In a nutshell, Box Garden paints an uneasy picture of a grown woman returning home to attend the wedding of her elderly mother. Charleen lives a very unsettled life. Divorced. Single mom. Dating. Strained relationships with everyone around her. She lives a sparse life by choice and seems incredibly fragile. However, when confronted with a series of intensely emotional situations, Charleen emerges as a surprisingly strong and capable woman. ( )

Couldn't get into it. Protagonist is thirty eight-year-old destitute single mother.

A divorced woman goes back home to celebrate her mother's second wedding. Wry observations of family and relationships, and powerful characterisations - especially of the life-squelching elderly mother. ( )

I’ve said it before and I know I’ll say it again, but I still plan on reading all of Carol Shields’ work. This is my fourth Shields’ novel, and while it wasn’t as good as the other three, The Stone Diaries, Unless, and Larry’s Party, it still ranks as a 4 star book. The three I had previously read were the last three she wrote, while The Box Garden was written in 1977 and was only her second novel.

Charleen Forrest is a divorced poet with a son. Charleen has all the ordinary issues with her ex-husband and with her mother (who doesn’t?), but the way Shields writes about them are anything but ordinary.

“My breakdown too; that’s the part I didn’t confess, the part I conceal even from myself except when I am absolutely alone in the middle of the night as I am now. The day Watson left, everything more or less fell apart for me, too. The world, which I was just beginning to perceive, was spoiled. Everything ruined, everthing scattered. Scattered like me, the way I’m scattered through this house.”

When I read her books, it is as if she is peering into my mind and soul and speaking directly to me. She always goes to the heart of the matter. I regret her early death from cancer. I feel like the literary world missed out on some wonderful stories that she unfortunately had to leave unwritten. You know the question that’s always asked about which author you’d like to meet and have dinner with, alive or dead? Without a doubt, mine would be Carol Shields.

“I suppose this is why I love novels, because novels are not just about what people do, but they’re about what people think.” — Carol Shields ( )

A small, wonderful story. ( )