Reviews & Awards
WHAT THE LIVING DO
Winner of the Canadian Book Club Awards, Fiction
Short Listed for the Whistler Independent Book Awards 2019
Finalist for 2020 Next Generation Indie Book Awards
Title: What the Living Do
Author: Maggie Dwyer
Publisher: Friesen Press, 2018
Pages: 305 pp
Price: $22.99 CAD (paperback)
Reviewer: Bill Arnott
Until the age of twelve, Georgia Lee Kay-Stern believed she was Jewish—the story of her Cree
birth family had been kept secret. Now she’s living on her own and attending first year
university, and with her adoptive parents on sabbatical in Costa Rica, the old questions are
back. What does it mean to be Native? How could her life have been different?
Author Maggie Dwyer sets a cool, unwavering tone directly out of the gates with her novel What
the Living Do. It took a couple of years for this book to find its way to my reading stack, but the
relatively brief passage of time is irrelevant. Dwyer’s story of familial introspection, questions of
race, conflict and revelation remains timeless.
I don’t want her dreams. I am a branch that was grafted on to their family tree. More like a twig.
A brittle twig that could be snapped off.
Perhaps one of the most alluring facets of reading is that sense of delving into new lives, peeking
in a stranger’s medicine cabinet, the tiny surge of dark adrenaline that accompanies taboos.
Somehow things in the girl’s suite were not right. Maud did not know exactly how to put it. She
disliked this necessary sorting and sifting through the detritus of the girl’s life. It felt as if the
team were making a further invasion of her privacy. She remembered that the girl’s hair was
short, straight, dyed a deep black. She stripped off her jacket and draped it over her shoulders
since there was no place to hang it up. The air was heavy, overheated, and stale. A headache
inducing atmosphere and within that stultifying quality of staleness there was something feral.
I applaud author Maggie Dwyer, an accomplished writer tackling tough, ever-thorny topics in
What the Living Do. Topics that should continue to be explored and shared. Throughout the book
scenes are well set, effectively yet judiciously descriptive, and dialogue rings true. From a writer
knowledgeable in an extensive breadth of Canada—places and people, this is a well told tale. A
story, like any good story, that may raise more questions than answers.
Winner of the Canadian Book Club Awards, Fiction
Short Listed for the Whistler Independent Book Awards 2019
Finalist for 2020 Next Generation Indie Book Awards
Title: What the Living Do
Author: Maggie Dwyer
Publisher: Friesen Press, 2018
Pages: 305 pp
Price: $22.99 CAD (paperback)
Reviewer: Bill Arnott
Until the age of twelve, Georgia Lee Kay-Stern believed she was Jewish—the story of her Cree
birth family had been kept secret. Now she’s living on her own and attending first year
university, and with her adoptive parents on sabbatical in Costa Rica, the old questions are
back. What does it mean to be Native? How could her life have been different?
Author Maggie Dwyer sets a cool, unwavering tone directly out of the gates with her novel What
the Living Do. It took a couple of years for this book to find its way to my reading stack, but the
relatively brief passage of time is irrelevant. Dwyer’s story of familial introspection, questions of
race, conflict and revelation remains timeless.
I don’t want her dreams. I am a branch that was grafted on to their family tree. More like a twig.
A brittle twig that could be snapped off.
Perhaps one of the most alluring facets of reading is that sense of delving into new lives, peeking
in a stranger’s medicine cabinet, the tiny surge of dark adrenaline that accompanies taboos.
Somehow things in the girl’s suite were not right. Maud did not know exactly how to put it. She
disliked this necessary sorting and sifting through the detritus of the girl’s life. It felt as if the
team were making a further invasion of her privacy. She remembered that the girl’s hair was
short, straight, dyed a deep black. She stripped off her jacket and draped it over her shoulders
since there was no place to hang it up. The air was heavy, overheated, and stale. A headache
inducing atmosphere and within that stultifying quality of staleness there was something feral.
I applaud author Maggie Dwyer, an accomplished writer tackling tough, ever-thorny topics in
What the Living Do. Topics that should continue to be explored and shared. Throughout the book
scenes are well set, effectively yet judiciously descriptive, and dialogue rings true. From a writer
knowledgeable in an extensive breadth of Canada—places and people, this is a well told tale. A
story, like any good story, that may raise more questions than answers.
