Carol Shields explores the bonds between mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, and what happens when abstract ideas are put to the test.

Reta Winters has a loving family, good friends, and growing success as a writer of light fiction. Then her eldest daughter suddenly withdraws from the world, abandoning university to sit on a street corner, wearing a sign that reads only ‘Goodness’. As Reta seeks the causes of her daughter’s retreat, her enquiry turns into an unflinching, often funny, meditation on society and the places where we find meaning and hope. 

Shortlisted
The Man Booker Prize 2002
Published by
Fourth Estate
Publication date
Carol Shields

Carol Shields

About the Author

Carol Shields was born in Chicago but spent much of her life in Canada and England. She published six novels and two collections of short stories.
More about Carol Shields

Other nominated books by Carol Shields

The Stone Diaries