilogy. So now there's this Howard Norman guy, who it turns out isn't even Canadian, who writes just as compellingly about that area.WILtD starts out with a double suicide, Halifax bridge jumpers - the parents of narrator, Wyatt Hillyer, who were both secretly involved with the beautiful next-door neighbor. Then 17 year-old Wyatt drops out of school and moves to Middle Economy, a small coastal village, to live with his aunt and uncle, accepting an apprenticeship with his uncle, a maker of sleds and toboggans. It is 1942 and Canada is at war. Wyatt falls in love with his cousin, Tilda (who is adopted), but she falls in love with a German student, Hans Mohring, setting the stage for a dark drama of crime and punishment. But probably not what you'd think. And there is a surprising amount of humor here too, something you don't normally expect in a tale of murder, savagery and retribution. But Norman pull it all off in a seemingly effortless, casual manner, as he spins out his dark take of wartime tragedy, told by Wyatt from a vantage point of some 25 years later. I could not believe how he kept me smiling and chuckling in unexpected places in the midst of all this tragedy. Quite a talent. And he kept me up way past my bedtime turning pages to the bitter - well, not really 'bitter,' actually quite satisfying - end. I don't want to give any more away about what happens here, 'cause I wouldn't want to spoil it for other readers. But I'm certainly glad I heard about this book, and this Howard Norman guy, 'cause I love the way he writes. And I loved this book too. I've really gotta read some more of his stuff. I see he has written a memoir about what appears to be a very peripatetic sort of life. On my list. In the meantime will tell all my reader friends about him, and about this book - VERY highly recommended. - Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER

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

I really enjoyed listening to the audio version of this book. Rich characters, poignant yet funny, and set in Nova Scotia, a place I know well enough to feel like I was in the story.

[bookmarque · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A quiet story about a man trying to live with the circumstances of his life; some he's responsible for and others he's not. The daughter referred to in the title is his own, as the entire narrative is a letter to her, but she's not the only daughter with a less than perfect relationship with her father. Wyatt's story starts when his parents commit suicide by leaping from different bridges within hours of each other. Old enough to live on his own, he instead chooses to live with his aunt and uncle in a remote village in Nova Scotia. There he meets his cousin Tilda and falls in love.Over the next decades there is a lot of loss, but also moments of satisfaction and serenity for Wyatt. The sled and toboggan business is so quaint and such an acquired skill that I think it's an excellent stand in for Wyatt's temperament. Given that he never really gets the girl, is sent to prison, made so uncomfortable at home that he leaves town and is estranged from his daughter, you'd think that would make for a bitter, angry person. Wyatt is sanguine though; accepting what he's done himself and what happens at the hands of others. Maybe that's what kept this from being a really emotional book for me; that Wyatt seemed so utterly controlled and unaffected. The story was told skillfully and had many surprises so I will seek out more by this author.

[christineellei · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Wyatt Hillyer has been estranged from his daughter for most of her life. One night in 1967 he decides to sit down and write a letter to send his daughter on her 21st birthday. The letter tells the story of his life, and thereby her life. It is difficult to describe this book. It has moments of dark humour (both Mike’s parents died on the same night, by jumping off separate bridges because of their guilt over an affair … with the same person), moments of desperation (the accidental killing of a german student during WWII during the war-fearing frenzy in the Maritimes) and it is populated by a cast of ecccentric characters. It all combines well into a memorable tale.

I have not read Mr. Norman before, but if this is an example of his story telling ability I will definitely be picking up more.

[wareagle78 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The story of a man's life, told in retrospect through the device of a letter to his long-unseen daughter, Marlais. Wyatt Hillyer wants to share his story with Marlais, feeling that may be the most important thing he has to leave her. Set in Nova Scotia, the story begins when the Wyatt's parents commit suicide, separately but on the same day, because they are each in love with the same woman. From this start it seems inevitable that the story will veer into florid emotion, but it never does. Despite being a tale of love, loss, rage and heartbreak set against the background of World War II, it is shared in a dispassionate voice that encouraged the reader, well at least encouraged me, to build my own emotions into the reading. The orphan Wyatt is taken in by his Aunt Constance and Uncle Donald. Immediately he falls in love with their adopted daughter Tilda, and this is his driving emotion during the story. Unfortunately, Tilda is not taken with Wyatt, and before he can declare himself, she falls in love with a German college student. This drives her father, already obsessed about the war, to dangerously instability. It's obvious that this will end badly, and it does.Wyatt is a sympathetic character throughout, never moaning his losses, taking life as it comes, enjoying his scones or his pub visit but never to excess. He and his story will stay with me for quite a while.

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

Certainly one of the most eloquent stories of unrequited love ever written.

[sushitori · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Interesting history about Germany's attempt to invade Canada during WWII and prejudice against German immigrants. Main character is too passive and the writing is not riveting.

[casualfriday_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This novel is written as a letter from a father, Wyatt Hillyer, to his long-estranged daughter Marliss, as he tries to atone or or at least explain the sins and failures of his life. Wyatt's life story includes adultery, suicide, murder and war, which should have made the book gripping, but it didn't quite grip me. The tone was extremely sad, but more than sad: hopeless. Wyatt sees his life as a series of failures and it's hard to disagree with him: he comes across as maddeningly passive and essentially mediocre in love, in his job, even as a criminal. I enjoyed the rich setting of World War II-era Nova Scotia, but I can't say I "enjoyed" anything else about it. It has stayed with me, though.

[tangledthread · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Another of Howard Norman's books which takes place in the Canadian Maritime Provinces. The time is at the beginning of WWII until the mid 1960's. Wyatt Hillyer is orphaned at 17 when both of his parents jump off separate bridges on the same day because they are both romantically involved with the same female neighbor. Wyatt is then taken in by his uncle and aunt and their adopted daughter, Tilda, who is close in age to Wyatt. The book is written in epistolary format as a long letter of account to his long absent daughter. There are several gruesome deaths in the story and not much to redeem most of the characters' actions. And the dialogue is often stilted and awkward (he said....she said....)This isn't Howard Norman's best work. I'd suggest starting with the Bird Artist for a better sampling of his writing and story telling.

[kraaivrouw · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Simply stunning. Subtle, evocative, and filled with undercurrents so strong that at times you may feel like you're going to be pulled under, What is Left the Daughter is a beautiful meditation on family, unrequited love, prejudice and fear.This epistolary novel does justice to its form. The narrator (and letter writer) is Wyatt whose story is bookended by two suicides and the detritus of a drowned U-boat. Set in Nova Scotia during WWII, Norman uses real life U-boat incidents off the coast of Canada to build dread. They are always there, hovering in the background, waiting to attack. The War is always there, too, adding to the dread and to the terrible events in the book.Many terrible things happen in this book, yet Norman does not treat them melodramatically. His narrator's tone is always matter-of-fact and this makes these events more real. Just as in real life, you do what you have to in the moment, and afterward you learn to live with it (or not). Wyatt's is a life that is punctuated by great sadness and loss, and still he goes on - one foot in front of the other - just like the rest of us.The book reminds me in some ways of Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson. Both are haunting, lyrical, and filled with water, you can open either book to any page and find breathtaking sentences on each page. It was an abiding pleasure to be in the hands of such a skilled author. Highly recommended.

[sjurban_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I liked this book, but felt a little cheated. The dust jacket led me expect a different story than the one that was told. That being said, I enjoyed reading about the effects of WWII in Halifax, Canada. I love Halifax as a backdrop, it's such an interesting area. The personal conflicts kept me interested all the way through.

[mckall08 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The charm of this novel is in the telling. Double suicide, a sex scandal, a war story with possible spies, a murder, unrequted love, repentence are recounted in a letter by Wyatt Hillyer. His parents suicides set in motion the subsequent events that occur and are explained and resolved over the years. If there are heroics, they are embedded in kindness, humanity, endurance, and the acceptance of life on life's terms.Small town life in Eastern Canada is portrayed without sentimentality and without including overdrawn "zany" characters.If Hollywood ever makes this a movie, it's a guarantee they'll ruin it.

[thornestaff · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A fiction memoir, this book reads like a "tell-all" and is interesting and mildly compelling. I kept wondering throughout the book whether there would be a "reveal" that indicated the victim was really not so good after all.

[sherylhendrix · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A fiction memoir, this book reads like a "tell-all" and is interesting and mildly compelling. I kept wondering throughout the book whether there would be a "reveal" that indicated the victim was really not so good after all.

[thelostentwife · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

In a letter to his daughter, Marlais, Wyatt Hillyer begins with the following line: "I refuse any longer to have my life defined by what I haven't told you." And I was drug, hook, line and sinker, into the story as told by the man himself in a 200+ page letter to his daughter. Wyatt Hillyer's life is a jumbled mess of tragedy - from the double-suicide of his parents to the loss of his one love during a time when Germans in Nova Scotia, even the innocent ones, are scorned and treated horribly. This book is a fantastic look at the Canadian life during the second world war, touching on the fears of old men hunched over their radios and whispering about the U-Boats to the prejudices of the young over-zealots, attacking even those speaking with an accent. And through this letter there is one, main, important theme: that of a father telling his daughter all she needs to know about her past and her fathers past. This is no story of redemption - Wyatt's actions he claims full responsibility for and I appreciated that so very much. In a book that could have been sappy and full of self-pity, I found none of that. It was refreshing to read a character who was so open and honest with himself and the others in his life, so frank when it came to talking about the deeds he's done and the crimes he's committed. The author Frank Delaney (Shannon, Ireland ) said "If your narrator is first person, have them make errors; it can endear them to the reader." and Howard Norman showcases this in fine form. WHAT IS LEFT THE DAUGHTER is a beautifully written, heart-rending novel that will have me thinking about its story for days to come.

[hazel1123_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

As previous reviewers have indicated the story begins with a double suicide - parents killing themselves because they both loved the same woman. The teenaged son went to live with and aunt and uncle, fell in love with their daughter, and a lot of very bad things happened after that. The book is full of tragedy but I did not find is sad. There isn't a lot of drama in the book - especially considering the rather horrificic circumstances that make up the story. The book was very much about ordinary people 'making do' with the events life has given them. Previous reviewers have said there were no heros in this story. I don't think I agree with that. The heros are the ordinary people living their lives. I loved this book and could hardly put it down.

[frisbeesage · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

What is Left the Daughter is one, long letter written by Wyatt Hillyer to his daughter Marlais. He writes because "I refuse any longer to have my life defined by what I haven't told you." The story begins with his parents double suicide over their love for the same woman. It goes downhill from there. I expect grief and horror from a book set during the war, but usually that is accompanied by great human courage and sacrifice. This story seemed to be all senseless acts of violence and grief inflicted on innocent people by their loved ones. There were no heroes here and I didn't find much redemption either. The characters had little depth and I never felt like I understood them. Not a book for me, but it has been well reviewed by others. Perhaps if you are interested in the history of this time then the perspective of the war from Nova Scotia could be unique.

[mckait · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

34.[ What is Left the Daughter] by Howard NormanI have to admit that at first I had a difficult time with what seemed to me to be short clipped sentences in the dialogue. I have never heard anyone speak like that for an extended period. Once I was able to get past that, I was drawn deeply into this story of a star crossed family in Nova Scotia during WWII. We immediately learn that Wyatt Hillyer is suddenly orphaned when both of his parents leap from different bridges on the same day. Thus begins the story of Wyatt's life. The story is in the form of a letter being written from Wyatt to Marlais that is both the history of his life, and perhaps a plea for understanding and forgiveness.The characters are all so compelling,quirky and frankly unusual that I could not help but be drawn in.Things take an understandably tense turn when Wyatt's cousin Tilda becomes involved with a German . Hans Mohring is a student, his family does not support Hitler, and in fact moved to Denmark to escape his reign of terror. Hans is not embraced by Tilda's family, nor accepted by most in the small town where they live. The pace of this book is somewhat slow, but it seems to fit Wyatt's quiet and painfully honest narrative .Bottom line is this is a book worth reading, a story worth hearing and in fact, I suspect that you will be unwilling to put it down once you begin. I know I was.