This story is about a young women named Molly Macneil and her young son Alan. They live in a town called Broughton which is located in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Broughton is a small town where most of its male inhabitants work at the colliery. Molly is a very lonely women who has been taking on the role of a single mother for the last four years because her husband has been away.
Her husband, Archie Macneil, is in the United States following his boxing career. Molly also feels she has to keep this a secret from Alan because she wants him to grow up to be a doctor not a boxer. She will only tell Alan that her father has gone to make money for them and will return when he is finished. She also tells him that his father is a very strong man.Molly has two other men in her life. One is Daniel Ainslie, the town doctor, and Louis Camire, a Frenchman who has just moved to Broughton.
Dr Ainslie is a married man who is simply her companion. He is more interested in Alan and his future. But Louis loves Molly ans she has feelings for him even though she denies them.Throughout the book Molly tries her best to make a good life for her and Alan, even though they are both very lonely. Molly misses her husband and Alan misses his father.
The two main characters in this book are Molly Macneil and Daniel Ainslie.Molly Macneil is a young women in her early twenties. She is very lonely because she longs for her husband. She is also very troubled. She is fighting feelings for another man and is trying to keep Archie’s occupation from Alan so he will not follow in his footsteps.
Molly has a strong character and is very intelligent. Whenever Alan has a question she can always answer it whether she makes it up or tells the truth. Molly is also determined to make a success out of her son. Most of all Molly is a caring and warm person.
She loves her son and is loved by everyone in the town.Daniel Ainslie is the town doctor. He is a very successful doctor because he is very smart and very hardworking. He is often to involved in his work and this is causing him and his wife Margaret to fight constantly. He loves her very much even though they fight a lot. He is a very passionate man in everything he does.
He also loves kids and wants a child but his wife cannot have children.The passage I selected may not be the most exciting but I found it was the most important. It occurs after Dr Ainslie had just finished operating on Alan for a severe case a appendicitis. He leaves the hospital and rushes down to the warf not thinking where he is going because there are so many thoughts rushing through his head. “She’ll never let me!” he heard himself cry out once, and recognized that “she” was Margaret, cool, detached, sensible, devoid of all trace of wild Highland imagination.
Again he saw Mollie leaning over the sick Alan in the miner’s cottage, and the three figures began to blur and come apart again. He tried to hold on and keep them separated long enough to understand what had happened to him this night, but it had happened first in Louisburg and he had been afraid of it then and ever since, terrified to think about it, terrified even now to shout it at the empty sea.” I found this passage so important because it was the turning point in Ainslie’s life. It was at this moment that he realized all of his problems with work and his wife were because of his need for a child. He wanted a son and that is why he is so interested in Alan and his future. He wanted Alan to be his son.
I thought this was a great book. It was one of the greatest I ever read. The author is Canadian and I love Canadian literature. I found it very interesting and once I started reading the book it was hard to stop. It was very touching and uplifting.
It had all the components of a great novel in my opinion. It included adventure, romance, and excellent description. Most of all I loved the way the author made it feel like you knew the characters all of your life.I would recommend this book to anyone who likes to hear stories of real people and their real life struggles. If you like adventure novels and romance novels this is a book for you.
Most importantly it is a book for those people who like sentimental novels. Overall it is a book that will appeal to many.
Bibliography:
Each Man's Son
Hugh Maclegan
