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Book Summary and Reviews of Good To a Fault by Marina Endicott

Good To a Fault by Marina Endicott

Good To a Fault

A Novel

by Marina Endicott

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  • Published:
  • Mar 2010, 384 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

Shortlisted for Canada's prestigious Giller Prize, this "profoundly humane novel" (Vancouver Sun), wrings suspense and humor out of the everyday choices we make, revealing the delicate balance between sacrifice and self-interest, doing good and being good.

Clara Purdy is at a crossroads. At forty-three, she is divorced, living in her late parents' house, and nearing her twentieth year as a claims adjuster at a local insurance firm. Driving to the bank during her lunch hour, she crashes into a sharp left turn, taking the Gage family in the other car with her. When bruises on the mother, Lorraine, prove to be late-stage cancer, Clara decides to do the right thing. She moves Lorraine's three children and their terrible grandmother into her own house—and then has to cope with the consequences of practical goodness: exhaustion, fury, hilarity, and unexpected love.

What, exactly, does it mean to be good? What do we owe each other in this life, and what do we deserve? Good to a Fault is an ultimately joyful book that digs deep, with leavening humor, into questions of morality, class, and social responsibility. Marina Endicott looks at life and death through the compassionate, humane lens of a born novelist: being good, being at fault, and finding some balance in between.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Endicott's rich writing struggles to find its groove at first, but the balance of prose, plot, and purpose soon evens out into a touching story." - Publishers Weekly

"Good to a Fault is one of those novels you want to tell people about. It's unpretentious and affecting, with characters to remember and themes that linger and resound." - Meg Wolitzer, New York Times bestselling author of The Ten-Year Nap

"There's heartbreak, there's joy, there are parts where you cry - and it's very high quality writing. Well done!" - Margaret Atwood, Giller Prize Jury remarks

This information about Good To a Fault was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Marina Endicott

Marina Endicott worked as an actor and director before moving to London, England, where she began to write fiction. She now makes her home in Alberta. Her first novel, Open Arms, was shortlisted for the 2001 Amazon/Books in Canada First Novel Award and was adapted for CBC Radio's Between the Covers. Her second novel, Good to a Fault, was nominated for the Giller Prize and won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize Best Book Award for Canada and the Caribbean.

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