Oh Canada! Our Home and Brutal Land By Alberta Montgomery Book Review

Oh Canada! Our Home and Brutal Land describes the life of a quiet, intelligent woman – from early girlhood to her adulthood – in snatches of trauma and survival. Jane is abused relentlessly by her older brother while her parents either pretend not to notice or don’t care enough to intervene.

Spoiler-free Summary

Jane is a girl/woman who is intimately familiar with pain. She shares with her readers the pain of familial betrayal, physical abuse, being forced to walk for miles a day after giving birth to a baby, the icy terror of sexual assault, and the unexpected loss of a loved one.

Dispersed amongst all this pain are candid moments, such as the giddiness of childhood friendships and first loves, the warmth of peaceful moments with her son, and the cocooning safety reaching the top of Maslow’s Pyramid and achieving her self-actualisation.

My Take on Oh Canada! Our Home and Brutal Land

At a glance, this is a story about abuse, survival, and the life that comes after incredible hardship. Of course, there are the poignant and disturbing examples of physical and psychological abuse, which, as Jane and Andrew grew into adolescence, graduated to sexual assault.

All the while, she fell through the conventional safety nets (e.g., family, friends, school, church, etc.) that people often assume will dissuade such happenings in our communities. The author prefaces this entire tale by explaining that the horrors listed within the pages of this story are a cherry-picked fraction of the horrors she experienced within the walls of her childhood home.

This morbid preposition was to create a more bearable story for the reader, but I suspect also the author herself. In a house where a father brutalised a son, it’s almost inevitable that the son became a monster himself. Grotesquely, this leads to one of the more interesting elements of the story.

In addition to being a tale of survival, I found that, on a deeper level, this felt like a story about the complexity and absurdity of love. For all the unforgivable acts – a father ruthlessly beating his son, a brother committing seemingly endless atrocities against his sister, and a mother who let it all happen in her house – the members of this family maintain their unit.

This isn’t a story that ends with divorce, emancipation, or fractured relationships. Rather, it ends with everyone together, celebrating a wedding together – still connected despite their need to survive each other. The power of a heartfelt apology (and a decent therapist) should never be underestimated.

While the tragedy around the abuses committed within the family is harrowing, there is great satisfaction that can be found in following Jane’s story after she leaves home and heads to what her sixteen-year-old self believed was the epitome of freedom, Vancouver.

Jane starts climbing Maslow’s Pyramid of needs and blossoms into an incredible version of herself. Despite unsteady relationships, unexpected pregnancy (and the myriads of physical, psychological, and social hardships that come with that), the never-ending grind of balancing work, motherhood, and education, Jane transforms herself into a woman unrecognisable from the child who ran away from home for fear for her life.

Jane muddled through with grace, not because of her survival of her childhood, but in spite of it. As a woman reading this story, it was inspiring, to say the least.

This book will not be for everyone (refer to Content Warnings). However, it is a great story for anyone looking to further develop their cognitive empathy and absorb a different perspective on the world. Other survivors, who are far enough in their own recovery journeys to tolerate such triggering content, will likely find solidarity and comfort in this story.

Abuse of any kind against any person is wrong, but those who have experienced it are never alone.

Content Warnings

This novel contains detailed depictions of physical, psychological, emotional, and sexual abuse; domestic violence; and dying and death. Reader discretion is strongly advised.

---