Summer of My Amazing Luck

Martha Wilson is Canadian correspondent for the Japan Times (Tokyo) and
a Toronto-based freelance editor and writer.

Lucy, 18, and her friend Lish are planning a road trip from Winnipeg to
Denver, where they hope to find Lish’s ex-boyfriend. Their travel
arrangements are complicated: they need a vehicle, but they are broke;
they have five children between them; and they have to be back in time
to sign on for the next dole check. (“You can’t miss a welfare
appointment. If you do you will not get any money and your future’s at
stake. If you can call a future on welfare at stake.”)

Miriam Toews has written an engaging account of Lucy’s daily
frustrations and joys, and of the lessons that have come, in some cases,
too late. Living in poverty has made Lucy wary of other people and their
expectations. After meeting a lawyer who wants to come home with her,
she concludes, “I realized he wanted me to be crazy, nutty, making up
for poverty with joie de vivre and skid row toughness.”

Events spiral out of control during the trip to Denver, but Toews
eventually brings the story to a hopeful conclusion. Along the way, Lucy
has faced some painful truths about her family, and she has more or less
made peace with the past.

Summer of My Amazing Luck is a comic adventure with a heart. At times
the plot seems to wear thin, but the warmth of the story has a genuine
appeal.