Leaning, Leaning Over Water by Frances Itani

Leaning, Leaning Over Water by Frances Itani

The Second World War is over when Jock moves his family to Quebec, where he lives with his wife, Maura, and their three children in a small bungalow, complains about the government, and tries to teach his children about life and poetry. But beneath the unrippled domestic surface bubble the anxieties and hopes of the women in the family. Grounded in the texture of everyday life in the 1950s, and echoing the moods of the river itself, LEANING, LEANING OVER WATER recreates in luminous, compelling prose the lives of a family in a village in Canada on the banks of the Ottawa River.

The stories reveal, slowly and with a sureness of touch, the cluttered cares of childhood, the confusion that accompanies the coming of adulthood and stolid acceptance of unavoidable sorrow * London Free Press *
Told with a relaxed combination of calm delicacy and sharp, detailed precision * Ottawa Citizen *
Has great passages of lucid, emotionally stirring writing about ordinary life and childhood discoveries * Globe and Mail *
'This lyrical portrait of life in postwar Canada is touchingly illustrated ' * The Times *
'Itani's skill at evoking a sense of place is extraordinary.. evocative, unshowy writing.' * Herald *
This is coming of age in glorious technicolour . . . Itani is clearly one to watch * Guardian *
Beautifully written * The Times *
Lyrical * Telegraph *