The seemingly unavoidable, selfimposed isolation present among family members permeates Homesick; the characters' self-involvement and stubborn pride thwart almost all direct communication, empathy, and understanding. Set in the remote reaches of Saskatchewan, the fictional town of Connaught is as physically removed from the cities to the east as the family members — Alec Monkman, his daughter Vera Miller, and her son Daniel — are psychologically isolated from one another. Life, however, is not static and by the novel's end there is evidence of growth.

The year is 1959, decades before sociologists coined the terms "dysfunctional family" and "toxic parents," but Guy Vanderhaeghe's characters would fit nicely into contemporary group therapy — that is, if they could ever arrive at the self-awareness necessary to propel them to seek help. But this is 1959, and the characters are not selfexamining. Instead, they spend their lives fruitlessly hoping for others to...