Clara Callan: A Novel
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In a small town in Canada, Clara Callan reluctantly takes leave of her sister, Nora, who is bound for New York. It's a time when the growing threat of fascism in Europe is a constant worry, and people escape from reality through radio and the movies. Meanwhile, the two sisters — vastly different in personality, yet inextricably linked by a shared past — try to find their places within the complex web of social expectations for young women in the 1930s.
While Nora embarks on a glamorous career as a radio-soap opera star, Clara, a strong and independent-minded woman, struggles to observe the traditional boundaries of a small and tight-knit community without relinquishing her dreams of love, freedom, and adventure. However, things aren't as simple as they appear — Nora's letters eventually reveal life in the big city is less exotic than it seems, and the tranquil solitude of Clara's life is shattered by a series of unforeseeable events. These twists of fate require all of Clara's courage and strength, and finally put the seemingly unbreakable bond between the sisters to the test.
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Richard B. Wright. (2009). Clara Callan: A Novel. HarperCollins.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Richard B. Wright. 2009. Clara Callan: A Novel. HarperCollins.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Richard B. Wright, Clara Callan: A Novel. HarperCollins, 2009.
MLA Citation (style guide)Richard B. Wright. Clara Callan: A Novel. HarperCollins, 2009.
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In a small town in Canada, Clara Callan reluctantly takes leave of her sister, Nora, who is bound for New York. It's a time when the growing threat of fascism in Europe is a constant worry, and people escape from reality through radio and the movies. Meanwhile, the two sisters — vastly different in personality, yet inextricably linked by a shared past — try to find their places within the complex web of social expectations for young women in the 1930s.
While Nora embarks on a glamorous career as a radio-soap opera star, Clara, a strong and independent-minded woman, struggles to observe the traditional boundaries of a small and tight-knit community without relinquishing her dreams of love, freedom, and adventure. However, things aren't as simple as they appear — Nora's letters eventually reveal life in the big city is less exotic than it seems, and the tranquil solitude of Clara's life is shattered by a series of unforeseeable events. These twists of fate require all of Clara's courage and strength, and finally put the seemingly unbreakable bond between the sisters to the test.
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"CLARA CALLAN is one of those rare novels that one might justifiably call a masterpiece." — — Jay Parini, author of THE APPRENTICE LOVER
"Superb... Traces with understated compassion ... the separate histories of two sisters." — Kirkus Reviews (Starred)
"A singularly poignant story about the depravity of human beings [and] their compassion and amazing capacity to endure." — Times Literary Supplement (London)
"A compelling story of perseverance and quiet triumph." — Washington Post
"Entertaining." — Boston Globe
"An amazing feat [that] remind some readers of the American poet Elizabeth Bishop." — Publishers Weekly
"A classic page-turner." — Quill & Quire
"A master story-teller." — The Ottawa Citizen (Canada)
"A compelling narrative and characters that brim with humanity." — Winnipeg Free Press
"A near-perfect miniature: precisely written, true in voice and setting." — Toronto Star (on THE AGE OF LONGING)
"Mr. Wright writes with the apparent ease of breathing, and he is both touching and very very funny." — New York Times (on THE AGE OF LONGING)
"As compelling as any Margaret Atwood or as incisive as a Robertson Davies.... [An] invigoratingly original work." — Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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September 16, 2002
Canadian author Wright (The Age of Longing) has published eight novels, but remains unknown to most readers in the States. His most recent offering, which won Canada's 2001 Governor General's Award and the Giller Prize, could change that. The story's conceit is simple enough: Clara Callan is a single "schoolteacher who likes to write poetry," left to fend for herself in the tiny town of Whitfield, Ontario, after her father dies and her sister, Nora, takes off for New York City. The novel is made up of a series of letters and journal entries written between 1934 and 1939. During that time, Nora becomes a radio soap opera star, while Clara loses her faith in God, is raped by a vagrant, has an abortion, engages in an affair with a married man named Frank and finally gives birth to a daughter. Nora and the lesbian writer of her soap opera, Evelyn Dowling, are Clara's main correspondents, but the news she relates in her letters (such as "grippe and calloused hands"—although she also shows concern for the world's more serious injustices) contrasts with the darker events recorded in her journal entries. Wright has accomplished an amazing feat by allowing his characters to emerge, fully formed and true, without authorial intrusion into their intimate psychological world, revitalizing the epistolary form in the process. This novel will remind some readers of the American poet Elizabeth Bishop, herself an avid correspondent, and of the way in which the elegant surfaces of her letters sometimes cracked open to reveal demons lurking below.
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While Nora embarks on a glamorous career as a radio-soap opera star, Clara, a strong and independent-minded woman, struggles to observe the traditional boundaries of a small and tight-knit community without relinquishing her dreams of love, freedom, and adventure. However, things aren't as simple as they appear — Nora's letters eventually reveal life in the big city is less exotic than it seems, and the tranquil solitude of Clara's life is shattered by a series of unforeseeable events. These twists of fate require all of...
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