Morrissey, Donna 1956-

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MORRISSEY, Donna 1956-

PERSONAL: Born 1956, in Newfoundland; married (divorced); children: two. Education: Memorial University, B.A. (social work).

ADDRESSES: Home—Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Offıce—c/o Author Mail, Penguin Canada, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Suite 300, Toronto, Ontario M4V 3B2, Canada. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Scriptwriter and author. Worked variously as a waitress, cook, bartender, fish factory worker, and social worker.

AWARDS, HONORS: National Association of Social Workers Award for excellence in fieldwork; Atlantic Film Festival awards for screenplays; First-Time Author of the Year Award, Canadian Booksellers Association, and Winifred Holby Prize, both for Kit's Law.

WRITINGS:

Kit's Law, Viking (New York, NY), 1999.

Downhill Chance, Penguin (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2002.

Author's works have been translated into Japanese, Dutch, and German. Short story "Clothesline Patch" was adapted by Morrissey as a screenplay for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

WORK IN PROGRESS: A third novel.

SIDELIGHTS: Donna Morrissey was a married mother of two working in a fish factory when she was misdiagnosed with a terminal illness. Although corrected within twenty-four hours, Morrissey's life would never be the same again. She ended up in college, became a social worker, and eventually turned to writing at the urgings of an adult education instructor in Jungian psychology. According to Morrissey in a January Magazine article, when she asked her instructor why she should be a writer, the instructor replied, "Because you're the first person I'd rather listen to than talk to." Although she began writing short stories and screenplays, Morrissey eventually moved on to the novel form, making her debut in 1999 with Kit's Law, followed by Downhill Chance.

Morrissey was born and grew up in the Beaches, an isolated port on the west coast of Newfoundland. After flunking out of high school, she left her hometown at the age of sixteen and moved to Cornerbrook, where she attended secretarial school, once again failing to graduate. Over the next ten years Morrissey traveled across the country, got married, and had two children. She returned to her hometown because of family tragedy. Then the fateful diagnosis occurred and she was told she had tetanus and only six months to live. According to Morrissey in a brief autobiography on the Slopen Agency Web site, the diagnosis "sent me into a tailspin that eventually changed the course of my life. Suffering from acute anxiety as a result of the misdiagnosis, I enrolled at Memorial University to have something to occupy my mind."

Morrissey got divorced and after graduation became a social worker, a job she did not like. Searching for a new line of work, Morrissey enrolled in an adult education class where her instructor said she should be a writer. Eventually, Morrissey followed the advice. "I bought an alarm clock, and every morning I arose at six, sat with the homeless in a downtown cafe, writing, writing, writing—about the pigeons outside my window, the sun, the wind, the Sweet Williams in my grandmother's garden, the irks and ills of my siblings, until it felt like my pen had taken on a life of its own," Morrissey wrote in her Slopen Agency autobiography.

Morrissey began her professional writing by penning two short stories that she later adapted into award-winning screenplays. When her mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer, Morrissey returned home to help care for her. Morrissey noted, "My mother lay on a bed beside me as I sat at my computer, and the third short story that had started out about an old woman and twenty-five cats, stretched itself into a novel about an old woman and a girl called Kit who got caught in her struggles amidst the irresolvable laws of man and God."

Kit's Law focuses on fourteen-year-old Kit Pitman who lives with her mentally retarded mother, Josie, and her grandmother, Lizzie, in a remote Newfoundland village in the 1950s. When Lizzie dies Kit is threatened with placement in a foster home because of her mother's disability and scandalous behavior, including promiscuity. Eventually Kit gets help from an aunt so she can stay at home and falls in love with a reverend's son. But a rape attack on Kit ends up in further violence and a horrifying revelation.

"Suffused with a wonder for the natural world like Thomas Hardy's, and the tart forthrightness of Marilynne Robinson, this atmospheric coming-of-age story marks the promising debut of Canadian scriptwriter Morrissey," wrote a Publishers Weekly reviewer of the best selling novel. However, W. P. Kinsella said in Quill & Quire that Morrissey "tells us more than we need to know about her characters" and that her characters move from using a "strong Newfoundland dialect" that "illuminates the dialogue" to everyday English. Nevertheless, Kinsella noted that the author shows "a talent for poetic description" and that "Kit's Law is still a promising first effort." Gillian Engberg, writing in Booklist, called Kit's Law a "beautiful first novel" that "balances raunchy folk humor, riveting suspense, and family tragedy with a young girl's profound first love." Engberg also noted, "Startling, vivid, and expertly crafted, this novel introduces an exciting writer whose career needs to be followed closely."

Morrissey's second novel, Downhill Chance, takes place once again in an isolated cove village in Newfoundland. Job Gale, who enlisted in the army during World War II, returns from the war with a terrible secret shame that affects the entire family, including his young daughter, the spirited Clair. Clair eventually becomes a teacher in a nearby town, falls in love with Luke, and the two struggle as they confront their personal family demons and their disappointments. In the Independent, Jean McNeil noted, "Poetic description may not be Donna Morrissey's forte, but by God, can she banter. Her second novel, Downhill Chance, is almost entirely oral work, composed of authentic Newfoundland vernacular." McNeil also said, "Morrissey is a writer of heroines and villains, of secrets and downfalls, although no character descends into pure stereotype."

As for Morrissey, in her Slope Agency autobiography she provided some insight into how she found her writing voice. After starting her third short story she became interested in the writings of Carl Jung, Robert Johnson, and Joseph Campbell. "They changed my perspective on life and gave me a foundation upon which to write," said Morrissey. "I learned how we all live within myth, and one of the keys to good writing—and good living—is to find that myth within a character, or ourselves, then bridge it to everyday life."