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Dark Times
In Cold Snap by Diana Aspin, Cassie, named for the constellation, discovers her star-crazy father is having an affair.
In Explaining Andrew by Gina Rozon, James loses an older brother to the paranoia and destruction of schizophrenia. He becomes someone "I wouldn't want to meetin broad daylight, let alone after dark.";
In A Few Words For My Brother by Alison Lohan, an adopted sibling, suffering from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, goes to prison.
In Dear Family by Donna Gamache, a mother leaves for a two-week getaway and never comes back.
These are just four of the thirteen stories that Ann Walsh has edited for Dark Times (Ronsdale, $9.95), an unusual collection that makes clear that death is not the only way to lose someone we love. Divorce, mental illness, Alzheimer's and an extramarital affair can also subject teenage characters to the "agony of loss.";
In Sisters, by Sarah Ellis, Charlotte suffers the inexplicable absence of Sophie, a ghostly, runaway sister who last phoned home five years ago. Now Sophie "floats around the house like a piece of empty air."; Whereas her parents used to argue over Sophie, now they never mention her. Sophie "settles like fog on Christmas and birthdays and memories."; Charlotte likes to escape to the apartment of her adoptive grandmothers, Mrs. Fenner and Miss Poole, where ghosts abound. There the ghosts are noisy, kept alive through endlessly recalled stories. When old Mrs. Fenner dies, there's a funeral service, egg salad sandwiches, butter tarts, sherry and the recital of more stories. Charlotte, comforted by "voices of the not-gone"; speaks of Sophie and draws her down from the shadows and into the light.
But no death is more devastating than that of a parent. "A great many Native people suffer the death of one parent or another while they are still teenagers,"; says Lee Maracle. If it's the mother who dies, fathers can "sometimes have a very hard time."; In The Canoe, a motherless boy and his silent, grieving father sidestep each other, separated by a lifetime of alienation and misunderstanding. "I'm no good at this parenting stuff,"; the father says. In many ways, it's as if the boy has lost both his mother and father until one day the father drags a cedar dugout from the shed. Carved back in the "cultural prohibition days,"; the dugout is devoid of paint or any Aboriginal designs. In attempting to restore and launch the century-old canoe, the boy and his father risk more than the seaweed-slippery mudflats and six-foot-high surf. They risk taking a step towards each other.
The stories in Dark Times were compiled from more than 200 cross-Canada submissions. Although Dark Times is an unflinching look at loss in its many forms, within all thirteen stories there is a glimmer of the coming dawn, that first, hesitant, hopeful step towards reconciliation.
Dark Times 1-55380-028-1
by Louise Donnelly
In Explaining Andrew by Gina Rozon, James loses an older brother to the paranoia and destruction of schizophrenia. He becomes someone "I wouldn't want to meetin broad daylight, let alone after dark.";
In A Few Words For My Brother by Alison Lohan, an adopted sibling, suffering from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, goes to prison.
In Dear Family by Donna Gamache, a mother leaves for a two-week getaway and never comes back.
These are just four of the thirteen stories that Ann Walsh has edited for Dark Times (Ronsdale, $9.95), an unusual collection that makes clear that death is not the only way to lose someone we love. Divorce, mental illness, Alzheimer's and an extramarital affair can also subject teenage characters to the "agony of loss.";
In Sisters, by Sarah Ellis, Charlotte suffers the inexplicable absence of Sophie, a ghostly, runaway sister who last phoned home five years ago. Now Sophie "floats around the house like a piece of empty air."; Whereas her parents used to argue over Sophie, now they never mention her. Sophie "settles like fog on Christmas and birthdays and memories."; Charlotte likes to escape to the apartment of her adoptive grandmothers, Mrs. Fenner and Miss Poole, where ghosts abound. There the ghosts are noisy, kept alive through endlessly recalled stories. When old Mrs. Fenner dies, there's a funeral service, egg salad sandwiches, butter tarts, sherry and the recital of more stories. Charlotte, comforted by "voices of the not-gone"; speaks of Sophie and draws her down from the shadows and into the light.
But no death is more devastating than that of a parent. "A great many Native people suffer the death of one parent or another while they are still teenagers,"; says Lee Maracle. If it's the mother who dies, fathers can "sometimes have a very hard time."; In The Canoe, a motherless boy and his silent, grieving father sidestep each other, separated by a lifetime of alienation and misunderstanding. "I'm no good at this parenting stuff,"; the father says. In many ways, it's as if the boy has lost both his mother and father until one day the father drags a cedar dugout from the shed. Carved back in the "cultural prohibition days,"; the dugout is devoid of paint or any Aboriginal designs. In attempting to restore and launch the century-old canoe, the boy and his father risk more than the seaweed-slippery mudflats and six-foot-high surf. They risk taking a step towards each other.
The stories in Dark Times were compiled from more than 200 cross-Canada submissions. Although Dark Times is an unflinching look at loss in its many forms, within all thirteen stories there is a glimmer of the coming dawn, that first, hesitant, hopeful step towards reconciliation.
Dark Times 1-55380-028-1
by Louise Donnelly
Submitted on October 19, 2005 in By David.
