|
of
reinvention, of one day turning a corner, or picking up
a pen, or stepping on a train, and becoming new. And it
seems to me that Carol’s life is one that has been marked
by her own ongoing reinvention, from academic to mother
to poet to novelist to playwright to University Chancellor,
and from someone doggedly working away for many years somewhat
at the fringes of the Canadian literary establishment to
Pulitzer Prize winner and international best-seller. But
throughout it all she has remained what she first seemed
to me when I met her, a true writer, someone who has stayed
dedicated to her work through good times and bad, and who
serves as a model to all of us in her unflagging commitment
to the written word. It is that commitment that we celebrate
tonight, for when most others would have been content to
rest on their laurels and their legacy she has given us
instead the gift of another book, for which we thank her.
BACK
TO TOP
|
|
Excerpt
Unless
| Early
on we thought Norah’s problem was a boyfriend problem. And
Ben Abbot really is a boy, with a boy’s face and gangling
frame; it was this that Norah loved in the beginning, I suspect,
the thoroughly innocent leanness of his shoulders, neck, the
ribs bursting out above his jeans, barely covered by flesh.
If he had an aura, it would be coloured by the state of beatitude.
By thirty he will have acquired a supple, sexual bulk, but
now he is quickness and nerve and seems always willing to
be disturbed by his own body, taking its awkwardness as part
of the gift of youth. I’ve never yet seen him sit back in
a chair, relaxed. He perches, his eyes watchful, his mouth
just a little open, a boy’s observant, greedy mouth. |
 |
We
live in the age of the long childhood, and no one expects heroism
from a twenty-three-year-old kid who’s still a student, who still
gets monthly cheques from his parents in Sudbury, still lives
in an untidy student apartment. His marks in philosophy are top
notch. Harder work lies ahead, but he seems blinded by the darkness
that work really represents, and ready to delay it as long as
possible with thoughts of a doctorate, then perhaps a post-doc.
He
and Norah met at a friend’s party soon after she turned eighteen,
and he was drawn to her at once. Norah was smart and pretty and
appealing. You took one look at her and you knew she was one of
the lucky people. This is how lucky people live — part of loving
families, favoured by quality education, grateful rather than
spoiled, able to set their references outside themselves somehow
so that they escape neurosis, fixing on books or horses or basketball
or piano or even cooking. Lucky people are not obliged to cultivate
shrewdness. Good sense and balance belong to them naturally. When
at last they encounter the sexual life, they accept it like a
graft to their body, understanding at once that it is an offering
and one of the greatest gifts they will be given.
Ben
and Norah saw each other two or three times and then there was
no separating them.
After
Norah disappeared, in those frightening days in April after we
found out she’d taken up daily residence at Bathurst and Bloor,
I went to see Ben. Tom and I were distraught with worry, and Ben
seemed the most logical person to approach. I didn’t phone ahead;
I simply drove into Toronto, parked the car in a side street,
and rang the buzzer of his basement apartment.
Why
would a young man of twenty-three be at home in the middle of
the afternoon, three o’clock? Who knows why, but he was. He came
to the door looking tousled, as though he’d been sleeping. We
didn’t shake hands or embrace. We just looked into each other’s
faces. Then he stepped aside awkwardly, gesturing to me, come
in, come in.
A
haze hung in the air, and only a little natural light entered
from the tiny street-level windows. The room was timeless; it
could have been a student apartment from my own generation, a
place of ripped vinyl, worn chenille, posters taped to the walls,
stacks of books and papers, rising stours of dust. He sank into
the sagging old Salvation Army couch, rested his elbows on his
knees, bringing the tips of his fingers together, those blunt,
trimmed fingers that had struck me, on first meeting, as curiously
carnal.
BACK
TO TOP
I
caught myself at the edge of disapproval with Ben, wanting to
pick apart his finer feelings, and then I thought: He’s young
and he’s tasted disappointment; he has a girlfriend whom he may
or may not love, and she has left him to live on the street. They’ve
invested more than a year of feeling in each other — of absorption,
of fantasy. This is stuff for crabbed old age, not for a young
man with a young man’s yearning for satisfaction and a belief
that he’ll get what he deserves. He’s approached love with a young
man’s wonder and gratitude, only to find its abrupt withdrawal.
“She
changed,” he said. “Over a few weeks. Late January, February,
March. She was short-tempered. Then she’d go quiet. Her professor,
Dr. Hamilton, she hated him for some reason. I asked her what
the guy had done, if he’d come on to her or something, and she
was furious that I’d think of a thing like that, that that was
what would occur to me, something sexual. She started giving me
these, you know, these long, hard looks. Scrutinizing looks. Like
she’d just suddenly realized what a dickhead I was or something.
Then she left. One afternoon last week. I thought she was just
going to Honest Ed’s, but she never came back. Most of her stuff
is still here. She’d stopped going to lectures by March, she just
hung around the apartment reading or staring off into space. I
would have phoned you after she left, but I thought she’d gone
home, that she was with you. She was thinking about goodness and
evil, about harm to the earth, that kind of thing. And then, it
was just a couple of days ago, this girl I know said she saw Norah
panhandling at Bathurst and Bloor, and I couldn’t believe it.
I went and looked, and there she was with that sign, sitting on
the sidewalk. I walked up to her and said, ‘What are you doing,
Norah, what is this all about?’” .
I
watched him lean back into the torn couch cushions, and he started
to sob unrestrainedly. He howled so long and so eloquently that
I will never forget it. Tears streamed down his face and he made
no effort to brush them away. His hands were spread out uselessly
on his denim thighs. I wanted to reach out and stroke his hand,
but I couldn’t, I didn’t. I knew it wasn’t his fault, this poor
young kid, but I felt myself harden. I felt the force of blame
gathering. I just sat there and watched him cry. I felt my hopes
flatten out and crush me with their weight. Now I knew it was
true. There wasn’t going to be anything I could do to save Norah
from herself.
For
a reading group guide to Unless, visit www.bookclubs.ca
BACK
TO TOP 
Carol with son John, 1959...................................................
|
On a houseboat in France, 1971 |
Toronto,
1967 |
25th
Wedding Anniversary |
before
the Canadian Authors Award Dinner at UBC, 1977 |
BACK
TO TOP
 |
a
letter from Marjorie Anderson and Carol Shields |
more
info |
In
the fall of 2001, we invited women to send in proposals to
www.DroppedThreads.com
for personal essays to be considered for Dropped Threads 2.
We anticipated receiving some, and indicated that we would
try to include one or two in the anthology.
Well, the proposals poured in — over 100 in less than three
weeks. We were amazed at the response and delighted with the
content and quality of the proposals; consequently, we contacted
approximately forty of these writers and asked for full submissions.
Of the ones |
received,we
chose seven for the book, seven powerful, intimate accounts that
are bound to leave readers altered in some way. We could have included
more, but a book has page limits, so we will be featuring several
of the other writers and their personal essays on this website beginning
in November 2002. (click
here to read an essay by Cathy Allison).
| As
editors of the anthology, we feel honoured to have been entrusted
with all of the intimate revelations from the lives of women.
We want to acknowledge and thank all who carved out creative
time to write both the pieces and the proposals. Having access
to women through this website was vital to the original intent
of the book. We wanted to feature a wide range of voices and
experiences. To provide a fresh opportunity for established
writers, yes, but also to create a venue for the public airing
of stories from the private lives of “everyday” women, some
of whom would be published for the first time. And, of course,
what the stories in the anthology attest to is the profound
and the moving in the everyday, how there is no such thing
as “ordinary” in the diverse, rich lives of women. |
more
book info |
In
her preface to the book, Governor General Adrienne Clarkson writes
that these essays are about how we learn to “become women.” We
feel privileged to be part of this intact community of female
story telling and understanding. For those who have the reading
experience in front of you, we hope you’ll anticipate it with
delight and then savour it as much as we have.
Warm
wishes,
Marjorie Anderson and Carol Shields
|