Some Recent Books I've Read

 

SCARBOROUGH by CATHERINE HERNANDEZ. If you live in or around Toronto, you know of Scarborough. Hernandez’s novel is set here, amidst the pockets of poverty and diversity.

Through the voices of both, children and adults, we see the daily lives and struggles that never make the news – until tragedy strikes. It’s through the eyes of the 3 children – Bing, Sylvie, Laura – we see the grittiness, the neglect, the racism that many still endure.  Hina Hassani, is the compassionate teacher who runs the literacy centre at the public school, beseeching her supervisor for supplies to fill the kids’ hungry tummies at breakfast. And yet, and yet…the reality is…kids fall through the cracks, while the authorities are focused on numbers and dollars.

Hernandez give a voice to those who are used to not being heard.

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In her memoir, HEARTBROKEN, Laura Pratt writes of her prolonged period (several years) of grief after her long-distance partner left her. Theirs was a heady, passionate, magical romance that lasted six years, she in Toronto, he in Montreal.

Pratt writes with raw honesty. But this is not just the personal story of one woman’s romance. Pratt is a journalist, and her own story is woven into meticulous and interesting research of the physiology, scientific and literary explorations of what it means to love, to lose, to grieve the loss of another. The heart can undergo real physical changes when it grieves.

Haven’t we heard of people who die of heartbreak after a loved one dies?

Who among us has not felt the pain of losing someone, be it a parent, romantic partner, sibling or friend?

And what happens when one keeps on grieving the end of a relationship, long after people think you should ‘buck up’ and get on with it?

“Heartbreak knows grief as a sister; it is its most elemental expression.”

“I dwelled in a trough, dragging my anguish a metre below the sidewalk.”

Pratt writes beautifully.

“All sorrows can be borne if you . . . tell a story about them” Isak Dinesen (as quoted in the book).

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LUCY BY THE SEA by ELIZABETH STROUT.  I haven’t read all the others in this ‘series’, although I’ve read Strout before and am familiar with her spare prose and simple, straightforward sentences.  Given that this book is set during the pandemic and has received high praise, I wondered what my reaction to it would be.  

Strout’s books rely heavily on character and very little on plot. We get inside Lucy’s head immediately. All the little things we may have observed and thought to ourselves during 2020, we see again, this time amplified through Lucy’s observant eyes.

Like the times when we may have missed an opportunity to be kind: Lucy laments not giving up her place in line outside a grocery store (remember those line-ups?) to an elderly gentleman, especially when the woman behind her, not much younger than she is, does. Oh, those pangs of remorse and wondering what kind of person am I?

There isn’t much to say about Strout that hasn’t already been said. We see parts of ourselves in her characters. Look, this is you, you’re not alone in these thoughts and feelings. Because ultimately, her books are about what it is to be human.