Three Days Till Rapture
read what others are saying about the book
So. Damn. Good. Fisher Lavell’s Three Days Till Rapture is a fascinating, sprawling, fictional history of Manitoba’s working class in the 1950s. The dialect and dialogue are entirely convincing because this “voice” is Lavell’s first language. All her characters—beautiful, tenacious Grace and flawed Valentine, cantankerous old Josephine, damaged Beatrice and tragic Rosie, and many more—are richly drawn and believable. She puts you inside their minds; she shows (but never preaches) how social and economic disadvantage impacts real people’s lives. Lavell writes compelling drama, romance, and action/danger in scenes that include sex, turmoil, physical conflict, death, and betrayal. Genre-defying."
─Barbara Jensen, founding member and past president
of the Working-Class Studies Association and author of
Reading Classes: On Culture and Classism in America
of the Working-Class Studies Association and author of
Reading Classes: On Culture and Classism in America
In Three Days Till Rapture, Fisher Lavell exposes, in direct and disturbing detail, the social norms and hierarchies of the forested hills and parklands of central Manitoba, a place she knows well. Lavell writes with propulsive urgency about her beloved characters and rural surroundings, with all their beauty, flaws, and strengths. But her people and habitats are never pastoral or quaint. Men work hard and die young; hydro wires electrocute, logging kills, bridges burn, livestock rampage, and mines collapse. In the home, women deal with the aftermath of violence, alcoholism, infidelities, misogyny, unwanted pregnancies, sexual assaults, gossip, and other trauma. This novel is authentic. Plain-spoken. Brazen. Nostalgia be damned."
─Donna Besel, author of
The Unravelling and Lessons from a Nude Man
The Unravelling and Lessons from a Nude Man
The beautiful storying in the book draws you into the lives of complex, imperfect, and captivating characters with intergenerational trials and inescapable connections. Fisher brings each of them to life through her deep understanding of working-class people in the 1950s. She skillfully weaves the thread of social class through the interplay of resiliency alongside tragedy; grief and loss alongside an enduring capacity for finding moments of joy. Reading Three Days Till Rapture evoked an inescapable sense of connection to the characters. I found myself pulled backward in time along my own family lines: paternal stories nestled in the comfort of the “haves” in Southern Manitoba and, on the east coast, far away from Valentine and Grace in Swan River, the poverty, hardship, and deep familial rootedness of my maternal line."
─Sandra Collins, PhD, counsellor educator,
researcher, writer, artist, and consultant
researcher, writer, artist, and consultant