SOURCE: "Multigenerational Tale Adds Poetic Lift to Women's Issues," in Detroit Free Press, Section D, August 17, 1994, p. 3.

Holliday is an American critic. In the following review, she relates the story line of Away.

Jane Urquhart is an Irish Canadian who writes with the lilt of the Old Sod. Her third novel, Away, brings alive an old superstition linked to today's consciousness.

Away is the story of four generations of women, three of whom, in the author's words, are women of extremes. They either stay young into old age or age very young. They thrive near water. Men, states of mind, come and go. In the end, these bright, engaging women describe themselves as being "away."

The writing is poetic, musical, enhanced by the occasional Gaelic phrase. The message is mixed. At times it seems a plea for women's equality; again, it sees love as a fickle male domain...