It starts in southern Ontario on the cusp of WW2, when war is looming in Europe and anyone with a German name in Canada is becoming increasingly suspect. After her father's medical practice in MontreaI was diminished by growing anti-German sentiment, Rebekah, only daughter of the expat German doctor and his French-Canadian wife, is slowly adapting to life in a small town near the shores of Lake Huron. The first friends she makes are the neighbouring farm's oldest son, Landon, and his conflicted, misgendered sister Kit, whose parents think she is a changeling.
I identified with all the major characters in some way or other, from the beset doctor to his melancholic, lonely wife, and the bisexual daughter struggling with her conflicting desires for love and for stability in a world where there isn't a language to express her yearnings, let alone support her in dealing with them. The neighbours' 'changeling child', Kit, coming out as transsexual in a society even less able to cope with 'women who don't keep their place'.. Maybe not so much with Landon, who represents the patriarchal status quo, the ideal to which Rebekah is expected to aspire by virtually everyone in her world... except Kit.
I identified with all the major characters in some way or other, from the beset doctor to his melancholic, lonely wife, and the bisexual daughter struggling with her conflicting desires for love and for stability in a world where there isn't a language to express her yearnings, let alone support her in dealing with them. The neighbours' 'changeling child', Kit, coming out as transsexual in a society even less able to cope with 'women who don't keep their place'.. Maybe not so much with Landon, who represents the patriarchal status quo, the ideal to which Rebekah is expected to aspire by virtually everyone in her world... except Kit.
Fascinated as I was by the well-drawn historical backdrop, the ways in which the characters interacted with their era of societal upheaval. what the novel really stands out for is the growing sense of dread, the undercurrents beneath that sun-dappled stream's surface, the inescapable emotional destruction that I felt sure was coming, even though the author did not overtly foreshadow it.
Apart from the initial near-drowning scene, this novel starts off
deceptively gentle, like a placid stream struck by dappled sunshine as
it winds amid meadows rippling with wildflowers. The early, tentative
steps towards love are delicately crafted, a real treat to read
although the looming sense of the three young people on a romantic and
sexual collision course soon overshadows even the most sunlit idyll.
This is well worth the read for historical fiction fans, for anyone who wants a step back in time to a period of upheaval in Canadian and World history, and for peeling back the delicate processes of coming out as your true self when surrounded by a society that will do anything to put you back in the box you were assigned at birth.
CW: LGBTQ+, bigotry, post-combat trauma, immigrant struggles
