‘The Deception of Livvy Higgs’ by Donna Morrissey

Book Reviews

Deception of Livvy HiggsReviewed by Kimberly Sperling

Deep and moody, Donna Morrissey’s latest novel, The Deception of Livvy Higgs, captures the essence of war, disappointment, pain, lost lives, desire for a mother’s love, turmoil, greed and deception. The Halifax-based Morrissey has previously published several novels: Kit’s Law, Sylvanus Now, and the bestselling Downhill Chance. In this new novel we peer into the life of the main character Livvy, who is now an old woman.

In youth and old age, Livvy seems to have never been free of deception by those to whom she is close. The fabrications of others in Livvy’s life prove more emotionally damaging through the use of half-truths than out and out lies, “poisons all concealed within truisms that play themselves through the mind, contaminating thought more lethally than a direct strike from an outside foe.” Deception and distortion of reality cycle repeatedly through the storyline.

The Deception of Livvy Higgs begins with present day 2009 Halifax and an elderly Livvy, living next door to a single mom, Gen, and her son Ronny. Present day untruths by Gen that Livvy must unravel, and a series of heart attacks that strike her, lead to Livvy’s long buried memories of family secrets and her youth on the French shore of Newfoundland in the mid 1930s. Two days of illness, a winter storm and a series of events next door in the present day take the reader from present to past and back again in Livvy’s recollections of her youth during her current illness.  Morrissey seams and quilts these separate eras together with ease.

Livvy experiences heart attack symptoms that she first blames on her age. As the story progresses, her physical symptoms and recollections from her long buried past increase with her fatigue and unconsciousness. The fighting and disrespect of Livvy’s mother and her father, Durwin, towards each other; the emotional distance of her father and his often verbalized disappointment in both Livvy and her mother; and each member of the family shielding their own minds and others in deceit including Livvy’s Grandmother Creed, weave in and out of the novel.

In the present, there are new visitors next door and Gen’s son Ronny is rushed to the hospital. During this time, unconsciousness transports Livvy to memories of her youth and recollections of Missus and Mister Louis, whose home next door is full of life, abundant children, guidance, work and busyness: a stark contrast to her own home. Livvy and her mother are forbidden to go to the Louis’s by Livvy’s father, but often do, hiding this from him.

The novel criss-crosses storylines with deceit surrounding a ship wreck that involves Grandmother Creed, loved people and animals dying, or being killed, and the introduction of orphans, which explicates the symbolic detachment from closeness and emotion expressed in continuous ways throughout the book. Along with the family secrets, the theme of love so desired, yet remaining always elusive, and relationships continually falling short, leaves the reader feeling palpable heartbreak.

The story is really about the unsaid. The characters’ knowledge of each other’s deceptions is explained by Missus Louis as if a person’s nature sometimes makes deceits acceptable. “When the sea swallows a man, does that make it evil, macushlah – when it’s just following its nature?” Livvy must peel away the layers upon layers of dishonesty. The reader is brought through the World War II years, cargo ships and tankers blasted in the Atlantic, and Livvy later at Grandmother Creed’s, untangling a lifetime of a twisted web of lies.

Meanwhile in the present day, Gen is checking on Livvy during the winter storm and Livvy’s illness while her own son Ronny is in the hospital. Gen is battling her own demons and tragedies next door to Livvy, other matters that unravel and expose themselves. Each character has her own nuances, described so the reader can feel the emotion and turmoil.

The cover of the book alludes to one side of the story, the facet that hides deceit and greed. The sea on the cover is placid, hiding the jagged rocks, death and storms of itself and Livvy’s childhood.  This same sea calls life, and steals life, shelters secrets and unsaid sorrows and has unseen depth and complexity that is not shared with others or by merely peering at the surface.

Angela Hickman in The National Post captures the essence of the story well in her review. I only disagree with Hickman’s premise that “middle life…is left out. Those years, we’re left to understand, were happy, and it is only the bad that comes back to haunt us.” I agree that the middle years are not addressed in depth, only briefly referenced, but they allude to grief, death and an unattainable mother’s love played out in a different way.

Overall The Deception of Livvy Higgs is fast paced and stimulating, although the mid-section of the novel slows for a short period. Throughout, the twists and turns of the storyline and eras have the reader uncovering family secrets and experiencing disappointment, death, pain and greed beside Livvy.  The timelines move from present to past and back again, joining never ending cycles of deception that must be unwrapped layer by layer. The Deception of Livvy Higgs abundantly establishes powerful emotion while revealing family dysfunction.


Viking | 288 pages |  $32.00 | cloth | ISBN # 978-0670066056

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Contributor

Kimberly Sperling


Originally from the US, Kimberly Sperling moved to Winnipeg from Calgary in February 2013, and was elected to The Writers’ Collective board of directors. She has a background in real estate and commercial writing.