Unless

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Most people want to be happy. But how many have what it takes to be good? Can self-realization and morality share the same space in our lives? Or can we only have one and not the other? These are the questions that underlie Carol Shields's 2002 profoundly moving novel Unless, which explores the "problem of goodness" and how it squares with the very human desire for happiness. The narrator is Reta Winters, a middle-aged writer whose comfortable life is thrown into turmoil when one of her daughters disappears, and subsequently turns up as a panhandler on a Toronto streetcorner.

Unless was published in 2002, and was a finalist for the Giller Prize the same year. It was a contender for Canada Reads 2011, where it was defended by Lorne Cardinal.

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From the book

Author interviews

Carol Shields, an emerging writer

41 years ago

Duration 5:14

A young Carol Shields tells the CBC why her fiction revolves around modern, ordinary women.

Canada Reads9:50"Unless" author Carol Shields on the Next Chapter (Encore 2002)

Shelagh Rogers revisits a 2002 interview with Canada Reads author Carol Shields.

Radio 20:51Shift: Anne Giardini summarizes Unless

Anne Giardini, daughter of the late Carol Shields, summarizes the plot of her mother's book, Unless.

More about this book

Canada Reads11:28Canada Reads 2011: Carol Shields' daughter on Shift regarding her mother's nomination

CBC Radio 2's Shift talks music and more with the Canada Reads authors.