A jest of God

Summary: In this remarkable and deservedly popular novel, Margaret Laurence writes with graceful power and deep compassion about a woman hovering on the brink of madness and despair, desperately struggling to communicate, to survive, to find freedom and release. Victim of deceit and pettiness – her own as much as others – Rachel Cameron is chained to a tyrannical, invalid mother in a small, stultifying Manitoba town. Her struggle, a struggle with love, with death, with herself and her world, is conveyed in deeply human terms with controlled fervour and unerring sensitivity. A Jest of God won the Governor General’s Award for fiction in 1967 and was released as the very successful film Rachel, Rachel. It stands with The Stone Angel and The Fire-Dwellers as a singularly enduring work by one of Canada’s most distinguished novelists.

Other Formats and Editions