All the Things We Leave Behind

All the Things We Leave Behind / Riel Nason
Fredericton, NB: Goose Lane, c2016.
240 p.

It's the summer of 1977, and seventeen-year-old Violet has been left in charge of The Purple Barn, her family's antique shop in tiny Hawkshaw, New Brunswick. Her parents are "on vacation" -- actually, they are on the trail of her older brother Bliss, who disappeared a few days after his high school graduation.

Violet has to navigate running the antique store, keeping an older employee within the limits of her role, negotiating for the purchase of a local and much coveted estate, hanging out with her boyfriend Dean, sharing a cottage with her best friend Jill, and managing her memories of Bliss and her guilt at letting him disappear without a word. 

She figures out a lot about herself and her close relationship with her beloved brother in the few weeks that she is left to manage on her own. But she's never really on her own; part of the story is centred in the relationships that she has, those that help her continue on despite her guilt and uncertainty about her part in Bliss' leaving. Her friends and some of the people she knows through their store, including the staff and a local hermit who makes twig furniture for them to sell, are all part of her wider support system, whether she recognized that at first or not.

The antique shop serves as both a marvellous, realistic setting (Nason was once an antiques dealer herself) and a perfect metaphor. Violet notes that many customers simply love buying antiques because they desire something that has a history, that holds the past in tangible form. For herself, though:

Having a reminder, a souvenir, to help you remember is great, but I think the best memories are through a special door in your mind that you can open without a key.

Through the process of opening this mental door and accessing the memories, Violet gives us the history of her family's past, in a warm, thoughtful way, full of sensory and emotional detail. She is a strong character, able to carry the weight of this entire narrative. Their family is drawn clearly, and each of them is shown as a believable and complex individual. Bliss' struggles with a darkness that sweeps over him are explained, and connected to the image of the boneyard, the repulsive burying pit deep in the forest in which the Department of Transportation dumps roadkill -- the boneyard which Bliss and Violet stumble across when they are 9 & 10, an experience which never leaves them.

There are multiple threads woven through this story, from Bliss to Violet to others in the community, including the Vaughns who disappeared a decade ago after a family tragedy, and whose estate Violet is now hoping to buy. There is also a strong thread linking Violet's story to that of the drowned town of Haventon, flooded out by a dam project a decade previously -- the story of which is the focus of Nason's first book, The Town That Drowned. 

There is a lot more in this book, but you'll have to read it to get the full immersive experience. It is redolent of the 70s, so if you like the idea of summer, the 70s, a coming of age story, family dynamics and lots and lots of quilts and antiques, pick this one up. It's full of vibrant images, both horrible and beautiful, that stick with a reader. 

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Further Reading:

This kind of reminds me of Vicky Grant's Small Bones, another Canadian novel (set in 1964 however) which features a strong young woman living at a resort-like place (this one in Ontario), dealing with her boyfriend and family secrets over the length of a summer. It is less haunting than Nason's but also an enjoyable read.

Town that Drowned

The Town that Drowned / Riel Nason
Fredericton, NB: Goose Lane, c2011.
270 p.

Set in New Brunswick in the 60's, this is a tale of a town which was displaced when a large hydroelectric project flooded the original townsite. This has happened in many places, and in fact this book is inspired by a true story.

However, the tale is fictional, and features Ruby Carson, a teenager who contends with a little brother who probably has autism or Asperger's -- it's never clearly stated but his behaviours suggest it. Along with his original personality, Ruby is also a pariah at school because of her experience at a community skating party: she fell through the ice and while being rescued was babbling about a vision she had of the entire town under water.

She wonders if perhaps she could have been psychic once the news breaks about the new dam. Projects like that don't happen overnight, though, and Ruby has nearly two years to tell us all about how the prospect of the town being moved higher up onto a new, evenly graded plot affects everyone. There is drama, discord, some very threatening behaviour by a couple of the town idiots, people leaving for good, and some who seem pleased to be getting a new house by any means. Ruby develops friendships, and a sweet romance with a boy from Ontario whose father is in town buying up family antiques as everyone tries to get rid of most of their 'stuff' in preparation for the big move.

Ruby's brother Percy has his routines, and her family revolves around most of them. He is portrayed as simply the person that he is within the family, though; it doesn't seem as if he is a terrible burden, just the reality of the Carson home. This is definitely Ruby's story, and while Percy has a big role he doesn't take over the entire narrative.

I found the description of her family and the long-time neighbours and friends quite satisfying. Nason is able to give individuality to each of the characters, so that they seem like real people who are still living "offstage" when you're not reading about them. The interactions are realistic -- tense, prickly and anxious about the news, everyone has a certain edge even with those in their own families, but this doesn't mean they become enemies. It's a community facing a major challenge, and there are only a few opportunists among them.

Because of the era in which it is set, there is also a kind of innocence to Ruby's narration. Every move of the provincial government and its agents is not being watched on tv or tracked on the internet. It just unfolds at its own pace. The story brings up questions of communication -- how much is owed to civilians? Which of your friends is telling the truth about how much they knew beforehand? Are people acting in good faith? And of course, from our current vantage point there are also environmental results to a project like this, though they weren't much of an issue in this book.

In any case, it was a situation that lent itself to a fictional treatment, and I thought that Nason did a great job describing all the varied reactions and illuminating the changes that this project brought to the town. While this wasn't published as a YA novel, it has the strong sense of one to me -- Ruby is coming of age in an unsettling time, and ends up with a boyfriend and an eventual smooth ending to the tale despite the upsetting events of the narrative. I think it would strongly appeal to YA readers as well.

To get a flavour of the story, you can read an excerpt here thanks to the publisher.

Have you read any other books about drowned towns? If so, please share suggestions in the comments! I've also read Treading Water by Anne de Grace, about a town in BC, and enjoyed that one.

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For this year's Canadian Book Challenge I've chosen as my theme "Small-Press-Palooza" Thus, for each book I'm including a link to the small press who has published it. Take a look -- there are wonderful small presses all over Canada!

Read more about
Goose Lane Editions

Hatbox Letters

The Hatbox Letters / Beth Powning
Toronto: Knopf, c2004.
348 p.

This novel is a meditation on grief; the main character, Kate Harding, progresses through her sorrow after her husband Tom dies suddenly from a heart attack at age 50. I picked it up after having it on my list for a few years, mainly because it's set in New Brunswick and it has to do with letters. I am glad I finally did so, as the regal, measured writing of the first few chapters affected me more than I had first realized. I began reading this on a Sunday morning, and realized much later in the day that I'd had a musical phrase repeatedly running in my mind for no good reason. The descriptive strength of her writing, using all the senses and full of emotion, apparently called forth a soundtrack from the corners of my memory. This was a first!

I found that the structure and pace of the book, although considered slow moving by many readers, fit this novel perfectly. The pace of the storytelling matches the pace of Kate's recovery and return to life. The story moves slowly; time is thick and slow, like her perceptions of life without Tom, and there is not a lot of narrative action to carry you along. The movement is inside of Kate and her thoughts, feelings, reactions to life are what change by the end of the book.


The story told is not just about Kate, however. The story is enriched by Kate's discovery of her grandparents' life through their letters. At the same time as Kate's being left alone and at loose ends by the death of her husband, the family house in Shepton, Connecticut is being sold and she ends up with nine hatboxes from the attic, full of family papers. She sorts the papers and discovers that her grandparents' happy marriage was based on tragedy; their youth was scarred by the kind of deaths common to an era without much in the way of antibiotics or vaccinations. Their lives, revealing how love and contentment are possibilities even after great loss, sustain her in her sorrow. There is another element which adds forward movement to the book -- an old acquaintance of Kate and Tom's from the days when their children were young reappears in New Brunswick. Divorced from his wife, he is insistent about reconnecting with Kate, but in an obsessive manner which disturbs her. His behaviour, born of his refusal to let go of the tragedies of his past, subtly suggests that Kate needs to find another way to move forward.

The structure of the book was intriguing; as I've mentioned, the slow pacing is quite noticeable and takes a while to adjust to. Once I was hooked into the story, I could see that pace as a deliberate choice, reflecting the situation of our main character. It was also interesting, to me anyhow, to note that the parts about her grandparents' lives were written in the past tense while the sections in the present day are all in the historical present:

Kate leans in the doorway of the living room, arms crossed, the sleeves of a cotton sweater pushed to her elbows... In the corner is a stack of nine antique hatboxes. She has not touched them since they were set down a week ago, delivered by her sister, who drove them up from Hartford. ... Their smell has begun to permeate the room even though the windows are open. It is the smell of her grandparents attic, a smell she has not forgotten but thought had vanished, like the past itself. That it has not and is still here, the aroma of horsehair and leather, of apples and musty quilts, of old dresses and satin ribbons -- that this smell still exists here in this Canadian river valley, six hundred miles north of her grandparents' house, is disquieting. It awakens a feeling in Kate that she remembers from childhood, composed of odd emotional strands: love, sorrow, pain, contentment.

Beth Powning is also known as a nature writer, and has written a memoir about the loss of a child; both of these experiences are fully present in this novel. Her descriptive abilities are stunning, each sense called upon so that you feel as if you are in Kate's old vinyl-floored kitchen, listening to the evening rain fall, feeling the cool damp breeze sifting through the window screens as she sits motionless, remembering. This evocation of the natural world was one of the rewards for sticking with the story. Kate's elaborate garden is also very important to her, it was something she and Tom built up together, and at the beginning the idea of having to deal with it all overwhelms her. By the end she has moved to a place where she is once again looking forward to caring for the garden, but in a new way. This is an introspective, meditative novel, and I think you have to be in just the right mood for it. It does lag in parts, but I was already so immersed in Kate's New Brunswick surroundings and her family history that I wanted to keep reading anyhow.

I can't say much against a book which results in my spontaneously humming Beethoven's 7th Symphony, 2nd movement for the rest of the day. It's like the emotion of the music was written into a book, and it's this one. Gorgeous book, gorgeous heartbreaking music.

La Sagouine, or, The Washerwoman

La Sagouine / Antonine Maillet

Fredericton, NB: Goose Lane Press, c2007.

This Acadian classic has just been reissued in a new translation by Wayne Grady. It was a breakthrough when it was first published because it was written using Acadian French, the dialect used by Acadians, giving them a literary voice; it is so reflective of speech that it first appeared as a series of radio monologues. It is a grouping of thematic ruminations spoken by La Sagouine (the washerwoman), on such varied topics as Spring, the Census, or Priests, and has been performed onstage many times. The language is such a major part of this book that there has been some question as to how well a translation can capture the original spirit or intent of the text. I found, however, that I had a real sense of this woman and of the lives of those in her community; she is a straight talker. Her manner of speaking is eerily familiar to my non-Acadian ears, a result perhaps of Wayne Grady's translation, drawing parallels between the poverty of La Sagouine's life and that of others' elsewhere in Canada.

Here are some of my favourites among the pithy things she says:

What I think is that if you want to be happy you got to be able to hope for something better than what you got... It's not having a thing that makes a person happy, it's knowing you're going to get it.

We're not any closer or further from death, just because we got a calendar, and we can't stop the days from passing by just by giving a name to them. Well, maybe we can't stop them, but at least we can watch them go by and know that some of them are better than others.

La Sagouine was such a major part of the upgrowth of Acadian self-identity that she has even inspired an entire Theme Park! Who knew? It's a slick website, offering perhaps another literary place to go if you're already in the Maritimes for some LM Montgomery tourism.

**NB - I had earlier published misinformation!!! I'd misread and claimed it was written in Chiac; not so, an astute reader pointed out, rather it was the quite different Acadian French. That's the great thing about blogging, even when you make a mistake it can be quickly corrected rather than being in permanent print for you to cringe at forever... :)