"Way up in the sky the moon is visible, a pale wafer. We intend to get there before the decade is out, President Kennedy has pledged it." And yet, the journey left broken pieces of those sacrificed to get there. When the moment finally came, some people already knew enough about that journey that the magic was lost.

Her award-winning first novel Fall on Your Knees guided readers through several generations of one family’s history with intricate detail. Ann-Marie MacDonald admitted in one interview that the book began as a screenplay, the actress and playwright’s most familiar medium. After some struggle, however, she realized the words were forming a fictional tale of a different sort. Fall’s release created a dedicated fan base, which has been eagerly awaiting a second novel. That novel finally arrived in the form of The Way the Crow Flies, and it is clear that the years in between the two releases were well spent. MacDonald has offered readers another complex exploration of family and community, even cleaner and clearer than the first.

Most intriguing about MacDonald’s writing are the multiple layers to the people and situations she creates. The plot twists out from under any labels readers try to attach. This is the story of a marriage, childhood, and a transition from a cold past to a luminescent future. This is a story about what gets lost when hope and idealism meet reality. The compromises that take place in that transition often leave a wake of trouble, even murder.

"Belonging and not belonging. Being on the outside and the inside at the same time. For Madeleine it is as natural, as negligible, as breathing. And the idea of growing up in the midst of your own past—among people who have known you all your life and believe they know what you are made of, what you are capable of—that is a suffocating thought."

Madeleine McCarthy is eight years old and can be swept away by her own imagination on a regular basis. In the military world of the RAF, change is constant. Her family moves often, but the reassuring similarities from one station to the next allow Madeleine’s little family to adapt quickly to its new surroundings. Friendships and communities are based on a sense of a shared history that may or may not exist. This false trust begins to erode one terrible year in Centralia, Canada, where Madeleine’s father, Jack, has just been posted.

"RCAF Centralia. Don’t look for it now, it has lost its memory. A temporary place, for temporary people, it was constructed so that memory would not adhere, but slip away like an egg from a pan. Constructed to resist time."

MacDonald is a weaver of stories. She creates mysteries and suspense using thin threads of the past mingled with what is to come. Right away, readers know a child will be killed in the prosperous growth of the early 1960s. The questions fly: Which child? When? How? Why? The answers to some questions are less obvious than they seem. Responsibility becomes increasingly difficult to assume.

Jack McCarthy’s posting is no accident. An old military friend has arranged for Jack to become a small piece of a secret operation to smuggle a Soviet scientist into the United States via Canada to contribute to the space race. Jack accepts the responsibility to watch the anonymous man without question at first, but as he learns more about the scientist and the circumstances surrounding the move, he becomes nauseated by the idea that he is so deeply involved. When his involvement then prohibits Jack from presenting information vital to a solving the child’s murder, Jack’s world crumbles.

As the space race plot unfolds, MacDonald allows readers to glimpse life in Centralia from Madeleine’s perspective. Jack’s loss of innocence is the realization that blind faith in any one person or organization can be deadly, but Madeleine’s is the loss of childhood, too. Mr. March, Madeleine’s new teacher, has a very select way to discipline the little girls who daydream in his class. His after-school "exercise" program becomes the source of a social division in their class, and the resulting fetid guilt becomes something Madeleine carries with her for life.

Mimi McCarthy, sensual, doting mother and wife, is blinded by Jack’s unspoken attraction to their earthy neighbor. She mistakes his quiet frustration with his scientist mission for an affair. In the resulting inner turmoil for both parties, Madeleine’s plight goes unnoticed.

MacDonald writes long, flowing passages of prose, interspersed with reflection, description, and glimpses of the future. It’s easy to get lost in her writing. The novel, like MacDonald’s first, has the quality of an oral tradition. It reads like stories passed down through countless grandmothers, aunts, daughters, and cousins. At once, it is a gripping page-turner and a winding journey of language. Mimi’s family speaks Acadian French, and those phrases enhance both the adult relationship and young Madeleine’s own conversations.

The court trial following the mystery murder leaves much unsettled for both the reader and the characters. They never quite put their lives back together. The air force base is rocked by the tragedy and undergoes a tremendous number of transfers that year, including the McCarthys. Madeleine’s family is forced to accept several more losses over the years, some of which readers feel only as reverberations, not details.

Madeleine’s climb to overcome the challenges that began in her youth incorporates new areas of strength and confusion. As she solidifies her success as a comedian, Madeleine also confronts her sexuality. As the only living child of Jack and Mimi, this presents yet another familial division. Somehow, though, MacDonald is able to give Madeleine hope, new growth, and healing, sentiments her readers carry with them, too. She revisits Centralia as an adult and begins to see for the first time the looking-glass qualities of the memories she has constructed.

The best part about MacDonald’s writing is that she provides a long stay in her literary world. By the time readers finish the book, they have become part of the McCarthy landscape. Madeleine’s triumphs are our own.