The Tenderness of Wolves

I've just finished The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney. I take much longer to read books nowadays - I used to blast through books incredibly quickly but don't seem to have the ability to do so nowadays, but even by my current standards it I seem to have been reading this for ages. It wasn't a difficult read by any means, but it is a long book, and towards the end I got the feeling that Penney had become so immersed in her characters, and the atmosphere of the bleak snowbound Canadian wilderness in which the narrative takes place, that she wasn't too sure how she was going to finish it. There are a great many characters in the book, not all of them as well developed as they might be, and a map would have been useful, as I found it difficult at times to work out where everyone actually was.
However, I found much to admire and enjoy, and liked very much the fact that not all the questions were answered. The Macguffin of the bone tablet was a particularly pleasing little feature, and the central relationship between Mrs Ross and Parker was well portrayed and, ultimately very moving.
One thing that kept nagging away at me all the way through was the question of historical authenticity. I'd read that Penney had undertaken meticulous researcc in the British Library, and it shows - everything about conditions in 19th century Canada; the landscape, weather, living conditions, seems immaculately realised. But I couldn't help feeling throughout that we were seeing 21st-century people plonked down in the 19th century. The characters spoke, thought and felt with modern voices and attitudes. I didn't however, feel this was necessarily a problem - sometimes attempts at period authenticity get in the way and overpower narratives. Somehow it didn't seem to matter that a married woman would take off into the wilderness with another man to look for her son. We'd been given a picture of a woman with a complicated background who obviously had enough independance of thought to do something like this, but it didn't really ring true for me. This, surely, would never, could never have happened in the mid-19th century, even in the wilds of Canada? But who am I to question this? Penney had exhaustively researched her book, and it's possible she may have found a similar story. I'm coming round to the idea that authenticity really is an over-valued concept. What does it actually mean? We can only go by whether we think and feel something is authentic, and why.
Anyway, I stuck with the book, and, although it's by no means perfect, it ultimately convinced me. Several critics found the ending unsatisfactory - endings are difficult, and more celebrated writers have come to grief over them. I hope she writes more as I think there's plenty there to suggest she has enormous talent - I've read that she suffers from agoraphobia, so I hope that doesn't prove too great an obstacle. She produced this without leaving Britain, so obviously has a fine imagination. I look forward to more from her.