As the melody of The Piano Man's Daughter sings to the reader, it's tune draws one in and it's story captures you. It is a story of survival, success and failure and it stays true to the form of Canadian literature. Margaret Atwood once said that survival is a key theme in Canadian literature, and the characters in Timothy Findley's novel struggle against many obstacles in their quest for survival. Some succeed, while others fail.

Perhaps the only character who truly survives and succeeds is Lily. She spends her entire lifetime being chased and taunted by a horrific disease, only to remain victorious, though in death. Lily's disease which haunted her day in, day out, in a sense helped her and made her a stronger person. She was strong-willed, which helped ehr to fend off the demons and to persevere. Lily also was handed the task of dealing...