Writing history, including her own, is in her genes
McKay pens a memoir that looks at her family’s lengthy connection to Lynch syndrome
Right before post-tropical storm Dorian blasted through Nova Scotia in early September, Ami McKay’s bees knew something was amiss.
Perhaps it was the barometric pressure change, but the bees instinctively tucked inside their wind-proofed hive boxes, which were nestled into a protective area alongside McKay’s barn in picturesque Scots Bay.
The following day was beautiful, sunny and warm. The bees left the safety of their hives to resume their pollen collecting from the diverse flora in the surrounding area, attracted by the neighbouring wildflowers, blackberry bushes and buckwheat plants.
“They were right back at it. They’re incredible creatures,” says McKay, who shares “citizen beekeeping” duties with her husband, Ian, when she’s not writing bestselling novels such as “The Witches of New York” and “The Virgin Cure.”
The bees, dual in their resilience and fragility, make appearances and provide an apt personal metaphor for McKay’s new book, “Daughter of Family G.,” a memoir that chronicles her family’s history with Lynch syndrome. In some families, eye colour or height tracks through multiple generations. In McKay’s case, relatives who carry the gene mutation are dramatically predisposed to a number of cancers — including colorectal, endometrial and ovarian — often before the age of 50.
The memoir is pieced together like a family quilt, moving through episodes of time. McKay traces her lineage back to the late 1800s, when her great-greataunt Pauline Gross, a talented seamstress in Ann Arbor, Mich., began working closely with pathologist Aldred Warthin — a man with a disturbing interest in eugenics — to better understand why so many of her relatives had died of cancer. That was how McKay’s family originally became known as Family G., the subject of the longest cancer genealogy study in the world. Although men and women can be affected by Lynch syndrome, “it was the women in my family who kept telling the stories over and over again,” says McKay, who always felt a close affinity with Pauline, despite never having even seen a photo of her. “It was really great to work through her voice.”
Scientific research, archives and family stories provided plenty of background material to set the scenes for Pauline’s story. “I had more sources than I’ve ever had for any of my other work.”
In 2002, McKay wrote and produced a radio documentary of “Daughter of Family G.” that ended with her receiving the news that she, too, had tested positive for Lynch syndrome. After that project, McKay never wanted to return to the subject.
“I just wanted to deal with it on a very personal level,” she says. Yet she did feel an urgency to fulfil another creative dream.
“I don’t know if I ever would’ve written a novel had I not had those results and thought, ‘OK, there’s no more waiting,’” McKay says. “It really felt like an invitation to start being a storyteller and sharing with others.”
Four years later came McKay’s debut, “The Birth House,” a national bestselling historical novel about a young woman who becomes a midwife’s apprentice in Scots Bay.
The book was inspired by the history of McKay’s own home, but also the many women in her family, like her beloved mother, Sally, and grandmother, Alice, who sought autonomy over their own bodies and well-being. McKay followed with three more books, including “The Witches of New York.” There’s an obvious connection between McKay’s own family situation and her story of a trio of nonconforming witches who peddle herbal remedies (and a little magic) to other women.
“I was raised in these traditions of women being the storytellers of the body, mapping the symptoms, tracing the disease, tracing the course of not being listened to and being so persistent and repeatedly telling the story so that someone will listen,” McKay says. “I come from this lineage of women who will not shut up about it, who will not quiet or calm down.”
“Daughter of Family G.” concludes with McKay’s 50th birthday in 2018, as she reflects on the stories of the women before her. “I really didn’t go into writing thinking this is going to make me feel whole or answer all my questions. I wasn’t going to wake up the day after I wrote the book and not have Lynch syndrome anymore,” she says.
But what McKay did realize through the process, and in reflecting on how her mother handled her own cancer diagnosis, is the need to be OK with letting fate take its course. “Now that I’ve finished the book, I am able to throw away the idea that ‘cancer is out there and I’ve got to be ready,’ which has felt really good.”