In a moment of self-absorption, Clara Purdy's life takes a sharp left turn when she crashes into a beat-up car carrying an itinerant family of six. The Gage family had been travelling to a new life in Fort McMurray, but bruises on the mother, Lorraine, prove to be late-stage cancer rather than remnants of the accident. Recognizing their need as her responsibility, Clara tries to do the right thing and moves the children, husband, and horrible grandmother into her own house--then has to cope with the consequences of practical goodness.
What, exactly, does it mean to be good? When is sacrifice merely selfishness? What do we owe in this life and what do we deserve? Marina Endicott looks at life and death through the compassionate lens of a born novelist: being good, being at fault, and finding some balance on the precipice.

Marina Endicott’s second novel, Good to a Fault, was winner of the regional Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Best Book Award, Canada and the Caribbean, a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and one of The Globe and Mail’s Top 100 Books of 2008. Her debut novel, Open Arms, was a finalist for the 2001 Amazon/Books in Canada First Novel Award and broadcast on CBC Radio’s Between the Covers. Endicott’s stories have been featured in Coming Attractions and shortlisted for the Journey Prize and the Western Magazine Awards. She was born in Golden, BC and grew up in Vancouver, Nova Scotia and Toronto. She has been an actor, director, playwright and editor, and was Dramaturge of the Saskatchewan Playwrights Centre for many years. She lives in Edmonton.

Marina Endicott's profile page

Winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize (Canada and the Caribbean)
Finalist for the Giller Prize
"Marina Endicott is really funny, a sweet-natured but sharp-eyed and quick-tongued social observer in the Jane Austen-Barbara Pym-Anne Tyler tradition, who can wring love, revulsion and hilarity from readers in a single page."
—The Globe and Mail

"Endicott writes precisely and lucently, and sustains her novel well beyond any number of easy conclusions to provide a convincing case that some redemptive force is at work in the world, even if it's just our own innate creativity and talent for finding love."
—National Post

“Endicott’s prose is plain but purposeful, carrying the story through moments of sorrow and heartbreak as well as joy and comedy. . . . Good to a Fault doesn’t offer any easy answers, but in its depiction of ordinary people facing hard choices and challenging situations, it rings true.”
—Toronto Star

“The novel shows that the gift of love, even with tangled motivations, holds people together and makes it possible for them to go on. . . . Reminiscent of the work of Carol Shields, Good to a Fault is a profoundly humane novel.”
—Vancouver Sun

“[A] warm and witty second novel. . . . With a theatrical sensibility, Endicott . . . beautifully illuminates the interior lives and stunted interactions of her cast of struggling strangers—all of whom, it turns out, are perfect fits for the mysterious holes in one another’s lives. Told in time to the steady, poignant pulse of domestic life, and with sharp observations and characters so vulnerable they’re impossible not to care about, this is a novel that gets under the skin.”
—Quill & Quire

“This book explores, in clear, beautiful language, what happens when acts of kindness become selfish. . . . Compelling, funny, and meaningful.”
—Calgary Herald

“A powerful, thought-provoking novel rooted in the minutiae of daily life and a fundamental sense of humanity. . . . It’s an embarrassment of riches, frankly. Good to a Fault, indeed.”
—Edmonton Journal

“A graceful and deeply satisfying novel.”
—Wall Street Journal (The Best Books by Women 2010)

“A brilliantly balanced and engrossing work about illness, charity, and the very tenuous nature of goodness. Fans of contemporary fiction exploring the dangers of complacency and how domestic upheaval can lead to personal growth will enjoy; think Anne Tyler, Elizabeth Berg, and Anita Shreve. Highly recommended for all fiction collections.”
—Library Journal (starred review)

“As Jane Austen taught readers two hundred years ago, a few families in a small community are just the thing to write about. Endicott first has her character Clara create a community, which in itself is a small marvel, then the writer gets down to work providing pithy observations of the vital life that’s been made there. A lovely triumph.”
—Saskatoon Star Phoenix

“I found myself ensnared and unable to put the book down. . . . Flaring questions of right and wrong, of doing right and settling debts, and of trying for justice but falling short every time, come straight out of the situation the characters find themselves in, and fire truly and surely into the heart of the reader. . . . Endicott slowly and expertly draws her characters. . . . The magic—the goodness—in life and in art is in finding beauty both high and low, and sharing what is found, as Endicott shares with us in Good To A Fault.”
—The Huffington Post

“With delicate precision, Good to a Fault tackles some of the big, eternal questions—love, mortality, God—in a deceptively modest story populated with very ordinary people brought together in extraordinary circumstances. Endicott’s wry, understated prose turns a few surprising months in Clara Purdy’s life into a gripping moral quest, searching to discover what it means to live a truly good life.”
—The Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Jury Remarks, Canada/Caribbean Region

“There’s heartbreak, there’s joy, there are parts when you cry—and it’s very high-quality writing.”
—Margaret Atwood

“Good to a Fault is an ingeniously plotted and brilliantly paced novel. It manages to be both witty and wise, light and dark, with many unexpected moments. The characters are drawn with sympathy and with very clear lines. What is most unusual about the book is how unlikely and odd the drama is and then how compelling and urgent it becomes.”
—Colm Toibin

“One of those novels you want to tell people about. It’s unpretentious and affecting, with characters to remember and themes that linger and resound.”
—Meg Wolitzer

“Fierce and wise.”
—Annabel Lyon