The Stone Carvers
 Jane Urquhart
 (Reviewer - Carolyn Stearns)
 2002 Viking Press
 ISBN: 0670030449

A young Canadian falls in love with a lad who goes to fight in WWI.

The Stone Carvers is set in the first half of the twentieth century, & reaches back to Bavaria & the past. It weaves together the story of ordinary lives marked by obsession & transformation by the art of sculpting.

At the center of a large cast of characters is Klara Becker, the granddaughter of a master carver, a seamstress haunted by a love affair cut short by the First World War, & by the frequent disappearances of her brother Tilman, afflicted with wanderlust.

From an Ontario village, they are swept into a colossal venture in Europe years later, as Toronto sculptor Walter Allward's ambitious plans begin to take shape for a war memorial at Vimy, France.

Spanning three decades, & moving from a German-settled village in Ontario to Europe after the Great War, The Stone Carvers follow the paths of immigrants, laborers, & dreamers.

Reviewer Carolyn Stearns writes:

The book Away introduced me to Canadian writer Jane Urquhart. In it she demonstrates her power -- she is a great storyteller. Now that I've read my second Jane Urquhart book, I am eager to read her other three.

Canada has some remarkable women writers. I think most immediately of Margaret Atwood, Carol Shields (who died this summer), &, of course, Jane Urquhart. Sometimes I think many Americans think of Canada as another state. However, read a novel by any one of these women & you will see a whole other country.

My only problem with The Stone Carvers is the way Jane Urquhart “plays” with history. She introduces Walter Allward, a real person, in the final third of the novel & then plays with his history the way Oliver Stone “plays” with history in his movies.

Jane Urquhart makes a disclaimer at the beginning in very small print, & in her Acknowledgements at the end, but I doubt many people will notice them. Since Jane Urquhart is a stickler for detail about the art of sculpting, I assumed she is also a stickler for facts about the life & times of Walter Allward. I was wrong.

I was told once by a writer friend not to worry about making a story true. He said the question I should ask myself is not “Is it true?” but “Is it plausible?”

The Stone Carvers certainly makes Walter Allward sound not only plausible, but true as well. Jane Urquhart passes my friend's test. But why did she choose not to go a step further, & make the book historically accurate? At what point do we as writers need to be responsible to our readers by being factually correct? It would be as if I, as an ex-dancer, made up a story about Martha Graham to suit me, or to fit my storyline in a book I'm now working on about the dance world. I'd feel I was betraying a trust. My Readers would be under the illusion they were learning about the life of Martha Graham & the way she created dances, when actually they wouldn't be learning anything at all.

In her Acknowledgements, Jane Urquhart says (Page 391): “Walter Allward was an enormously gifted sculptor who worked in Canada in the first half of the twentieth century. His most major and best-known achievement is the imposing Vimy Memorial, the Canadian First World War Monument built near Arras in France. Allward is a character in this book and, as so, is used in the text in a purely fictitious manner. I leave it to others to write the factual biography his life and accomplishments so richly deserve.”

I was an exceedingly happy reader as I read The Stone Carvers, but after I finished the Acknowledgements at the end, I was definitely troubled by Jane Urquhart's decision. It is for this reason, no other, that I give this otherwise excellent book only 3 teapots.

More from Jane Urquhart:
The Underpainter
The Whirlpool
(10/19/03)

Carolyn Stearns
2001©Carolyn Stearns
A RebeccasReads.Com Sr. Staff Writer/Reviewer

Reviewer's Bio:
Carolyn Stearns is a professional modern dancer, choreographer, teacher, masseuse, hypnotist & writer who began her 39 year dance career as a butterfly in first grade. She received an MS in dance from Smith College & studied with modern dance legends Martha Graham, Hanya Holm & Jose Limon.

As Carolyn Coles, she performed with prominent dance companies including Karamu Dancers & the Jose Limon Dance Company in Philadelphia, taught dance at Smith, Swarthmore & Connecticut Colleges & the University of Maryland. For years she was a dance critic for Choice Magazine.

After she retired from dance, she taught her own bodywork program Stretch and Meditation, gave psychic body readings & grief massages -- out of which came her six Blessing Tree Self-Empowerment audio tapes.

Then she began to write, publishing: Spirit-Walking; Where Did All The Water Go?; Queit Please-Eaglets Growing; The Inheritance. Excerpts of her work have appeared in Reality Change, Fodderwing, The Washington Post, Pilgrimage, The New Bay Times, Chesapeake, earthlight! and Choice Magazine.

She live in Mason's Beach, Maryland & at Weslemkoon Lake, Ontario with her husband, Chris, & her special teachers: a Great Pyrenees dog Jean-Luc & cats Black Angus & Calico Phoebe. They share six children & six grandchildren.

A RebeccasReads author in Authors & Books