Strange Heaven

Lori A. Dunn is a teacher, instructional designer, and freelance writer
in New Westminster, British Columbia.

The heroine of Lynn Coady’s first novel is Bridget, a teenager who
winds up in the mental ward of a hospital after giving up her baby for
adoption. Passive and overly cerebral, Bridget rarely thinks about her
baby; instead, she ruminates on the oddballs in the ward, her passivity,
and her unrelenting constipation. When she is released from the ward for
Christmas, she returns to her Nova Scotia hometown.

The novel’s strength lies in its characterization. Bridget’s family
is vividly portrayed, although their idiosyncrasies are sometimes
excessive. The characters in the ward are both colorful and pitiful, but
Bridget herself is singularly uninteresting. While her apathy is
occasionally compelling, most of the time it is merely annoying.
Characters outside the hospital and the family are introduced rather
haphazardly, with little connection to the rest of the narrative.

As an episodic novel, Strange Heaven lacks focus. It is about teen
pregnancy, depression, anorexia, family hardship, and, above all,
life’s oddness. Unfortunately, the oddness is relentless, and the only
connecting thread is Bridget’s tiresome passivity.