Dorothy Speak’s first novel, The Wife Tree, is probably not the book to read if you’re feeling pessimistic about relations between men and women. While the book ends with Morgan Hazzard, its 70-something heroine, ready to embark on a vigorous new life, the starting point is an oppressive marital relationship that only improves when her husband William lies dying from a stroke.

For 40 years William has crushed Morgan’s will and undermined her confidence. Although she worked as a nurse as a young woman, Morgan has become so downtrodden that she is literally lost without William – she can barely find her way to the hospital on her own when he falls ill. Their six daughters have long since escaped this poisoned atmosphere; their only son is a silly, Bible-quoting leech.

Speak tells the story in a series of letters Morgan writes to her daughters but doesn’t send, interspersed with third-person accounts of Morgan’s perceptions as fall winds down into a long, cold winter. The central symbol is an old apple tree known as the Wife Tree. William has nearly killed it by overpruning while letting its companion, the Husband Tree, alone.

The author of two short story collections, Speak evokes here the colours, smells, and sounds of fall and winter with great finesse. She also sets up several plot twists that carry the story forward in a compelling manner, and introduces two sympathetic younger men – a police officer and a bank manager – who lift some of the curse off her otherwise depressing vision of men. This is an angry book where the good characters get the best lines and the bad ones have no more life than William, imprisoned in his stroke-paralyzed body.