Product Description

Author John Buell again demonstrates his compassionate interest in ordinary people who show courage and endurance against impossible odds in this story of two young people in trouble. Stan Hagan is struggling with the double addiction of drugs and alcohol. His wife Adele, now free of drugs, struggles to raise their child, born addicted.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3547879 in Books
• Published on: 1990-04-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Discovering that victory over addiction doesn't mean freedom from the past, Stan Hagan begins a quest to resurrect a relationship destroyed by alcohol and drugs. Stan's search for Adele Symons takes him to a small Canadian town where Del, he believes, may be living. A clean-cut and purposeful drifter in his late 20s, Stan lives in cheap rented rooms, seeking work to pay his way. Healing is his goal, and his slow progress is aided by new relationships: recalling Adele, an elderly trailer-park resident alludes to her baby boy who, Stan realizes, must be his son also; Martin Lacey, beginning a fragile new life after a heart attack shelters Stan in exchange for farm labor. Del's own drama requires an untangling of facts when she is blackballed from work after refusing the sexual advances of her employer's husband. Stan's quietly desperate odyssey evokes an undercurrent of suspense in this gently told and cautiously hopeful account of life after recovery by the author of The Pyx.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Buell interweaves the stories of three people on the fringes of society in this tale of alienation and reintegration set in small-town Canada. Hoping to atone for past mistakes, Stan Hagan, a young recovering alcoholic, comes to Ashton seeking Adele Symons, his former girlfriend. To finance his search, Stan goes to work for Martin Lacey, a widower who has recently suffered a heart attack. Through his growing friendship with the old farmer, Stan learns the importance of connections with other people, with nature, and with God. This knowledge serves him well when he eventually finds Adele, a recovering addict herself, working in Ashton and taking care of their recently born child. While sometimes predictable, the novel has a gritty honesty about it that lends its well-worn truths the air of fresh discovery. For most collections.
- Lawrence Rungren, Bedford Free P.L., Mass.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Insightful
John Buell's novel "A Lot To Make Up For" is filled with rich full-bodied characters. The reader easily senses the timidity yet courage of Stan and Adele. The book's colorful discriptions are apt although often a bit too long. Dialogue is well written still the plot drags at times. This book is still interesting enough to make me willing to read more from Mr. Buell
Beverly J Scott author of Righteous Revenge