Canada, Richard Ford

First, I'll tell about the robbery our parents committed. Then about the murders, which happened later. 

"When fifteen-year-old Dell Parsons' parents rob a bank, his sense of normal life is forever altered. In an instant, this private cataclysm drives his life into before and after, a threshold that can never be uncrossed. His parents' arrest and imprisonment mean a threatening and uncertain future for Dell and his twin sister, Berner. Willful and burning with resentment, Berner flees their home in Montana, abandoning her brother and her life. But Dell is not completely alone. A family friend intervenes, spiriting him across the Canadian border, in hopes of delivering him to a better life. There, afloat on the prairie of Saskatchewan, Dell is taken in by Arthur Remlinger, an enigmatic and charismatic American whose cool reserve masks a dark and violent nature. Undone by the calamity of his parents' robbery and arrest, Dell struggles under the vast prairie sky to remake himself and define the adults he thought he knew. But his search for grace and peace only moves him nearer to a harrowing and murderous collision with Remlinger, an elemental force of darkness."

The New York Times really, really loved this book when it came out, and it sounded interesting then, so I added it to my to-read list. But then I sort of lost interest, for a variety of reasons. I've finally managed to get a copy of Canada though. And it was interesting, although I didn't always love the writing. It was very spare as described, and "spare" is not always my favorite style. It was also described as elegant, but I didn't find it so. However, the writing wasn't really great, and it definitely wasn't my favorite aspect of the book, although it was certainly interesting. 

There was a lot of foreshadowing in the book. Before the bank robbery even happens, the reader knows a lot about what is going to happen; Dell narrates the book stoically, just accepting the suffering that he goes through and living with it. 

I ended up not finishing this one. It was interesting, but not ultimately enough for me to get more than 100 pages into it. 

418 pages.