A friend loaned me her autographed copy of this Ottawa novelist’s earlier novel after discussing my review of her 2014 novel Tell. I am not sure if my mood changed, the author’s writing skills improved dramatically, or I just didn’t like this story and format as much, but this one was a major disappointment for me.
In 2006, a small town Ontario widow is chosen at random to share in the 80th year birthday celebrations of Queen Elizabeth ll at Buckingham Palace only because they share the same birth date. On the way to the airport her car hits loose gravel and careens over a cliff into a ravine and she is thrown from it and severely injured, landing where she is invisible from the road above. The entire story from page six is her reminisces of her life and relations, as she drifts in and out of delirium and tries to stay alive and focused on possibly being found and rescued, by recalling the names of bones from her previous studies of a 1901 edition of Gray’s Anatomy.
There are touching recollections of what life was like in the small towns of Ontario in the whole of the 20th century, all very vivid, many of which I can relate to. The characters in her family and acquaintances are realistic if sometimes pathetic, funny, eccentric or sad. But for me the emphasis on nostalgia and the introspective sentimentality of the recollections became overwhelming and led me to hope that she would soon be rescued, still make her flight to London and dine with Her Royal Highness. She never does. Too bad.
The Passionate Reader 