MacNeil reveals her story, Butterflies Dance in the Dark, through the eyes of Mari-Jen. We first meet her at age five, and follow her to early adulthood to a poignant, though not wholly satisfactory, ending. Set in the fictional Acadian Cape Breton town of Ste. Noir, the novel is a strong attack on the practices of the Catholic Church of the 1950s.

Mari-Jen has a learning disability, although she is highly intelligent. Her other drawback is that she is her mother's third illegitimate child, having been preceded by twin brothers who have a different father.

This family of four are outcasts, who live not only on the edge of town, but also on the edge of society. The Mother Superior at Mari-Jen’s school would today be charged with abuse of her young ward, but in the 1950s this sexually stifled, frustrated woman gets away with tormenting a small girl, whose innate intelligence she is unable to understand. As a result, Mari-Jen hides behind self-imposed muteness, and is therefore seen as being retarded, although not by all her teachers.

Her savior is a Polish refugee, whose Jewishness makes him an outsider, too, in this moribund, claustrophobic place, where ignorance and superstition are fostered by the Church’s representatives. He also helps her two brothers, Alfred and Albert, who as children dream of going far away, a dream they turn into reality at the earliest possible moment. Although Adele, the mother, and her children are poverty-stricken, there must have been better times in the family's background. A large house, now occupied by a very strange aunt and uncle, is witness to a more prosperous family past.

MacNeil creates very vivid, even poetic, images for us. We have no difficulty imagining the interior of Mari-Jen's home, of a neighbor's house, and we certainly feel the ever increasing frustration of the child, and eventually the young woman. Sadly, because the story is told by Mari-Jen, we are less satisfied with the depiction of the brothers, who deserve to be drawn more three dimensionally. Also, because the story is told through Mari-Jen's understanding of events, we are not quite satisfied with how they unfold. The child, whose wish for her fifth birthday is a father, never really finds out who he was. The boys are more fortunate in that there is less of a mystery surrounding their background. But, most of all, one regrets that Mari-Jen, although she finds her vocation in the end, never fully exploits her potential and fails to find the courage to free herself from a place that for most of her life has offered her only sadness and pain.

Still, this is a book worthy of a large readership. There are still myopic communities and people in this world, and the story certainly rings only too true. Time and time again, one meets those, whose lives have been dominated by a faith that prefers its adherents docile, easy to dominate, unquestioning, and obedient to a fault. Mari-Jen and her siblings offer some defiance to the rigidity of their surroundings, for which one is glad. But, sadly, as it often is in real life, the most vulnerable, in this case Mari-Jen, are damaged far too much to free themselves from the various abuses they suffered.

Currie' novel has a far more positive view of the church, but it exposes a hidden part of Canadian history that has left a dark spot on it. The story takes place at the beginning of World War II in a small Cape Breton town, where mining is the main industry. The miners are a mixture of English (Scottish, Irish) Canadians and those of Italian background. For decades they have shared the mines, the same churches, and were best buddies. When Mussolini joins Hitler in the war, friendships are forgotten as these Italians suddenly are viewed with suspicion, and are even rounded up by the RCMP as enemy aliens. The union decides that the English will not go down into the mines until the Italians are suspended from their jobs. It is a story that has its echo in the lives of Japanese Canadians and those of German descent. This is, however, the first time that I have come across a book that tackles the fate of the Italians, who were also removed from their families, leaving wives and children to fend for themselves.

We meet Father Rod MacDonald, a veteran of that war, who has been sent to Coaltown to find a way to bring some peace back to the community. He is a highly likeable man, who doesn’t always toe the line. Perhaps because of his war experiences, he takes chances that most other priests would not have, but he seems to be the right man to keep the feuding factions from open warfare.

Currie's excellent cast of characters also includes Tomassio, who escapes his captors with consequences for not only his family, but others with whom his life have become intertwined. There is Anna, his wife, whom he has failed, Gelo, his son, who has to grow up suddenly, his lover Cathy, her daughter and many others. There is a bit of suspense, espionage, and sex thrown into the pot to keep things moving. In addition, we meet some very human nuns, who have little resemblance to the dried-out, sadistic Mother Superior in MacNeil's tale.