Set in the fifties, the story, told by a nine-year-old girl, describes her dysfunctional family in New Brunswick, Canada. This is the author's debut novel. Recommended. ( )

Discovering a new author is so much fun, especially if the author is a bit different. Deborah Joy Corey is from New Brunswick, Canada, a place I’ve never visited – even in books. So my book selection was off to a good start.

The narrator of this novel is a nine-year-old girl living with her family in a rural part of New Brunswick. Life is tough for this family. Dad is a drinker. The older Sister has two babies and an abusive husband. Older brother Eddie is just returning home from jail. Mom is beginning to have a hard time coping with what each day brings.

This probably sounds as if it’s a depressing book, although I did not find it so. It’s true that this family suffers a lot in the course of the story, but what I most liked was seeing from a child’s point of view the way individuals coped as unexpected situations developed. A child’s job is simply to try to make sense of the surrounding world with both its good and bad.

There’s something perky and poetic in the way the author describes people and events. This makes for very pleasurable reading. Considering that [Losing Eddie] is a debut novel, I'd certainly be up for giving this author's second novel a try. ( )