February

From Publishers Weekly The story of the man who never comes back from sea has been embedded in the lore of eastern Canada. Moore's third work of fiction (after Alligator ) imagines the impact one such disaster—the 1982 sinking of the Ocean Ranger —has on Helen O'Mara, a mother of three small children whose husband, Cal, dies at sea. The narrative jumps in time from Helen's life with Cal, the accident itself and the years after in which Helen tries to keep her life intact. Whether it is Helen longing for companionship, designing wedding dresses or learning yoga, everything she does is done with a view to Cal. Most scenes are quietly reflective, and Moore's strength is her ability to inject evocative images and expressive tones to otherwise static and overly earnest passages (as in Is this what a life is? Someone, in the middle of cleaning the bathroom, remembers you tasting the ocean on your fingers long after you're gone.) There's no plot—the narrative consists of fragments from Helen's life—and while some readers may find the patchwork engaging, the absence of a through-line makes the work meandering. (Feb.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist In February 1982, the Ocean Ranger, the world’s largest submersible oil drilling rig, capsized in a fierce storm off the coast of Newfoundland. Eighty-four men perished. In Moore’s accomplished novel about the risks of love, Helen O’Mara is left behind with three small children and another on the way when Cal, her husband of 10 years, dies. The narrative shifts back and forth through time, tossing up scenes from the present as well as from Helen and Cal’s marriage, the day of the disaster, and the years of Helen raising her family alone. In the present, much of the focus is on son John, an engineer whose job (ironically, analyzing risk on oil rigs) takes him all over the world. Now he is on his way home and trying to come to terms with the fact that a woman he barely knows is carrying his child. The novel’s episodic nature somewhat diminishes its emotional impact, especially toward the end. But Moore, whose previous novel, Alligator (2006), won a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, renders sensations with the precision of a Vermeer. --Mary Ellen Quinn Grief,Widows,Psychological Fiction,Newfoundland and Labrador,Pregnancy; Unwanted,Single Mothers,Family Life,General,Literary,Oil Well Drilling,Family Relationships,Fiction,Domestic Fiction,Oil Well Drilling - Accidents

February is Lisa Moore’s heart-stopping follow-up to her debut novel, Alligator, winner of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for the Caribbean and Canadian region. Propelled by a local tragedy, in which an oil rig sinks in a violent storm off the coast of Newfoundland, February follows the life of Helen O’Mara, widowed by the accident, as she continuously spirals from the present day back to that devastating and transformative winter.

After overcoming the hardships of raising four children as a single parent, Helen’s strength and calculated positivity fool everyone into believing that she’s pushed through the paralyzing grief of losing her spouse. But in private, Helen has obsessively maintained a powerful connection to her deceased husband. When Helen’s son unexpectedly returns home with life-changing news, her secret world is irrevocably shaken, and Helen is quickly forced to come to terms with her inability to lay the past to rest.

An unforgettable glimpse into the complex love and cauterizing grief that run through all of our lives, February tenderly investigates how memory knits together the past and present, and pinpoints the very human need to always imagine a future, no matter how fragile.

The New York Times - Sylvia Brownrigg

Moore has great strengths as a writer, chiefly in her powers of description. She gives us the cold, steep streets of St. John's in its many wintry incarnations and well-observed scenes of Iceland and Tasmania, where John travels, as well as glimpses of his business meetings and chance encounters in New York…Throughout, Moore provides vivid, cinematic snapshots of family life before and after Helen's husband's death…

In her moving and masterful novel, Lisa Moore reveals the story that unfurls around two devastating moments in time, separated by 25 years.In 1982, the oil rig Ocean Ranger sinks off the coast of Newfoundland during a night storm. Helen O’Mara, pregnant with her fourth child, receives a phone call telling her that her husband, Cal, has drowned. A quarter of a century later, Helen is woken by another phone call. It is her wayward son, John, telling her he has made a girl pregnant. As John grapples with what it might mean to be a father, Helen realises that she must shake off her decades of mourning in order to help."Moore has great strengths as a writer, chiefly in her powers of description. She gives us the cold, steep streets of St. John’s in its many wintry incarnations and well-observed scenes of Iceland and Tasmania, where John travels, as well as glimpses of his business meetings and chance encounters in New York (where, in a shop window, “the reflections of yellow cabs float in the glass like giant carp”). Throughout, Moore provides vivid, cinematic snapshots of family life before and after Helen’s husband’s death: a foggy after­noon beach walk or an all-family search for Cal’s beloved runaway dog. Helen’s informed, distraught imaginings of the rig’s sinking — when precisely the men knew they were doomed, how they died — have a particular, painful sharpness." - Sylvia Brownrigg, The New York TimesLisa Moore originally intended to become a visual artist. She is the author of four novels and several books of short stories, as well as five works for the stage, and she teaches creative writing at Memorial University, Newfoundland. In the wake of an oil-rig disaster, a widow tries to rebuild her life in this novel by “an astonishing writer” (Richard Ford). Inspired by the tragic sinking of the Ocean Ranger during a violent storm off the coast of Newfoundland in 1982, February follows the life of Helen O'Mara, widowed by the accident, as she spirals back and forth between the present day and that devastating and transformative winter. As she raises four children on her own, Helen's strength and calculated positivity fool everyone into believing that she's pushed through the paralyzing grief of losing her spouse. But in private, Helen has obsessively maintained a powerful connection to her deceased husband. When Helen's son unexpectedly returns home with life-changing news, her secret world is irrevocably shaken, and Helen is quickly forced to come to terms with her inability to lay the past to rest. An unforgettable examination of complex love and cauterizing grief, February investigates how memory knits together the past and present, and pinpoints the very human need to always imagine a future, no matter how fragile. “Lisa Moore's work is passionate, gritty, lucid and beautiful. She has a great gift.” —Anne Enright In 1982, the oil rig Ocean Ranger sank off the coast of Newfoundland during a Valentine's night storm. In the early hours of the next morning, all 84 men aboard died. Helen O'Mara is one of those left behind when her husband, Cal, drowns. Her story starts years after the Ranger disaster, but she is compelled to travel back to the 'February' that persists in her mind, and to that moment in 1982 when, expecting a fourth child, she received the call informing her that Cal was lost at sea. A quarter of a century on, late one winter's night, Helen is woken by another phone call. It is her wayward son John, in another time zone, on his way home. He has made a girl pregnant and he needs his mother to decide what he should do. As John grapples with what it might mean to be a father, Helen realises that she must shake off her decades of mourning in order to help. With grace and precision, and a shocking ability to render the precise details of her characters' physical and emotional worlds, Lisa Moore reveals the whole story to us. And just as, finally, we watch the oil rig go down, we see Helen emerging from her grief to greet a new life.

"Propelled by a local tragedy, in which an oil rig sinks in a violent storm off the coast of Newfoundland, February follows the life of Helen O'Mara, widowed by the accident, as she continuously spirals from the present day back to that devastating and transformative winter that persists in her mind and heart." After overcoming the hardships of raising four children into adulthood as a single parent, Helen's strength and calculated positivity fool everyone into believing that she's pushed through the paralyzing grief of losing her spouse. But in private, Helen has obsessively maintained a powerful connection to her deceased husband. When Helen's son, John, unexpectedly returns home with life-changing news, her secret world is irrevocably shaken, and Helen is quickly forced to come to terms with her inability to lay the past to rest.

"Propelled by a local tragedy, in which an oil rig sinks in a violent storm off the coast of Newfoundland, 'February' follows the life of Helen O'Mara, widowed by the accident, as she continuously spirals from the present day back to that devastating and transformative winter that persists in her mind and heart ..."--Front flap. In her external life, Helen O'Mara cleans house and attends yoga classes and looks after her children and grandchildren. And in her rich internal life, she continually revists her years with Cal, the beloved husband who died long ago aboard the oil rig Ocean Ranger. Then, one cold November night, her wayward son John, who made his girlfiend pregnant, comes home to help him decide what to do. As John grapples with what it might mean to be a father, Helen comes to terms with her memories of the dead. In her external life, Helen O'Mara cleans house and attends yoga classes and looks after her children and grandchildren. And in her rich internal life, she continually revists her years with Cal, the beloved husband who died long ago aboard the oil rig Ocean Ranger. Then, one cold November night, her wayward son John, who made his girlfriend pregnant, comes home to help him decide what to do. As John grapples with what it might mean to be a father, Helen comes to terms with her momories of the dead