Be advised: this is an emotional tear-jerker so have tissues nearby, especially for the end of the story. The book is presented in two parts. In 1968, 74-year-old Emmaline reads her poignant life story to a group of English women as part of a memoir-writing class. In the second half, Emmaline returns to Nova Scotia to confront her fractured family. Her personality is a fascinating blend of brassiness and abrasiveness, but also generosity. The core of the story, however, is friendship between women.
Category: Canada
The Observer – Marina Endicott
Full disclosure: this is a great book that deals frankly with some unpleasant subjects. Julia accompanies her partner Hardy to his first RCMP posting in Northern Alberta. Julia is a keen observer of life, especially relationships. She is also a silent witness to Hardy’s descent into depression and PTSD. There is a strong element of fear and menace that is truly frightening. Powerful writing and very worthwhile.
The Mystery of Right and Wrong – Wayne Johnston
Mr. Johnston has written many fine books about Newfoundland (The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, The Custodian of Paradise), but none so graphic as this new novel. Wade is a young man from a Newfoundland outport, a true provincial in every sense of the word, who meets South African born Rachel in the MUN library. Rachel is a wounded soul, obsessed with reading and re-reading The Diary of Anne Frank; her three sisters are equally conflicted. Most of the book takes place in South Africa and Amsterdam in 1985. Be warned – this story contains some dark and disturbing secrets that are very intense.
The Double Life of Benson Yu – Kevin Chong
The author of the prescient The Plague has now written an inventive story of metafiction. The narrator/author creates a fictional version of himself as 12-year-old Benny living in 1980s Vancouver Chinatown. Accordingly, there is a blend of reality and invention. What if the author loses control of the narrative? Consequently, the story is often confusing because of two timelines, and thus can be frustrating. Some complex themes of child sexual abuse and suicidal ideation abound. This original story is deservedly on the Giller long-list.
East Side Story – Growing Up At The PNE – Nick Marino
This is a sentimental history of the Pacific National Exhibition site, in particular its working class East Side aesthetic. The story is based on personal experiences as a summer employee at the fairground as a 12–17-year-old, plus interviews to obtain anecdotes and historical information about the 17 days of the fair, plus year-round Playland activity and sporting events and concerts at the Empire Stadium and Coliseum. Overall, the PNE was a place for scammers and dreamers.
Snow Road Station – Elizabeth Hay
Predictably, Ms. Hay has written another superb short novel. There are many relationships in a coming-of-middle-age story: intense complicated friendships abound. On page 214: “They were lovers the way some people are Sunday painters – not fulltime, not exclusively, but companionably and gratefully”. And there is an exquisite description of place; Snow Road Station is a barely discernable dot in an Ontario map, but there are wonderful descriptions of the changing seasons, a wedding, and harvesting sap. In short, tour-de-force writing.
Junie – Chelene Knight
First, the context: East-end Vancouver from 1933-39, an area called Hogan’s Alley which is home to Black and immigrant communities. At its core, this brilliant book is about complex mother-daughter relationships: Junie and her jazz singer mother Maddie, and Estelle and her mother Faye. As Junie progresses from age 13-19, her artistic talents bloom despite a disquieting reality. Thanks Amy, for this recommendation: highly recommended.
Bad Cree – Jessica Johns
This remarkable debut novel is all about Indigenous women. Mackenzie is a young Cree woman living in Vancouver, but darkness dreams drive her to return to her home on High Prairie, Alberta, in part to confront her unprocessed grief over the death of her older sister. Can spirits visit people in their dreams? Can evil entities feed off the hurt, isolated and grieving? This is both a masterful mystery and horror story that will forever change your appreciation of the phrase “murder of crows”. Highly recommended.
Hotline – Dimitri Nasrallah
A Giller long-listed book and a recent Canada Reads contender: Muna is a widowed single mother who escapes to Montreal in 1986 from Beirut. What follows is a one-year struggle to find work as an immigrant, to help her son Omar adjust to a radically new environment, to survive her first winter, and to overcome marginalization and prejudice. A compelling story.
What David Read 