A review by lolajoan
In Winter I Get Up at Night by Jane Urquhart

reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I can see why it was longlisted for the  Giller but also why it wasn't shortlisted. For the first half or so I thought it was a brilliant piece of art. It's a bittersweet examination of the beauty and loneliness of a small life. Emer has been to only a few places, has known only a few people, and her life has had just a few main defining events, but there's a deep richness to her observations of the world around her and the people she knows. The descriptive passages are beautiful and heartbreaking. But by the end I was disenchanted by two things. One is the extreme convenience of the fact that two of the very few people she knows just happen to be thinly veiled fictionalizations of extremely important and powerful men. One, I could swallow, but two is too much. The other is the offhanded way she deals with serious issues of racism (and to a lesser extent, homophobia). I feel like if you're going to bring those big issues into your book you should deal with them, or else just leave it out rather than mention it in an "oh yes, what a shame" way.