Dollybird is set in the early 1900s in Saskatchewan, Canada. Life in the new province of Canada was hard, and the people who lived there needed to be hard if they were to survive. This unforgiving life, in a time with different ideologies than we have at present, is the backdrop for this novel.

Moira is the daughter of the local doctor in St. Johns. At a time when women doctors were frowned upon, she studied under her father intending to go to school so she could follow in his footsteps. Life, however, got in the way of her dream. Choices were few at the time, and reputations were considered everything. Moira’s parents felt the shame would be too great, so sent her to Saskatchewan.

Dillan is a single father to an adorable little boy having lost his mother to Typhoid. They too are traveling by train to Saskatchewan. Dillan wants to start over and find a way to support his son. He has nothing to his name and no real skills, but his son depends on him. There is no choice but to find a way.

Life in rural Canada, especially in a brand-new province, is hard. People are hard, the weather is hard, and resources are few. Education is not a top priority here. Survival is. For an educated woman, life there is a major culture shock. She does what is necessary to survive, but eventually, her luck runs out.

Moira is a strong, intelligent woman, but frustrating at times. She is ahead of her time, wanting nothing more than to become a doctor like her father. In her opinion, there is no legitimate reason she should not become a doctor, no legitimate reason she should not have the respect of the people she treats. But in early 1900s Canada, that is not how life works.

The problem with Moira’s character isn’t her wish to be seen as equal. It’s that she’s unwilling to accept the beliefs and the way of life of the people she now sees and deals with. For much of the book, Moira sees herself as somehow above them. In fact, she feels she’s somehow superior to almost everyone, except her father. She feels that because she is educated and they are not, because they are superstitious and she is not, they are not worthy of her respect.

It is not until she has a first-hand look at how hard life can be, that she slowly begins to understand just how strong these people are. Maybe they deserve kindness and respect, simply because they survive year after year in an unforgiving environment. However, Moira never quite fully comes around to seeing them as her equals.

Dillan is as different from Moira as one could be. He grew up in a hard-working family with few advantages. He learned to work hard as a young child. He had no education and no skills. Dillan had nothing to offer anyone. His wife Taffy didn’t care. They loved each other and wanted to live their lives and start a family. But life and death in rural Canada happened, and Dillan was not ready when it did. He was left as a single father at a time when life was already hard.

As a character, Dillan is hard like those in Saskatchewan. His life has been cruel and unforgiving, and he has little room for someone who looks down on him but yet has no survival skills. Dillan and Moira are like oil and water. Eventually, they come to a sort of friendly respect. While I admire Dillan for never giving up, I wasn’t fond of how cold he was to Moira.

The novel Dollybird does a good job of showing how hard life was. The descriptions caught my attention and kept me reading. It was fascinating to picture what Moira and Dillan were seeing and feeling, how trapped they were, and how few choices they had. Even problems we would now consider relatively small can take away any options they had. Rural Canada in the early 1900s left little room for choice.

I enjoyed the novel Dollybird. Anne Lazurko describes people and scenes without going so far into detail that the story is lost. The reader gains a real understanding of life in rural Canada at the start of the 20^th Century. But Anne also stays true to how people would think and act in the face of such a hard life.

After reading about their lives, and feeling their emotions, the end felt lacking and abrupt. Even a short epilogue lets the reader know the outcome, telling us what happened to the main characters, and even the major supporting characters. I felt mildly robbed of the final outcome.

Despite this, I would recommend Dollybird. It’s a highly educational, interesting lesson on life in rural Canada in the early 1900s. Anne Lazurko’s descriptions are what caught my interest, the desire to find out what happened to Moira and Dillan kept it. Life in 1900s Canada was hard, and after reading this book, I have a greater appreciation for all the options we now have.

Pros

• Fascinating description of life in rural Canada
• Descriptive writing
• Realistic storyline
• Believable characters

Cons

• Ending felt cut off

Cover Score: 8.4/10

Book Score: 8.6/10

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Review by Andrea Martin

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