Judith Thompson (Blain Watters)

Ana Burns is lying in a field of mustard flowers, “stoned on Windowpane acid,” her mind drifting back and forth through a series of horrific events from her childhood. Now 17 years old, Ana is haunted by the tragic drowning of her young friend Patty, a girl who defended Ana from the violence of a pair of local boys. Feeling unable to speak out about what happened to Patty at the time, Ana has carried the burden that she betrayed her friend, and in turn betrayed herself.

Judith Thompson, the multiple award-winning playwright of such works as The Crackwalker, White Biting Dog, and most recently, Queen Maeve, expertly builds tension around these terrible events in her debut novel, In Crow’s Field. Peppering young Ana’s intoxicated recollections with multiple narrative diversions, Thompson depicts the fragile nature of early memory, slowing down the action and submerging the reader in a feeling of danger that refuses to relent. From those first scenes of young male brutality and female betrayal, we are acutely aware that something ugly is about to unravel, a discomfort that persists throughout the book.

Via Ana’s journey from girlhood to her early teen years, moving from Middletown, Connecticut, to Kingston, Ontario, Thompson reveals how the innocence and optimism of youth can be suffocated by casual school-age cruelty. Ana’s increasingly painful experiences, and the shame she feels as a result, articulate how power is wielded, and the terrifying powerlessness to stop it. As Ana endures relentless bullying at the hands of her peers, and is subject to the predatory behaviour of both boys and men, every relationship begins to feel tenuous, every connection hard to trust, every decision offering the potential for danger.

Thompson is also adept at depicting the girlhood tension between desire and fear, and the impulse to pursue what both repels and attracts. Troubled and ostracized, Ana yearns only to be accepted and adored, even if that attention comes from sources she knows are inherently threatening (older men, for example). Similarly, Ana’s desire to speak out against injustice frequently collides with her very human need for safety, again leaving her both isolated and ashamed.

“I felt like a sick animal being hunted,” she says of her early high school experiences.

In Crow’s Field delivers what can feel like a relentless onslaught of unsettling content – classism, sexism, assault, exploitation, violation, suicide. Detailed and lengthy passages depicting the cruelty of girlhood become increasingly difficult to read, yet despite the vicious imagery, the prose retains a youthful, almost memoir-like quality, making the revelations all the more jarring.

Ana’s long-held beliefs about herself and her ability to act in the defence of others eventually come to a head. Despite uneven narrative moments, In Crow’s Field ultimately evolves into a powerful tale of redemption, and a painfully accurate portrait of the thankless trials of youth. The inner power that Ana summons in the book’s final moments allows the narrative to coalesce into a satisfying whole.

“I am doing something right,” she tells us. “For the first time in my life. I have the strength.”