chapters.indigo.ca: What They Wanted: Donna Morrissey: Books

About this Book

Format:Hardcover

Dimensions:336 Pages, 6.4 x 9.35 x 1.25 in

Published:September 9, 2008

Publisher:Penguin Group Canada

The following ISBNs are associated with this title:
ISBN - 10:0670044784
ISBN - 13:9780670044788

From the Publisher

In her new novel, What They Wanted, awardwinning author Donna Morrissey explores both new and familiar terrain: the wild shores of a Newfoundland outport and the equally wild environment of an Alberta oil rig. After Sylvanus Now suffers a heart attack, family tensions come to the fore: daughter Sylvie must deal with her feelings of estrangement from her mother, Addie, while her brother Chris, a natural artist, frustrates his dreams by going to work on an oil rig. A novel about uilt,responsibility, tragedy, and the enduring ties of family, this is vintage Donna Morrissey.

About the Author

Donna Morrissey is the author of three award-winning novels, Kit's Law, Downhill Chance, Sylvanus Now and a screenplay, Clothesline Patch, which won a Gemini Award. Kit's Law, her first novel, won the 2000 Canadian Booksellers Association Libris Award as well as the Winifred Holtby Prize, an international award that recognizes the best in regional fiction, and the American Library Association's Alex Award. It was shortlisted for the Chapters Books in Canada First Novel Award, the Atlantic Provinces Booksellers' Choice Award, and the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, which is sponsored by the Writers' Federation of Nova Scotia. Both Downhill Chance and Sylvanus award also won the Raddall Award. Her work has been translated into several different languages. Morrissey grew up in the Beaches, a small fishing outport in Newfoundland, and now lives in Halifax.

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MacFly , 18 months ago
39. What They Wanted - Donna Morrissey

MacFly , 17 months ago
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Average Customer Rating:
Reviews from the Community5 Reviews

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Kelly
- 2 people found this helpful
Laughed & Cried...

17 months ago

Wow...what a powerful read! Morrissey's descriptive writing is spectacular. I could feel the cold NorthEast wind whipping up on the wharf, could hear the whining of the oil rigs...could smell the pillow that she sobbed into. As a Newfoundlander who was raised in the outports, I love how she so accurately captures the patterns of speech & the colloquialisms that we have. There is no 'mocking' of us in her literature, rather a warm appreciation of who and what we are. A great read for anyone.
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Raymond Godfrey
- 1 person found this helpful
Fantastic!

17 months ago

Donna Morrissey must be one of Canada's best kept secrets. She just keeps getting better and better. Her latest book "What They Wanted" is another great work of inter-personnal relationships. Her characters feel so real and vital.
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MacFly
- 1 person found this helpful
Another Solid Morrissey Book

17 months ago

What We Wanted is Donna Morrissey’s follow-up novel to Sylvanus Now. While some follow-up novels can only be appreciated if both books have been read, this novel stands solidly on its own regardless of the history of the reader. The story picks up with the grown children of Sylvanus as they begin to make their own way in the world. The story moves from the shores of Newfoundland to the oilfields of Alberta as two of the children leave home. I enjoyed this book. The complexity of life within a… + read more
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Ismet Ugursal
- 2 people found this helpful
This is a truly great book!

2 years ago

Everything that made Donna Morrissey's previous books great are stronger in this truly powerful book. "What They Wanted" addresses the many levels of human struggle with self and with those one loves in a crescendo that literally left me breathless at the end. It is impossible not to associate with the characters, their emotions and dreams, or not to feel their strength and pain. This is a book that has so much humanity and personal struggle in it that it made me wonder how it was possible to… + read more
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Frank Furlano
- Indigo Employee
- 2 comments
- 2 people found this helpful
Donna Morrissey's latest

2 years ago

Having not read any of Morrissey's previous books I went into this book with a clean slate. I was pleasantly surprised by the book, even though it started slowly, and slightly aimless. By mid book I was interested, mostly due to the charactization of Sylvie the main character, and her relationship to her mother. The most compelling part of the book is the ties between family members, as they are all very different. Sylvie and her mother being one; but also between Sylvie and her father… + read more
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Comments on this review:
- Bruce Trainor
  
  By his own admission he has read none of the other books by Donna Morrissey. How can he recommend them?
  
  2 years ago
- Frank Furlano
  
  Fair enough. But I do hear from many other people that Sylvanus Now is better, but I can't speak to that myself.
  
  2 years ago