This is one of the saddest books I've ever read. It's also one of the funniest. The book is set in Cape Breton, Canada, and wisecracking, hilarious and desperate Crow has come home to Cape Breton to die. Crow is actually Stacey Fortune, who was nicknamed Crow as a child because she liked bright and shiny things. She is 39 years old, and has just been diagnosed with three inoperable brain tumours. She's come home to be with her hard-working, practical Mama - Effie Fortune. Crow wants to be coddled a bit before she goes down in a blaze of glory. Effie Crow is no coddler, and she is the wisest, most practical person you could ever meet. Crow arrives home sick and dying, trying to hide her terror under a cape of sarcasm. She knows that her family, the Fortune family, is a group of misfits, crooks, mentally ill and just downright eccentric people that you'll ever find. In spite of the direness of Crow's situation, she finds love, acceptance and understanding from her strange family. The book is shot through with Cape Breton humour, and Canadian charm. I listened to the book on audio, and found that a very good way to experience the ups and downs of Stacey Fortune's life. The book is chock full of wonderful and very human characters. It was a delight to visit with Crow and her family for the time that i listened to the book. Hearing it read made everything seem more real and brought me a lot of life wisdom as well. Highly recommend. ( )

Nat rec

Amy Spurway’s debut novel is a boisterous melodrama that tells the story of Stacey “Crow” Fortune’s return home to her Cape Breton roots. Stacey has spent her adult years in Toronto working as a marketing executive, a lucrative but spiritually draining job that she’s not sorry to leave behind. As the novel begins, she’s been diagnosed with inoperable brain tumours and decides to quit her job and return home so her mother can care for her. Stacey moves into her mother’s trailer in rural Cape Breton and it’s not long before she’s reunited and getting into trouble with her best friends Allie and Char, renewed her affectionate relationship with local pot dealer Willy Gimp, and endured encounters with high-school nemesis Becky Chickenshit and former boyfriend Duke the Puke. Stacey’s mother is “Scruffy” Effie Fortune, who works as a chambermaid at a local motel. But thirty-odd years earlier Effie was a teenage housekeeper for the powerful Spenser family. Effie got pregnant, and shortly afterward young Alec (“Smart Alec”) Spenser mysteriously disappeared. Stacey’s other purpose in returning home is to explore her lineage, solve the mystery of what happened to her father, and write it all down “before it’s too late.” Stacey narrates her own story in a plain-spoken, expletive-laced vernacular, informing us at the outset, “I come from a long line of lunatics and criminals.” The novel more than lives up to its promising start. Stacey’s chief antagonist is her aunt, Sarah Spenser, the greedy, vindictive leader of the Spenser clan, who has been treating the Fortune family like dirt for years, and as the action winds down and many truths are revealed, Stacey takes satisfaction in thwarting Sarah at every turn. This is a rollicking tale filled with amazing coincidences, encounters of a romantic and confrontational nature, much settling of scores and events both tragic and triumphant. Writing humorously about a character who is dying is never easy, but in Stacey "Crow" Fortune Amy Spurway has created a strong-willed, spirited young woman who looks adversity squarely in the face and yells Fuck You! The novel does address questions of life, death and legacy, but retains its whimsical attitude throughout. Wildly entertaining, often surprising, Crow comes across as a breezy read. But it also leaves the reader with much to think about. ( )