The first sentences are what draw you into Canada by Richard Ford. “First, I’ll tell you about the robbery our parents committed. Then about the murders that happened later.” And with those few words you fall into the world of Dell Parsons and his painful and cautionary story of how a family can unravel and what happens to the children in the aftermath of such a crime.

The Parsons, a military family, are assigned to Fort Lewis Air Force Base in Great Falls, Montana in 1956.  After a few years in Great Falls, Captain Bev Parsons, believes that there is probably not much more upward mobility left for him in the military in the wake of the Korean War and decides to leave and start a new civilian life with his wife, Neeva and their children, Dell, and twin sister Berner.  Bev Parsons,  who was worked in supply and requisitions in the Air Force, tries his hand at various civilian jobs like car sales but never quite makes it.  As he struggles to find his way Bev makes a series of bad financial decisions that jeopardize the family and as a result, in a rash and desperate act, Bev, and his wife, Neeva rob a bank are imprisoned and essentially abandon Berner and Dell at age 16.

Berner, quickly escapes from Montana to California, but cannot seem to move on with her life, unable to forgive her parents or come to terms with their choices and the impact it had on their  family.  Dell, however is smuggled across the border in to Canada, to avoid being made a ward of the state, by a family friend to live with her relative, Arthur Remlinger who owns a hotel catering to hunters.  And it is here in this “place of safety,” that we learn about the “..murders that happened later.”

Dell narrates his story with calm detachment and with the wisdom of having lived through it. But even as we hear his calm elegiac voice, the underlying pain and brokenness are close to the surface.  It is the little details, like Dell wanting desperately to go to the County Fair to see the bee keeping exhibit, but never getting there, or the descriptions of his mom cleaning the house and washing the clothes before she is arrested that somehow tug at your heart and make you feel more fully the horror of  this family slowly coming apart.

Although, Dell, unlike his sister, manages to come to terms with his family and the aftermath of what happened it is not without some cost.  He says of himself, “It’s been my habit of mind, over these years, to understand that every situation in which human beings are involved can be turned on its head. Everything someone assures me to be true might not be. Every pillar of belief the world rests on may or may not be about to explode. Most things don’t stay the way they are very long.  Knowing this, however has not made me cynical.  Cynical means believing that good isn’t possible; and I know for a fact that good is.  I simply take nothing for granted and try to be ready for the change that is soon to come.”

As much as these sentiments are wise and full of a profound grace, given what Dell has been through, I came away from this book mourning the loss of the boy that might have been: the one who was so enamored with bees and wanted to learn all about them at the county fair.

Brenda’s Rating: *****(5 out of 5 Stars)

Recommend this Book to: Sharon, Marian and Keith.

Book Study Worthy: Yes!

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