Remembering the Bones - Hardcover

Frances Itani

3.63

1,307 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0002005409 ISBN 13: 9780002005401

Publisher: Harper Collins Canada, 2007

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Georgina Danforth Witley has never felt she has led anything but an ordinary life. But here she is on her way to meet the Queen. Born on April 21, 1926, the exact same day as Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, Georgie is one of 99 privileged Commonwealth subjects invited to an 80th-birthday lunch at Buckingham Palace. All she has to do is drive two hours to the airport and board the plane for London. Except that in her excited state, Georgie drives her car off the road, tumbling hood over trunk into a thickly wooded ravine. Thrown from the car, injured and unable to move but desperately hopeful that someone will find her, she must rely on her strength, her full store of family memories, her no-nonsense wit and a recitation of the names of the bones in her body—a long-forgotten exercise from childhood that reminds her she is still very much alive.

As Georgina lies stranded and helpless, she reflects on her role as a daughter, mother, sister, wife and widow; she casts back over family histories, lost loves and painful secrets. What has it all amounted to?
Frances Itani has given us an insightful, moving and beautifully written novel, fanciful and profound by turns. Remembering the Bones goes deeply into the life of an ordinary person who, in her instincts to survive, becomes extraordinary.

Grand Dan sat with her head bowed while she listened to the memories of a lineup of colleagues and patients, and then she laughed with a sudden, short bark. It was as if she was telling them that they knew nothing of Dr. Matthias Danforth, whom she had loved. She had held him between her thighs; she had run her hand down the muscles of his back; she was the one who made King Edward cake the way he liked it, with walnuts ground into the icing. . . . She was the one whose skin, under his tracing fingers, had turned to silk.
—From Remembering the Bones

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About the Author:

FRANCES ITANI, a Member of the Order of Canada, had a spectacular international debut with her first novel, Deafening, which received a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book (Canada and Caribbean Region) and was shortlisted for the 2005 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award; it was a #1 bestseller in Canada. Her second novel, Remembering the Bones, was shortlisted for a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. Itani’s short story collection, Poached Egg on Toast, won the 2005 Ottawa Book Award and the 2005 CAA Jubilee Award for Short Stories. Itani lives in Ottawa.

Review:

"In unpretentious, quietly penetrating prose, Itani exposes the richness and depth beneath the surface of one ordinary life." -- The New Yorker

"With this book, Itani joins a group of novelists who have chronicled quiet lives from start to finish, uncovering treasure in their dark corners: Carol Shields with The Stone Diaries, Marilynne Robinson with Gilead . . . Apparently small moments assume lyrical dimensions and significance, and here is where Itani's true gift lies. . . . [Itani] dips into the past to illuminate the present moment, building such emotional complexity that the novel's ending--both inevitable and surprising--is as subtle as it is wrenching." -- The New York Times Book Review

"Similiarly to Alice Munro, Itani eschews pyrotechnics of language in favor of building psychologically toward realization. . . . Itani treats her memorable characters with gentle humor and compassion; in Remembering the Bones, people ache to do their best in a physically and emotionally dangerous world. . . . Beautifully paced . . . [this novel] is, in its every moment, an argument for life." -- The Globe & Mail

"[An] exquisite new novel . . . Itani is a spectacularly sensitive writer, and I could not put this book down, except for the moments when tears clouded my vision. . . . What lifts the book into the realm of the truly special is Itani's remarkable language. . . . Remembering the Bones is a novel not to be missed." -- The Edmonton Journal

"[Itani] crafts a beautiful novel filled with unbearable tension. Highly recommended." -- Library Journal

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