Silent Wife by A.S.A. Harrison

Jodi and Todd are at a bad place in their marriage. Much is at stake, including the affluent life they lead in their beautiful waterfront condo in Chicago, as she, the killer, and he, the victim, rush haplessly toward the main event. He is a committed cheater. She lives and breathes denial. He exists in dual worlds. She likes to settle scores. He decides to play for keeps. She has nothing left to lose. Told in alternating voices, The Silent Wife is about a marriage in the throes of dissolution, a couple headed for catastrophe, concessions that can’t be made, and promises that won’t be kept.

 

Each chapter is prefaced with the label Him or Her: allowing the reader to explore this couple's relationship and in a manner, become the bridge between their independent lives.  At first I was apathetic towards Jodi, finding her emotionally flat and socially void.  My sympathy leaned more towards Todd despite his behaviour.  The author seamlessly wove these characters into the story allowing it to unfold gently, without the extreme emotions and violence that one might expect in a tale of murder.  Unlike any other murder mystery I have read, the gentle progression of the characters enveloped my interest and transported me into their lives like the proverbial fly on the wall.  Having read the synopsis, I knew what was to come but the absence of overt conflict helped to create a strange lull towards Jodi's camp.  Around page 200 I found myself dreading her capture and wishing that she would get away with the crime.  Within the story, my moral code of right and wrong eroded in a way that what Jodi was about to do didn't seem that shocking, that out of the norm.

Other reviews I have read used the words unsettling and darkly funny.  I don't recall feeling unsettled or finding it humerous, darkly or otherwise.  What I found was a tale that was compelling and fully engrossing. It took two attempts for me to begin this book.  The first I chose not to open the book because I was expecting a dark, angst-filled emotional tragedy.  I am glad I made that second attempt because this book was nothing as I has expected.   Most characters have a feel of ebb and flow, highs and lows as they move thought the events in a novel.  In the Silent Wife, I felt rather the opposite - that it was the story that ebbed and flowed with Jodi and Todd remaining still and precise in their choices. None of their actions were surprising, trying yes, but not terribly shocking.    Despite the breakdown of their relationship and what I thought would be frustration with both the main characters behaviours, I found Harrison provided a surprisingly refreshing take on the cast of the dutiful wife, the cheater, and the dissolution of a 20-year marriage.

Flee, Fly, Flown by Janet Hepburn

When Lillian and Audrey hatch a plot to escape from

Riley liked this one too

Tranquil Meadows Nursing Home, “borrow” a car, and spend their hastily planned vacation time driving to destinations west, they aren’t fully aware of the challenges they will face. All they know is that the warm days of August call to them, and the need to escape the daily routines and humiliations of nursing home life has become overwhelming.

Flushed with the success of their escape plan, they set out on their journey having forgotten that their memory problems might make driving and following directions difficult. Their trip is almost over before it begins, until they meet up with the unsuspecting Rayne, a young man also heading west in hope of reconciling with his family.

As Lillian and Audrey try to take back the control that time and dementia has taken from them, Rayne realizes the truth of their situation. But it’s too late – he has fallen under the spell of these two funny, brave women and is willing to be a part of their adventure, wherever it leads them.

Loved it! Wonderfully written.
I haven't read a book quite like this before.  Tackling the subject of Alzheimer's disease in fiction has been, from my reading experience, treated either as a full on tragedy or as comic relief.  This Janet Hepburn manages to offer the humour and the tragedy of the condition but dos so without minimizing the characters or their humanity and liveliness.  Hepburn, without preaching, reminds us that people are people, whatever life has brought them and that life does not end with a diagnoses or a move to the Home.

 I very much liked that the author choose to make Lillian his narrator. Her experiences and point of view made Flee, Fly, Flown an intimate tale from within. Telling it from Rayne's point of view or from a third person narrative would have changed the essence of the story into something too removed from the reader and lost the amount of heart, humour and realness that it currently offers.

I was left with a few questions...

I strongly suspect the girls flew home to Ottawa and then Lillian and Audrey returned to the Home. I would hope that once Carol calmed down she took a moment to listen to Lillian and supported her in staying in the same home as Audrey. To separate these two friends seems beyond cruel.

I would also have like to hear that Carol finished the trip with them before flying back to Ottawa, but given the past actions and attitude displayed by Carol, it would be a far stretch to expect such a quick change of heart.

I also worried a bit about the dog, Shadow. The last mention of her was going down the river and then lying on the floor not moving with Rayne looking quite sad. I truly hope that his sadness was over the realization that caring for these ladies was becoming beyond his control and not at the loss of his beloved four-legged friend.  In my ending, the dog was tired and ended up out west with Rayne.

2014 Evergreen Nominees

The Evergreen Award program allows adult library patrons  to vote for a Canadian title that they have liked the most. Both fiction and non-fiction books are included. Ten titles are nominated every year.  As listed on the OLA site, here are the 2014 nominees:

	The Cat Edeet Ravel Single mother Elise is completely devoted to her eleven-year-old son; he is her whole world. But that world is destroyed in one terrifying moment when her son is killed in a car accident just outside their home. Suddenly alone, surrounded by memories, Elise faces a future that feels unspeakably bleak—and pointless. Lost, angry and desolate, Elise rejects everyone who tries to reach out to her. But as despair threatens to engulf her, she realizes, to her horror, that she cannot join her son: she must take care of his beloved cat. At first she attempts to carry out this task entirely by herself, shut away from a frightening new reality that seems surreal and incomprehensible. But isolation proves to be impossible, and before long others insinuate themselves into her life—friends, enemies, colleagues, neighbours, a former lover—bringing with them the fragile beginnings of survival. Powerfully moving and deeply humane, The Cat is an unforgettable novel about the extraordinary resilience of the human spirit.
	Cinnamon Toast and the End of the World Janet E. Cameron   House Parties. Pick-Up Trucks. Cherry-Vanilla Ice-Cream. Prom Night. Unrequited Love. Welcome to the spring of 1987 and the world of Stephen Shulevitz who, with three months of high school to go in the small town of Riverside, Nova Scotia, has just realised he's fallen in love - with exactly the wrong person. Welcome to the end of the world. As Stephen navigates his last few months before college dealing with his overly dependent mother, his distant, pot-smoking father, and his dysfunctional best friends Lana and Mark, he must decide between love and childhood friendship; between the person he is and the person he can be. But sometimes leaving the past behind is harder than it seems . . . Cinnamon Toast and the End of the World is a bittersweet story of growing up and of one young man finding happiness on his own terms.
	Flee, Fly, Flown Janet Hepburn   When Lillian and Audrey hatch a plot to escape from Tranquil Meadows Nursing Home, “borrow” a car, and spend their hastily planned vacation time driving to destinations west, they aren’t fully aware of the challenges they will face. All they know is that the warm days of August call to them, and the need to escape the daily routines and humiliations of nursing home life has become overwhelming. Flushed with the success of their escape plan, they set out on their journey having forgotten that their memory problems might make driving and following directions difficult. Their trip is almost over before it begins, until they meet up with the unsuspecting Rayne, a young man also heading west in hope of reconciling with his family. As Lillian and Audrey try to take back the control that time and dementia has taken from them, Rayne realizes the truth of their situation. But it’s too late – he has fallen under the spell of these two funny, brave women and is willing to be a part of their adventure, wherever it leads them.
	The Inconvenient Indian Thomas King   The Inconvenient Indian is at once a “history” and the complete subversion of a history—in short, a critical and personal meditation that the remarkable Thomas King has conducted over the past 50 years about what it means to be “Indian” in North America. Rich with dark and light, pain and magic, this book distills the insights gleaned from that meditation, weaving the curiously circular tale of the relationship between non-Natives and Natives in the centuries since the two first encountered each other. In the process, King refashions old stories about historical events and figures, takes a sideways look at film and pop culture, relates his own complex experiences with activism, and articulates a deep and revolutionary understanding of the cumulative effects of ever-shifting laws and treaties on Native peoples and lands. This is a book both timeless and timely, burnished with anger but tempered by wit, and ultimately a hard-won offering of hope -- a sometimes inconvenient, but nonetheless indispensable account for all of us, Indian and non-Indian alike, seeking to understand how we might tell a new story for the future.
	The Massey Murder Charlotte Gray  In February 1915, a member of one of Canada’s wealthiest families was shot and killed on the front porch of his home in Toronto as he was returning from work. Carrie Davies, an 18-year-old domestic servant, quickly confessed. But who was the victim here? Charles “Bert” Massey, a scion of a famous family, or the frightened, perhaps mentally unstable Carrie, a penniless British immigrant? When the brilliant lawyer Hartley Dewart, QC, took on her case, his grudge against the powerful Masseys would fuel a dramatic trial that pitted the old order against the new, wealth and privilege against virtue and honest hard work. Set against a backdrop of the Great War in Europe and the changing faceof a nation, this sensational crime is brought to vivid life for the first time. As in her previous bestselling book, Gold Diggers—now in production as a Discovery Television miniseries—multi-award-winning historian and biographer Charlotte Gray has created a captivating narrative rich in detail and brimming with larger-than-life personalities, as she shines alight on a central moment in our past.
	The Painted Girls Cathy Marie Buchanan Paris, 1878. Following their father’s sudden death, the Van Goethem sisters find their lives upended. Without his wages, and with the small amount their laundress mother earns disappearing into the absinthe bottle, eviction from their lodgings seems imminent. With few options for work, Marie is dispatched to the Paris Opera, where for a scant seventeen francs a week, she will be trained to enter the famous Ballet. Her older sister, Antoinette, finds work as an extra in a stage adaptation of Émile Zola’s naturalist masterpiece L’Assommoir. Marie throws herself into dance and is soon modelling in the studio of Edgar Degas, where her image will forever be immortalized as Little Dancer Aged 14. Meanwhile, Antoinette, derailed by her love for the dangerous Émile Abadie, must choose between honest labour and the more profitable avenues open to a young woman of the Parisian demimonde. Set at a moment of profound artistic, cultural and societal change, The Painted Girls is a tale of two remarkable sisters rendered uniquely vulnerable to the darker impulses of “civilized society.” In the end, each will come to realize that her salvation—her survival, even—lies with the other.
	River of Stars Guy Gavriel KayRen Daiyan was still just a boy when he took the lives of seven men while guarding an imperial magistrate of Kitai. That moment on a lonely road changed his life in entirely unexpected ways, sending him into the forests of Kitai among the outlaws. From there he emerges years later, and his life changes again, dramatically, as he moves toward the court and emperor while war approaches Kitai from the north. Lin Shan is the daughter of a scholar, his beloved only child. Educated by him in ways young women never are, gifted as a songwriter and calligrapher, she finds herself living a life suspended between two worlds. Her intelligence captivates an emperor and alienates the women at court. But when her father’s life is endangered by the savage politics of the day, Shan must act in ways no woman ever has. In an empire divided by bitter factions circling an exquisitely cultured emperor who loves his gardens and his art far more than the burdens of governing, dramatic events on the northern steppe alter the balance of power in the world, leading, under the river of stars, to events no one could have foretold.
	The Silent Wife A.S.A HarrisonJodi and Todd are at a bad place in their marriage. Both are at the mercy of their unrelenting wants and needs, and both are unaware that the path they are on is careening toward murder. Much is at stake, including the affluent life they lead in their beautiful waterfront condo in Chicago, as she, the killer, and he, the victim, rush haplessly toward the main event, oblivious of the destiny they are jointly creating, caught in the thrall of disaster unfolding. Chapter by chapter, the narrative evolves from their alternating perspectives. He is a committed cheater. She lives and breathes denial. He exists in dual worlds. She likes to settle scores. He decides to play for keeps. She has nothing left to lose. The alternating voices pitch the reader back and forth between protagonists in conflict who are fighting for self-preservation, both of them making deeply consequential mistakes, behaving in ever more foolhardy ways, losing at the games they’re playing. The Silent Wife is a finely wrought, emotionally charged psychological thriller about a marriage in the throes of dissolution, a couple headed for catastrophe, concessions that can’t be made, and promises that won’t be kept. Expertly plotted and reminiscent of Gone Girl and These Things Hidden, The Silent Wife ensnares the reader from page one and doesn’t let go.
	The Stop Nick Saul & Andrea Curtis It began as a food bank. It turned into a movement. In 1998, when Nick Saul became executive director of The Stop, the little urban food bank was like thousands of other cramped, dreary, makeshift spaces, a last-hope refuge where desperate people could stave off hunger for one more day with a hamper full of canned salt, sugar and fat. The produce was wilted and the packaged foods were food-industry castoffs—mislabelled products and misguided experiments that no one wanted to buy. For users of the food bank, knowing that this was their best bet for a meal was a humiliating experience. Since that time, The Stop has undergone a radical reinvention. Participation has overcome embarrassment, and the isolation of poverty has been replaced with a vibrant community that uses food to build hope and skills, and to reach out to those who need a meal, a hand and a voice. It is now a thriving, internationally respected Community Food Centre with gardens, kitchens, a greenhouse, farmers’ markets and a mission to revolutionize our food system. Celebrities and benefactors have embraced the vision because they have never seen anything like The Stop. Best of all, fourteen years after his journey started, Nick Saul is introducing this neighbourhood success story to the world. In telling the remarkable story of The Stop’s transformation, Saul and Curtis argue that we need a new politics of food, one in which everyone has a dignified, healthy place at the table. By turns funny, sad and raw, The Stop is a timely story about overcoming obstacles, challenging sacred cows and creating lasting change. An Inquiry Into Love and Death Simone St. James In 1920's England, a young woman searches for the truth behind her uncle’s mysterious death in a town haunted by a restless ghost… Oxford student Jillian Leigh works day and night to keep up with her studies—so to leave at the beginning of the term is next to impossible. But after her uncle Toby, a renowned ghost hunter, is killed in a fall off a cliff, she must drive to the seaside village of Rothewell to pack up his belongings. Almost immediately, unsettling incidents—a book left in a cold stove, a gate swinging open on its own—escalate into terrifying events that convince Jillian an angry spirit is trying to enter the house. Is it Walking John, the two-hundred-year-old ghost who haunts Blood Moon Bay? And who beside the ghost is roaming the local woods at night? If Toby uncovered something sinister, was his death no accident? The arrival of handsome Scotland Yard inspector Drew Merriken, a former RAF pilot with mysteries of his own, leaves Jillian with more questions than answers—and with the added complication of a powerful, mutual attraction. Even as she suspects someone will do anything to hide the truth, she begins to discover spine-chilling secrets that lie deep within Rothewell…and at the very heart of who she is.