Picking a book for my book club is serious business. The way our group works, we have one opportunity to pick and host per year and so you don’t want to choose a dud. The women in our group our merciless [cough] The White Iris [/cough] and it sucks to be on the receiving end of a book choice gone bad. Usually I spend a lot of time choosing my book. This year I thought I would choose something from my own massive tbr pile, but the problem was that every book I selected from my shelf was unavailable at local stores. In the end, I headed over to Indigo to peruse the shelves. The only criteria at that point was that there were enough copies on the shelf for the members of my club. In the end, I chose a book I’d never heard of but which was plastered with accolades and a bright red sticker proclaiming that it had been longlisted for the Giller in 2012. Feeling confident of its pedigree, I brought home Lauren B. Davis’s novel Our Daily Bread. Davis’s novel owes some of its gripping story to the real-life Golers from South Mountain, Nova Scotia. But Davis is quick to point out that Our Daily Bread is not ABOUT the Golers. While it’s true that Davis’s fictional Erskine family shares some similarities with the real-life family, that is only one small part of this mesmerizing and beautifully-written tale. Albert Erskine is not like the rest of his violent, drug and alcohol addicted, sexually deviant family. He has already separated himself from the pack by building himself a small shack away from the main buildings on his family’s “compound” on North Mountain. His uncle Lloyd comments on Albert’s ‘otherness’ by saying: “You don’t act like the family at all now, do you? Don’t come visiting. Live in your little shack. Course maybe you have your own parties. That it? You have kids come to see you?” It’s near impossible to trace the branches of Albert’s family tree. Suffice it to say, there are a lot of younger kids with questionable DNA and Albert regards them with a mixture of annoyance and helplessness. When ten-year-old Toots stops by his shack looking for food, Albert ponders the sticky question: “What would she be like, if she’d been raised in some other place?” Albert often wonders how he might be different if his circumstances had been different. It’s a painful road for both Albert and the reader to travel. Down in Gideon is another family with their own struggles: Tom and Patty Evans and their children Ivy and Bobby. Tom is a good man. He grew up in Gideon and is well-liked and well-known. His wife, Patty, is another story. For starters, she’s from away. And although Tom seems desperately in love with her, she seems detached and unhappy. No matter what Tom does, it’s not good enough. As the tension in the household escalates, Ivy and Bobby seek shelter elsewhere. For Ivy, it is with the benign widow Dorothy Carlisle; Bobby’s new friend and confidant turns out to be Albert Erskine. The intersection of these lives makes up the bulk of the narrative of Our Daily Bread. I am guessing that some of the women in my group will have difficulty with the graphic (but never, imo, gratuitous) nature of the subject matter. As a mother, it’s certainly upsetting to see children in peril. The interesting thing about this book is that peril means different things to different people. Is Ivy’s falling-apart life any less horrible because she has a warm bed to sleep in? The impact Bobby and Albert have on each other’s lives is astounding and heart-breaking, too. Bobby is filled with a fifteen year old’s rage and angst and it isn’t until the novel’s powerful climax that he understands the value of his father’s love. It truly is the mark of a great novel when you can empathize with so many of the characters. I loved Ivy’s resolute determination and Albert’s jaded hope and Dorothy’s refusal to bend to the will of small-town politics. And I loved Tom. A lot. As he copes with his unraveling marriage, as he asked himself the question, “How can I ever trust myself again?” I just saw so much of myself in him. But, ultimately, it all comes back to Albert. I so desperately wanted him to get in his truck and just go. I will be thinking about him for a long time. Our Daily Bread isn’t ‘light’ reading, but this is a book that will stay with you long after the final page is turned. As expected, our discussion of this book was lively and we were SO excited to be able to Tweet with Ms. Davis about her book. You can read some of that conversation at the bootom of my review here: http://theludicreader.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/our-daily-bread-laurenbdavis/

This book was incredible. Usually when I read, a book is gobbled up within a matter of days to a week. This book was different. I made a point of putting it down and let what I had read digest. It took me nearly two weeks to finish it. I marveled at how Lauren B. Davis was able to expose the attitudes of society toward "others." I could relate to many of the characters' traits and able to understand and feel what they did or felt. I am a mother to two sons; one successful and independent and the other with so much potential, but troubled. Albert crept into my heart- he needed someone to care and believe in him. Dorothy did just that. Albert needed to feel he mattered to someone and he found that in his own way, (though misdirected) by befriending Bobby. Then there was Ivy...the little girl that lives inside many of us- I wonder if her mother Patty was once like her and if Ivy will find herself continually searching...

Once again, through a story that compels and characters who engage, Lauren B. Davis takes the reader into some dark, disturbing places with OUR DAILY BREAD, her fifth book. Her characters seem to ask, “What would YOU do in this situation, if this were you?” And maybe what Davis is saying, without saying it at all: “This IS us at times.” Yet, there’s always a little light leaking out of the darkness, a glimmer of hope that it doesn’t have to be us; we can do better, be better. A marvelous book written with understanding and unflinching compassion.

The images the writer conjured up in the first chapter and then on will stay with me for a long time. I could not put this book down. So emotional and mysterious, reading page after page and not wanting to know, not really, what was going to happen next. Hauntingly Sad.

I read a recent review of Our Daily Bread on the book blog Reading Matters http://kimbofo.typepad.com/readingmatters/2012/05/our-daily-bread-by-lauren-b-davis.html It sounded very good, and I must say I wasn't disappointed. Very fast pace, great characters and a phenomenal build-up to the dramatic and satisyfing ending.

I read a great review about Our Daily Bread and bought the book. It sure didn't disappoint me - I couldn't put it down. I loved the characters, the plot, and the writing. I hadn't heard about the Goler Clan in Nova Scotia, but the fact this was inspired by this true story really made a difference for me. I think the author captured aspects of human behavior that I see around me every day, and shone a light on it in a way that really makes you think about your own behavior. I highly recommend this oustanding novel, which I'm sure will continue getting well-deserved attention. I'm going to be recommending Our Daily Bread for my book club.