Liberty Street

A deeply affecting novel about the truths we avoid and the bad choices that come back to haunt us.
 
While gridlocked in the churchyard of a small Irish town, the traffic frozen in place for the funeral of a young mother and her infant, an unbidden thought comes to Frances Moon. “I lost a baby when I was nineteen.” She is surprised by how easily the long-suppressed memory slips into her consciousness, and by her own voice as she speaks the thought aloud to Ian, her partner of twenty years.
            The next morning, Ian is gone.
            Numbed by this abandonment, Frances sets out for the small town in western Canada where she grew up—and where she began to make so many poor choices. The novel flashes back to Frances as a curious, imaginative, and well-loved little girl who begins to lose herself once forced from her family's idyllic farm and into school. As she withdraws inward, only two people offer comfort: Dooley Sullivan, an older boy, a prankster who is always in trouble, and Silas Chance, a decorated veteran of World War Two, an Indian who works at the local lumberyard, and the Moon family's new tenant. Silas dies violently, the victim of a hit-and-run. And at the site there is evidence the driver stopped but did not help. In such a small town with the usual racial prejudices, the case is never solved. But years later, on the evening of her marriage, Frances knows who the driver was. And possibly, so does Dooley.
            There are no huge miracles in Liberty Street, only small gestures from characters alive on the page with grace and humor. Warren is a born storyteller, a magus who creates flawed but enduring characters who seek a way to redeem their lives. Written with compassion and wry humor, this is a novel to cheer for.