Mary lawson author books list

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

About Mary Lawson

The Canadian author Mary Lawson is well known for her interesting and immersive brand of literary fiction that has much to say. Knowing her audience well, she really draws the reader in, allowing them to fully envelop themselves in her unique and intricate narratives. The stories themselves are extremely engaging, creating compelling and well plotted books that keep her readers hooked every step of the way. There’s a lot at the heart of each book that really captures what she’s trying to say in a very immediate and real way.

Drawing from a deep range of different influences and inspirations, Mary Lawson would prove to be an extremely creative writer too. Each title would set itself apart in a manner quite unlike any other, as she would prove herself to be an author entirely singular to herself. Not only that, but her descriptions and imagery used are extremely vivid, really capturing the attention of the reader from the outset. This formula of hers has proven to be hugely popular with readers from all over the world, as she’s become a household name for many.

With a background in psychology too, it stands to reason that her characters are also very well drawn, with fully fleshed out personalities. Setting themselves apart, they really feel alive for the reader, almost speaking directly to the audience in a way that is profound. Feeling for each of the characters and their plights, she ensures that reader understands exactly who they are and what’s driving them. There’s a lot more planned too, as her career as a writer carries on growing and building for some time to come.

Early and Personal Life

Born and raised in Blackwell, Ont

Crow Lake

Mary Lawson’s debut novel is a shimmering tale of love, death and redemption set in a rural northern community where time has stood still. Tragic, funny and unforgettable, this deceptively simple masterpiece about the perils of hero worship leapt to the top of the bestseller lists only days after being released in Canada and earned glowing reviews in The New York Times and The Globe and Mail, to name a few. It will be published in more than a dozen countries worldwide, including the U.S., the U.K., Germany, Italy and Bulgaria. Luke, Matt, Kate and Bo Morrison are born in an Ontario farming community of only a few families, so isolated that the road led only south. There is little work, marriage choices are few, and the winter cold seeps into the bones of all who dare to live there. In the Morrisons hard working, Presbyterian house, the Eleventh Commandment is Thou Shalt Not Emote. But as descendants of a great grandmother who fixed a book rest to her spinning wheel so that she could read while she was spinning, the Morrison children have some hope of getting off the land through the blessings of education. Luke, the eldest, is accepted at teachers college despite having struggle mightily through school but before he can enroll, the Morrison parents are killed in a collision with a logging truck. He gives up his place to stay home and raise his younger sisters seven year old Kate, and Bo, still a baby. In this family bound together by loss, the closest relationship is that between Kate and her older brother Matt, who love to wander off to the ponds together and lie on the bank, noses to the water. Matt teaches his little sister to watch damselflies performing their delicate iridescent dances, to understand how water beetles carry down an air bubble with them when they submerge. The life in the pond is one that seems to go on forever, in contrast to the abbreviated lives of the Morrison parents. Matt becomes Kate’s hero and her guide, as his

Canadian novelist

Mary Lawson (born 1946) is a Canadian novelist best known for her award-winning novel Crow Lake (2002), and her Booker Prize longlisted novels The Other Side of the Bridge and A Town Called Solace.

Biography

Born in southwestern Ontario, she spent her childhood in Blackwell, Ontario, and is a distant relative of L. M. Montgomery, author of Anne of Green Gables. Her father worked as a research chemist. With a psychology degree in hand from McGill University, Lawson took a trip to Britain and ended up accepting a job as an industrial psychologist. She married a British psychologist, Richard Mobbs. Lawson spent her summers in the north, and the landscape inspired her to use Northern Ontario as her settings for both her novels. Lawson later admitted that Muskoka, where she spent her summers, "isn't and never was the North", but the area now called Cottage Country "felt like it" to people from the south. She has two grown-up sons and lives in Kingston upon Thames.

In a book review, T. F. Rigelhof of The Globe and Mail stated: "Within days you'll see people reading Crow Lake in odd places as they take quick breaks from the business of their lives. You'll also hear people say 'I stayed up all night reading this book by Mary Lawson. Mary Lawson, Mary Lawson. Remember the name."

Robert Fulford of the National Post wrote an article about Lawson describing her process towards becoming a novelist. After settling down, she wrote short fiction for women's magazines and then graduated to her first novel. Lawson was in her 50s when she wrote it, and spent years perfecting it. She decided she disliked her first novel and then spent five more years writing until Crow Lake was complete. It took her 3 mor