Female voices
Pat St. Germain explores books by women.
Polar Vortex Shani Mootoo Book*hug Press
An absorbing domestic drama with a hot streak of suspense, Polar Vortex finds artist Priya caught up in a relationship quagmire. Six years after she dropped out of sight on social media — deliberately losing contact with stalkerish male friend Prakash in the process — Priya is settled in a country house with her partner, Alexandra. But a chill descends on their home life after Priya opens a Twitter account and immediately receives a message from Prakash. Caught off guard, she invites him to pay her a visit and is horrified when he accepts. As the story unfolds from dawn to dusk on the day of his scheduled arrival, we learn that Priya hasn’t been honest with the increasingly suspicious Alexandra about her history with Prakash. A showdown is imminent, and more than one painful secret is about to be revealed.
Good Citizens Need Not Fear Maria Reva Knopf Canada
If a building is erected in Soviet Socialist Republic-era Ukraine, but isn’t officially documented, does it exist? What about the tenants crammed into its standing-room-only apartments? Faced with a daily barrage of bureaucratic absurdities, the colourful residents of 1933 Ivansk St. and their comrades in the town of Kirovka find equally absurd ways to deal with their circumstances in nine satirical, interconnected stories. Unfolding in two parts, set just before and just after the fall of the Soviet empire, Good Citizens was inspired by family tales passed on to author Maria Reva, who was born in Ukraine and raised in Vancouver.
The Forgotten Home Child Genevieve Graham Simon & Schuster Canada
A 97-year-old woman who has kept a secret for the past eight decades is faced with a dilemma when her great-grandson wants to learn about his family history. Should she break a promise and spill the beans about what she considers a “shameful” past? It would be a pretty short book if she didn’t. Turns out she was picked up on the streets of Liverpool at age 15 and shipped to Canada as one of about 100,000 impoverished British home children who landed on these shores from 1869 to 1948. While some were simply adopted, many suffered abuse and hardship as indentured domestic servants or farmhands, but they left their mark. While Graham’s previous works of historical fiction were heavy on romance,
The Forgotten Home Child is expected to be something of a breakout book.