People
“Astonishing in its depth and breath, it artfully weaves one family’s struggles into the fabric of the Cold War.”
Seattle Times
"Beautifully crafted … To submit to … THE WAY THE CROW FLIES is to be both transported and haunted."
New Jersey Courier Post
"Heartbreaking, startling, profound."
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"Ambitious … interesting …tender, generous …[THE WAY THE CROW FLIES] is both an unblinking and a big hearted book."
Booklist (starred review)
“MacDonald’s most impressive accomplishment is her uncanny ability … to vividly re-create the wonder, humor, and fears of childhood.”
San Diego Union-Tribune
"Rich and complex … hard to put down … MacDonald deserves another prize for THE WAY THE CROW FLIES."
New York Times Book Review
"Both terrifying and moving."
Booklist
"MacDonald’s most impressive accomplishment is her uncanny ability … to vividly re-create the wonder, humor, and fears of childhood."
People Magazine
"Astonishing in its depth and breath, it artfully weaves one family’s struggles into the fabric of the Cold War."
New York Times Book Review
“Both terrifying and moving.”
Seattle Times
“Beautifully crafted … To submit to … THE WAY THE CROW FLIES is to be both transported and haunted.”
San Diego Union-Tribune
“Rich and complex … hard to put down … MacDonald deserves another prize for THE WAY THE CROW FLIES.”
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Ambitious … interesting …tender, generous …[THE WAY THE CROW FLIES] is both an unblinking and a big hearted book.”
New Jersey Courier Post
“Heartbreaking, startling, profound.”
The New York Times
A novel of the cold war whose main characters bear the name of McCarthy? Sure. As we are cautioned in Ann-Marie MacDonald's new novel, some things can only be ''caught by the corner of the eye. Like phosphorescence in a cave; look away and you will see.'' And so these characters hail from Canada, have nothing to do with Senator Joe, and their baby-boom family gives us a parallax view of sputnik and the Cuban missile crisis, the arms race and the space race, the brain drain from East to West, even military intelligence games, from the shadow of empire. — Art Winslow
The Washington Post
The Way the Crow Flies is a brilliant portrayal of child abuse and its consequences, but it is much more than that. It is a fiercely intelligent look at childhood, marriage, families, the 1960s, the Cold War and the fear and isolation that are part of the human condition...it is not only beautifully written; it is equally beautiful in its conception, its compassion, its wisdom, even in its anger and pain. Don't miss it.— Patrick Anderson
Publishers Weekly
A little girl's body, lying in a field, is the first image in this absorbing, psychologically rich second novel by the Canadian author of the bestselling Fall on Your Knees. Then the focus shifts to the appealing McCarthy family. It's 1962, and Jack, a career officer in the RCAF, has just been assigned to the Centralia air force base in Ontario. Jack's wife, Mimi, is a domestic goddess; their children, Mike, 12, and Madeleine, 8, are sweet, loving kids. This is an idyllically happy family, but its fate will be threatened by a secret mission Jack undertakes to watch over a defector from Soviet Russia, who will eventually be smuggled into the U. S. to work on the space program. Jack is an intensely moral, decent guy, so it takes him a while to realize that the man is a former Nazi who commanded slave labor in Peenemande, where the German rockets were built in an underground cave. Meanwhile, Madeleine is one of several fourth graders who are being molested by their teacher, and one of them winds up dead in that field. McDonald is an expert storyteller who can sustain interest even when the pace is slow, as it is initially, providing an intricate recreation of life on a military base in the 1960s. As the narrative darkens, however, it becomes a chronicle of innocence betrayed. The exquisite irony is that both Madeleine and her father, unbeknownst to each other, are keeping secrets involving the day of the murder. The subtheme is the cynical decision by the guardians of the U.S. space program to shelter Nazi war criminals in order to win the race with the Russians. The finale comes as a thunderclap, rearranging the reader's vision of everything that has gone before. It's a powerful story, delicately layered with complex secrets, told with a masterful command of narrative and a strong moral message. 8-city author tour. (Oct. 1) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
An ambitious tale of a once-happy family changed forever by one year in the 1960s when the father's participation in Cold War intrigue goes tragically awry. Bestselling MacDonald (the Oprah-picked Fall on Your Knees, 1997) interweaves Cold War tensions and the space race to give her story an intriguing, if at times overreaching, plot, but that also makes for a long and padded read. The McCarthy family is posted back to Canada in 1962 after serving in Germany. The Cold War is at its height, the Cuban Missile Crisis is heating up, as is the race to the moon, and Jack McCarthy has been picked to head an officer's training school in Ontario. His French-Canadian wife Mimi and their two children, Mike and Madeleine, are happy to be home, but must soon face unexpected challenges. Eight-year-old Madeleine is close to Jack, but she doesn't tell him or Mimi about her teacher Mr. March, who makes her and other girls stay after school to perform sexually abusive "exercises." Jack soon has his secrets, too, when an old friend, British diplomat Simon Crawford, asks him to look after a defector, an East German scientist, now in transit to the US. Then Claire, a classmate of Madeleine's, is brutally raped and murdered, and both Madeleine and Jack face a moral crisis. Rick, the adopted son of a Holocaust survivor, is arrested, and Jack could save him-but that would blow his cover. And Madeleine won't lie, as requested, about where she saw Rick that day. Rick is sentenced, and a stricken Jack, who never recovers from the guilt, requests a transfer. Madeleine, a lesbian now in her 30s, takes up the narrative. Though a successful comedian, she's suddenly experiencing panic attacks that lead her to find outwho really killed Claire that long-ago afternoon. Strained at times, but, still, a grand, sweeping saga. Agent: Andrew Wylie/Wylie Agency
