Readers were enthralled by the difficult yet somehow fulfilling life of the title character and his fragile bride in Donna Morrissey’s Commonwealth Prize-nominated 2005 novel Sylvanus Now. This sequel shifts the focus to Sylvanus and Addie’s children, and while the setting and era may have changed, Morrissey’s trademark style and wit thankfully remain.
    Daughter Sylvie narrates, her journey beginning with her return home after Sylvanus suffers a heart attack. Having inherited her mother’s unquenchable (but unfulfilled) desire to flee the harsh terrain and outmoded way of life of her childhood home in Newfoundland’s fishing villages, Sylvie went to university in Halifax, and is now waitressing in Alberta, where the rig workers’ dollars flow as freely as the oil feeding the province’s boom. Recognizing that Sylvanus’ health will render him unable to work, dreamily artistic son Chris defies his family and joins Sylvie upon her return to Alberta, to work the oil fields and make some money to send home.
    As in Morrissey’s previous novels, the intricacies of the characters’ relationships provide most of the interest in What They Wanted. Though Sylvie’s love story is not as poignant or intense as her parents’, the object of her affection is a dominant presence. Sylvie’s strained relationship with her mother is also a major element, and Morrissey does a fine job of presenting both sides of the story. It is the interaction between siblings that is the most compelling, with each making the other more complete on the page.
    Told with her familiar firecracker prose and gift for drenching her readers in the sights, sounds, and textures of her settings, this novel is Morrissey, if not at her finest, then pretty darn close.