The Way the Crow Flies: A Novel

Ann-Marie MacDonald

HarperCollins, Oct 13, 2009 - Fiction - 848 pages

In her highly anticipated new novel, Ann-Marie MacDonald takes us back to a postwar world. For Madeleine McCarthy, high-spirited and eight years old, her family's posting to a quiet air force base near the Canadian-American border is at first welcome, secure as she is in the love of her family and unaware that her father, Jack, is caught up in his own web of secrets. The early sixties, a time of optimism infused with the excitement of the space race and overshadowed by the menace of the Cold War, is filtered through the rich imagination of a child as Madeleine draws us into her world.

But the base is host to some intriguing inhabitants, including the unconventional Froehlich family, and the odd Mr. March, whose power over the children is a secret burden that they carry. Then tragedy strikes, and a very local murder intersects with global forces, binding the participants for life. As the tension in the McCarthys' household builds, Jack must decide where his loyalties lie, and Madeleine learns about the ambiguity of human morality -- a lesson that will become clear only when the quest for the truth, and the killer, is renewed twenty years later.

The Way the Crow Flies is a novel that is as compelling as it is rich. With her unerring eye for the whimsical, the absurd, and the quintessentially human, Ann-Marie MacDonald stunningly evokes the pain, confusion, and humor of childhood in a perilous adult world. At once a loving portrayal and indictment of an era, The Way the Crow Flies is a work of great heart and soaring intelligence.

What people are saying

Review: The Way the Crow Flies

User Review  - kingshearte - Goodreads

This book kicked my ass. It took me a while to get into it, but once things started happening, I found it very compelling, as well as utterly devastating. I don't think it's revealing too much to say ...

Review: The Way the Crow Flies

User Review  - Amy - Goodreads

This would have been a great story, but it was so packed with unnecessary description that I found myself feeling I was reading the book that would never end. Her writing is still beautiful, but I feel that some major chops to unrelated material would have bumped up my stars quite a bit.

About the author

Novelist and dramatist Ann-Marie MacDonald is the author of the internationally bestselling and award-winning novel Fall on Your Knees. She is also the playwright of Goodnight Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet, which won the Governor General's Award for Drama. She lives in Toronto.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Way the Crow Flies: A Novel
• Author: Ann-Marie MacDonald
• Publisher: HarperCollins, 2009
• ISBN: 0061840998, 9780061840999
• Length: 848 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / General