Downhill Chance by Donna Morrissey

Downhill Chance by Donna Morrissey

With Kit's Law, Donna Morrissey established herself as a gifted storyteller. Her chronicle of life in a remote Newfoundland outport was acclaimed by critics and embraced by readers worldwide. Downhill Chance is a captivating successor to Morrissey's first novel. Set in a pair of isolated fishing communities in Newfoundland during and after the Second World War, this is the story of two families joined by friendship but torn apart by fear and sorrows.

Prude Osmond reads her tea leaves and predicts dark days ahead. Meanwhile, an hour's boat ride away, Job Gale leaves his wife and two young daughters behind to fight in the war, a cause neither they nor their neighbors understand. The war and the dark secrets it holds cascade over the Gale family, afflicting the sensitive yet resourceful Clair, an unforgettable heroine. Forced to restart her life in another place, she must forsake the family she loves and her community.

Morrissey blends drama, gritty realism, and a flair for the comic in this unique novel. At its core is the unravelling of secrets--and the redemption that truth ultimately brings.

Donna Morrissey was born in The Beaches, a little village on Newfoundland's northwest coast with no roads or power until the 1960s, a place eerily similar to Haire's Hollow, which she depicts in Kit's Law. Morrissey left The Beaches when she was sixteen and traveled across Canada, performing odd jobs including bartending, cooking in oil rig camps, and processing fish in fish factories. She moved on to Memorial University in St. Louis to study social work.