Review of THE GOOD WOMEN OF SAFE HARBOUR by Bobbi French

 4 Stars

I came across this Canadian book on the longlist of the 2023 Dublin Literary Award.  Why have I not heard of it before?  It’s a great read.

Fifty-eight-year-old Frances Delaney has just received a terminal cancer diagnosis.  As she thinks back on her life, we learn about her childhood in a small Newfoundland fishing village.  A number of tragedies led to her leaving to St. John’s where she worked as a housekeeper.  With the help of Edie, the teenaged daughter of her last employer, Frances returns to Safe Harbour where she reconnects with Annie Malone, her childhood friend from whom she has been estranged for 40 years.

The characters feel so authentic.  This is certainly the case with Frances.  Her life has not turned out how she hoped:  “’I haven’t lived the life I wanted – I’ve lived the one that happened.’”   She had wanted to be a teacher but she became a housekeeper.  Cleaning had a calming effect on her:  “One by one, any worries I had fell away until my head felt emptied out.  Cleaning was like medicine for my troubled mind.”  I love her matter-of-fact attitude:  “’I’m going to die like everyone else on the planet.’”  She keeps a sense of humor, even naming her tumour The Squid.  She cares for others; for instance, she worries less about dying than she does about the effect her dying will have on Edie. 

An introvert with social anxiety, Frances led a solitary life:  “I even found a small measure of pride in being a sole survivor, a woman making it all on her own.”  But she realizes that the life she constructed for herself was “built on a foundation of faulty nerves, crippling shyness, and a battered heart that couldn’t withstand another break.  Walls built high and strong to keep everyone out.”  My heart wept for her at times when she desperately wanted to connect with someone.  And, of course, as a cleaner, she was often ignored:  “Moving through the world like a phantom, silent and invisible.”

The book touches on a number of serious topics:  mental illness, suicide, abortion, forced adoptions, cancer, and assisted dying.  It also criticizes the Catholic Church and the influence it had on society:  always “either up front and centre or lurking somewhere in the background, a priest, a nun, a hanging crucifix.  The reminders of the faith we’d once been ruled by.”  Frances feels that she and others “’were duped . . . Fooled by the guilt-mongers and the shame-brokers into believing that there was no other way [than that imposed by the church].’” 

The theme is connected to Frances’ observations about the church:  the importance of living a life of one’s own choosing.  She tells Edie, “But what I truly want for you is a life of your own choosing, one lived only on your own terms.  No questions asked.”  She was not able to live her dream life so she decides, “’I’ll bloody well be having the death I want.’” 

Despite many sad moments, the book is also joyful and life-affirming.  It emphasizes that one should look for the magic in ordinary experiences.  When Frances goes swimming in the ocean, she mentions, “I was overcome with the beauty of it all – the bracing cold, the shimmering sunlight, the rhythmic rocking to and fro as I lay on my back smiling at the sky.”

This book is both heart-breaking and heart-warming.  And that ending . . . absolutely perfect.