“I was hooked from the first sentence and couldn’t put this book down. Once again Frey has established a pitch perfect familial concert of insightful humor, deep caring, alternated with ambiguous frustration, anger as well as misunderstanding or outright lack of concern — all the emotions that connect families and their foibles in a deeply touching and nuanced style. As with all of Frey’s writing, every syllable is selected to enforce that dynamic that characterizes families and the way they relate to each other and the outside world. Cecilia Frey is to Canadian literature what John Updike represents to American literature, a voice that harkens clearly to the multi-generational and multi-media interfaces of contemporary families. Moments of Joy is a book to be read and reread.”–Elona Malterre, author of The Last Wolf of Ireland”Cecilia Frey’s new novel Moments of Joy is about Love and Death and Sex and Life. In this multi-generational family saga, Frey gets inside the tortured or inspired (or both!) relationships between father and son, husband and wife, brother and sister. Complex dynamics are described in intricate detail, bolstering a plot that keeps us turning pages as family secrets are revealed one after another. Frey’s explorations of Manfred’s dementia and physical decline draw us in with their familiarity–mirroring what so many of us are going through as we care for aging parents. It all adds up to forgiveness, for others and for oneself.”–Ursula Pflug, author of Motion Sickness and The Alphabet Stones