Marrying slapstick humour with a thunderous clap of disaster, Endicott's nice, neat, humdrum heroine Clara Purdy, ploughs her sedan into the Gage family's car/home.
Inspired by an accident that Endicott witnessed, the Gages' job-hunting trek to Fort McMurray, Alta. ends as their rickety vehicle careens to a halt. The screaming family, which includes two parents, three kids and a cranky granny, spills out onto the street. Clara looks on in horror knowing that the blame for the smash-up is hers alone.
"In one instant Clara's life changes," says Endicott, who skillfully takes this group of disparate characters and turns them into a family.
Life opens us up, whether we want it or not.
"A car is a metaphor for how we get from one place to another, both physically and spiritually, to fulfill our destinies," says Endicott.
Destiny clearly has plans for disappointed Clara.
"Her life has been so circumscribed," says Endicott. "She lives with her parents until their deaths. Even then she won't move on into her life."
Yet the accident forces this 43-year-old woman to open up to life, whether she wants it or not. Moved by compassion and guilt, Clara opens her suburban bungalow to the homeless family. The offer comes after everyone learns that Lorraine, the children's mother, has late-stage lymphoma.
Clara's nine-to-five life is turned on its head by the unruly family. Despite the noise and mess that barges into her life, the childless, parentless woman who bemoans her wasted existence begins to care for the family, particularly baby Pearce.
Suddenly a whole host of feelings surge forward from Clara's motherly love to her longing for the town's poetry-spewing Anglican priest. And while Lorraine is appreciative of Clara's help, her feelings towards this Good Samaritan darken as the stranger takes over her life and her children's affections.
"Clara is isolated by her loneliness. The Gage family is isolated by their poverty. Somehow the missing pieces of their lives fit together," says Endicott, who learned of her Giller nomination while driving in her car.
"I pulled out the iPhone my husband gave me for my birthday and pressed to see who had made it," she laughs. "When I saw my cover I had to pull over. I just keep looking at the cover over and over."
Born in Golden, B.C. and raised in Nova Scotia and Toronto, the Edmonton theatre veteran and teacher of creative writing at the University of Alberta has several plays to her credit. Her last novel, "Open Arms," become a finalist for the 2001 Amazon.ca/Book in Canada First Novel Award.
Endicott is currently working on a novel about the Belle Auroras, a sister-trio vaudeville act touring the Canadian prairies at the beginning of the 20th century.
"If there is one thing people do take away from 'Good to a Fault' I hope it's this: People are better than we think they are," says Endicott.
"People do carry on when you think they can't and are replenished by surprising things," says Endicott. "Tragedy can be energizing. It can make our loving hearts grow bigger."
