A Good House
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 1st edition front cover | |
| Author | Bonnie Burnard |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | Harper Flamingo |
Publication date | 1999 |
| Publication place | Canada |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
| Pages | 309 pp |
| ISBN | 000225526X |
| OCLC | 43185943 |
| 813/.54 21 | |
| LC Class | PR9199.3.B7914 G66 2000 |
| Followed by | Suddenly |
A Good House is the first novel by Canadian writer Bonnie Burnard, published by Picador in 1999 and later by Henry Holt and Company in United States of America. It was the winner of that year's Scotiabank Giller Prize. The novel narrates the story of a family in three generations, five houses starting from 1949 until 1997.
The story starts in 1949 in the small town of Stonebrook, Ontario, near Lake Huron and is about the Chambers family and starts in a hopeful era of post-World War II. Bill is an ex-Navy veteran who had been injured losing three fingers of his right hand in the war and he has three children with his wife Sylvia; Patrick, Daphne, and Paul. Daphne, when 12 years old, meets an accident in 1952 which deforms her face permanently and asymmetrically while performing acrobatics in a circus on trapeze. In 1955, Sylvia dies of cancer when aged 40 and Bill later marries Margaret. Margaret and Bill used to be co-workers at a hardware store. Margaret raises the three children and keeps the family together and has a daughter Sarah together with Bill.
The eldest brother Patrick becomes a lawyer, the youngest Paul gains popularity in hockey but eventually marries early, fathers an imperfect child and becomes a farmer. Daphne chooses an odd path for the time and becomes a single mother of two daughters. Paul dies at an early age. Bill steps into his old age not very gracefully suffering with dementia but Margaret still keeps the family in control. As time passes the novel travels till 1997 and the nuclear family diverges yet keeps meeting together to share happy and sad times.
Publication
The book was published by Harper Flamingo in Canada in 1999 and later by Henry Holt and Company in United States of America. It has ten chapters and is dedicated to poet Anne Szumigalski who had helped Burnard during her budding days in her literary career. Burnard said that the novel is about "the way I understand life to be". The minor character's names were based on friends of her own children. The book is edited by Phyllis Bruce and Jan Whitford was Burnard's agent for the publications. The novel narrates the story involving three generation and five houses with none of the characters talking in the first person.[1] The novel was also published in United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and in twelve other countries from 1999 to 2002.[2]: 39