A novel. First Vintage Canada edition, 1997. First published in hardcover in Canada by Alfred A. Knopf,Toronto, and simultaneously in the United States by Houghton Mifflin, New York, in 1996. Vintage Canada, Toronto 1997. Paperback, 294 pages.
Jacket design by Jonathan Howells. Jacket lettering by Ian Brignell.


Bought this in Thunder Bay, Ontario in 1998.


1998 Betty Trask Award
1997 Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize
1997 VanCity Book Prize
1996 Globe and Mail Notable Book of the Year
1996 Giller Prize (shortlist)
1996 Chapters / Books in Canada First Novel Award (shortlist)

Back cover:
A Globe and Mail Notable Book of the Year, 1996
Shortlisted for
The Giller Prize, and the
Chapters / Books in Canada First Novel Award
“Superlative. . . . Flowers rain from the sky in this book. . . . [It] is Canadian to the core. You can trce a line to it from Susannah Moodie through Margaret Atwood [and . . . ] Alice Munro.” The Globe and Mail
“Mysteriour, engagig . . . suberb . . . an enticing blend of rich poetry, magic and realism that bewitches all our senses. The scent of flowers intoxicates us, the smell of fresh baking draws us closer to the page, and we swim in the colors of the painted turtles crossing 'Blood Road.'” Victoria Times-Colonist
*Haunting, stunning. . . . By weaving one girl's coming of age together so strongly with myth, overlapping the mundane with the extraordinary, Anderson-Dargatz creates a multi-layered tale of power and suspense.” Toronto Star
Gail Anderson-Dargatz lives with her husband on a farm on Vancouver Island.
Slie is also the author of The Miss Hereford Stories.

Gail Anderson-Dargatz at The Canadian Encyclopedia
Gail Anderson-Dargatz at Wikipedia
Gail Anderson-Dargatz, Homepage

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ETA Nov. 16, 2014: This book is reserved for Annimanni.

“THE CURE for death by lightning was handwritten in thick, messy blue ink in my mother’s scrapbook, under the recipe for my father’s favorite oatcakes:
Dunk the dead by lightning in a cold water bath for two hours and if still dead, add vinegar and soak for an hour more.”

Anderson-Dargatz takes her reader in the core of the story right from the beginning. That's just the kind of beginning I love. I liked it all; the storyline, the characters, the landscape and the community, I liked Beth as a first-person narrator and I really liked that the story was told from a teenager's viewpoint.
Admittedly, there was a point where I started to feel a bit frustrated. “Not again,” I thought, “haven't we already have had enough of these incest stories in literature?” But then I realized the book is almost 20 years old and this kind of storyline may well have been quite a novelty at the time. Besides, it was just one little part of the story.
It was interesting to read about all the daily chores Beth had. I especially loved the recipes. Often, when there are recipes added in a fictional story, they seem like they were forced to be there. In The Cure for Death by Lightning the came out natural, they really belonged to this story. And I loved mother's scrapbook. I loved the book itself, the idea of it, and the way it was used as one's own private place where to sort things out. It is the mother of all the diaries, scrapbooks, notebooks, etc.
I liked this book very much. And next, it'll go to Annimanni. She chose it from Palkintokaappi (Finnish Trophy Cabinet) last fall.

Better late, eh? :) Happy reading!

Arrived safely, thank you very much! Looooooove the bookmark :)