The Stone Angel has been translated into French, as L'Ange de pierre (Montréal, 1976), and into German. At the end of book three, NYPD detective Kathy Mallory fled NYC without telling a soul and leaving her job and friends behind. Many readers find Hagar to be a rich fictional composite of actual women's lives in small towns on the Prairies. Stone Angel by Carol OConnell is the fourth in her Kathy Mallory mystery series and one of her strongest books yet. As she tells her story, Hagar also looks back to Manawaka (a fictionalized small town that Laurence has placed in Manitoba), recalling and recreating the effects of the town's constricting mores and her own family's position in the rigid hierarchy of Manawaka's deeply puritan society. Hagar's character and voice are justly praised as Laurence's most inspired creations. The Stone Angel is shaped by the alternating rhythms of Hagar's voice, searching through her past and returning to her present condition her widely ranging tones reveal the labyrinths of her pride. Hagar at 90 is a proud, powerful, tyrannical woman suffering the indignities of old age. Hagar Shipley relives her life by narrating memories as she battles to come to terms with herself before she dies. The Stone Angel, by Margaret Laurence (Toronto, London and New York, 1964), is the first of Laurence's "Manawaka" novels. Hagar Shipley's character and voice are justly praised as Laurence's most inspired creations (courtesy McClelland & Stewart). Dawn Bourdeau Milstrey is the author and illustrator of The Stone Angel Society, an illustrated middle grade ghost novel (Orange Blossom Publishing.
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