The Observer: A Novel

Winner of the Saskatchewan Book Awards City of Saskatoon Book Award and Book of the Year Award“A taut psychological drama. . . . With powerful prose . . . [Endicott] sagely employs the semi-detached tools of fiction to relay first-hand the trials, tribulations and exigencies of an embattled couples’ storied life. . . . This gripping novel is . . . typical of [Endicott’s] fluent mastery.” —Winnipeg Free Press“I loved this quiet, meditative book. . . . [The Observer] is a novel about light in the darkness . . . about hope amidst the harshness of reality, and about how sometimes all it ever takes to keep going is the miracle of just one good thing.” —Pickle Me This"Powerful and impressive. . . . [Endicott] has rightly earned her place in the upper ranks of Canadian letters, and The Observer will only add to that reputation. . . . The Observer is a quiet book, a small book that sneaks up on you, insinuating itself in your heart before it bursts at its seams, that grows to envelop the extremities of human experience, rending them with a powerful grace and beauty. . . . In the hands of a master writer like Endicott, this small life sings.” —Toronto Star “I'm still marveling at this novel’s disorienting juxtaposition of natural beauty, familial tenderness and everyday terror. It’s the story of a marriage forged inside a crucible of unspoken trauma—extraordinary, affecting and unforgettable.” —Lynn Coady, winner of the Scotiabank Giller Prize for Hellgoing“An in-depth portrait of a young RCMP officer and his family—the debilitating trauma the job exacts, the silence that accompanies the damage, the soul-quaking isolation. It’s also a testament to love, loyalty, duty and patience; the desire to make things right; and the power of bearing witness. Endicott’s prose is clean, light, swift. Readers will leave this book altered, more compassionate, with a deeper understanding of how power works, and how it fails us.” —Lisa Moore“Marina Endicott has a rare gift, given to only a very few writers: the ability to write about decency with clear-eyed conviction. The Observer radiates love—a young woman’s love for her partner, a good cop who struggles with depression, and love for children, unanticipated gifts. This is a profound, dazzling novel about hard-won hope in the toughest of circumstances.” —Guy Vanderhaeghe