pickJennie‘s Boy, by Wayne Johnston (2023 🇨🇦)
Premise: A memoir of the author‘s childhood living with chronic illness in an impoverished Newfoundland community.
Review: This is close to being a perfect memoir: full of humour, insight, and vulnerability. It does a fantastic job of showing the reader the insecurity of growing up in illness, poverty, and as the child of an alcoholic, but also the power of familial love.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
pickWhat a beautiful and immersive follow-up this novel is. I love the portrayal of the landscape and that Rice leaves dialogue in Anishinaabemowin untranslated, with context clues to meaning. While reading this novel, I have found myself observing the world around me differently and requesting from myself more attention in the moment. I find myself contemplating what's most important and how to center those elements in my life. It's a gift of a book.
Current read. A book you dive into despite the author‘s restraints. Mary Lawson tells good stories without embellishment. She relies on great characters and a compelling plot leaving the reading to infer bits here and there. IOW she assumes her readers are smart which is always a joy. #canadianwriter 🇨🇦 #canadianlitsy
