Items related to Burden of Memory
Elaine Benson, a successful novelist who let love in the person of an unreliable screenwriter jettison her career, is now divorced, broke, and come to a "primitive, untamed northern forest" on Lake Muskoka to interview for a job. Elderly Miss Moira Madison of the fabulously rich Canadian family wishes to write her memoirs.
Miss Madison isn't interested in a bestseller. She wants to leave a record of her life and most specifically of her years with the Canadian Army Nursing Sisters of World War II. Her service in the British and then European theater was filled with triumphs and bitter losses and forever shaped her life. Can Elaine tell her story working with decades of old documents?
Settling into the family "cottage" and what remains of a lifestyle long gone, Elaine reconnects with her love of researching the past. But somehow her project--she soon discovers the first writer hired oddly drowned in the Lake--stirs someone to murder. . . .
Miss Madison isn't interested in a bestseller. She wants to leave a record of her life and most specifically of her years with the Canadian Army Nursing Sisters of World War II. Her service in the British and then European theater was filled with triumphs and bitter losses and forever shaped her life. Can Elaine tell her story working with decades of old documents?
Settling into the family "cottage" and what remains of a lifestyle long gone, Elaine reconnects with her love of researching the past. But somehow her project--she soon discovers the first writer hired oddly drowned in the Lake--stirs someone to murder. . . .
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author:
Vicki Delany lives in Oakville, Ontario, where she is employed as a systems analyst, but her first love is the Canadian wilderness where her novels are set. She is a member of Crime Writers of Canada and is the editor of the Sisters in Crime, Toronto Chapter, newsletter. Burden of Memory is her second novel, following Scare the Light Away.
Review:
The best Canadian novels are always firmly set in a place. We think of Giles Blunt's icy Algonquin Bay, William Gough's gritty Vancouver, Gail Bowen's Saskatoon, Kathy Reichs's Montreal. Ontario's Muskoka playland has been a draw for more than a century. The Group of Seven painted it and Margaret Millar set her first novel in its woods. Vicki Delany's second
novel effectively uses the Muskoka setting for a very fine novel about memory and class and caste in old Ontario. Elaine Benson is a writer, researcher and PhD in Canadian history. She's written two novels about women who confronted nature, men and propriety to survive and thrive in the Canadian wilderness. But Benson didn't learn from her forebears. She's spent the last decade working on television scripts for
a husband who dumped her the second he sold a successful series. She's starting over, and the chance to write the memoirs of Moira Madison seems
made in heaven. Madison is a member of one of the oldest and wealthiest families in Canada. She's lived a long and very successful life, which saw her on the front lines of the Second World War as a nurse and, later, participating in international medical charities. She is also, as Benson quickly discovers, a woman of intelligence and stature. Someone who has lots of stories to tell. Benson and Madison seem ideally suited and Benson is happy to take up
residence in the lavish Madison "cottage," full of history and luxuries. But someone doesn't want the story of Moira Madison written, and is willing to
kill to keep the family secrets. Delany has done a great job with this book, much better than her debut,
Scare the Light Away. This is, obviously, ideal reading for a weekend at the cottage, or as a hostess gift for visitors. Read it under the trees and see
every page come to life.
--The Globe and Mail (7/8/2006)
Praise for Scare the Light Away
"Not so much reveling in family secrets as insisting that families can overcome them, debut novelist Delany is adept at ratcheting up the emotional tension. . . ."
--Kirkus Reviews
Novels about military nurses are relatively rare. This one is more so, because it's a story about a World War II Canadian military nurse - written within the reticulum of an upper-class Ontario family. Delany's military nurse, Moira, now in her eighties, engages a professional journalist to write her memoirs, and tells the journalist, "I want this to be a story of
the life of one Canadian woman," adding, "it's hard to get women's stories told and once told, heard."...Not only is this a fascinating mystery, but to use Noah Richter's phrase, Delany gives the reader a real "sense of Canadian place"...But in this historical fiction, there is another "sense of place" given: the feeling of being a Canadian military nurse in the UK and some parts of Europe during WW II. Chapters about those experiences and two years of post-war nursing in England are interwoven with those of decades of
life at the cottage...the mystery of the "burden" carried by this WW II nurse makes for utterly fascinating reading.
--Shirley Stinson, Canadian Association for the History of Nursing Newsletter (Fall 2006)
Delany's fine second mystery (after 2005¹s Scare the Light Away) offers a breath of fresh air from north of the border. Soon after Elaine Benson agrees to assist Miss Moira Madison, who served with the Canadian Army Nursing Sisters during WWII, with her memoirs, Elaine learns that the first writer Moira hired drowned in the lake by Moira¹s summer ³cottage² after less than a week on the job. Later, as members of the privileged Madison clan gather at the cottage in Ontario¹s Muskoka region for Thanksgiving, tensions mount, culminating in a fire. Elaine suspects that someone will go to great lengths to prevent Moira from revealing certain family secrets.The alternating rhythm of chapters of contemporary narrative and shorter sections of Moira¹s recollections of life as an army nurse helps build suspense. The striking setting, the picture of the Canadian social elite and several deftly handled subplots make for a richly textured and highly satisfying read. -- Publishers Weekly (4.24.2006)
novel effectively uses the Muskoka setting for a very fine novel about memory and class and caste in old Ontario. Elaine Benson is a writer, researcher and PhD in Canadian history. She's written two novels about women who confronted nature, men and propriety to survive and thrive in the Canadian wilderness. But Benson didn't learn from her forebears. She's spent the last decade working on television scripts for
a husband who dumped her the second he sold a successful series. She's starting over, and the chance to write the memoirs of Moira Madison seems
made in heaven. Madison is a member of one of the oldest and wealthiest families in Canada. She's lived a long and very successful life, which saw her on the front lines of the Second World War as a nurse and, later, participating in international medical charities. She is also, as Benson quickly discovers, a woman of intelligence and stature. Someone who has lots of stories to tell. Benson and Madison seem ideally suited and Benson is happy to take up
residence in the lavish Madison "cottage," full of history and luxuries. But someone doesn't want the story of Moira Madison written, and is willing to
kill to keep the family secrets. Delany has done a great job with this book, much better than her debut,
Scare the Light Away. This is, obviously, ideal reading for a weekend at the cottage, or as a hostess gift for visitors. Read it under the trees and see
every page come to life.
--The Globe and Mail (7/8/2006)
Praise for Scare the Light Away
"Not so much reveling in family secrets as insisting that families can overcome them, debut novelist Delany is adept at ratcheting up the emotional tension. . . ."
--Kirkus Reviews
Novels about military nurses are relatively rare. This one is more so, because it's a story about a World War II Canadian military nurse - written within the reticulum of an upper-class Ontario family. Delany's military nurse, Moira, now in her eighties, engages a professional journalist to write her memoirs, and tells the journalist, "I want this to be a story of
the life of one Canadian woman," adding, "it's hard to get women's stories told and once told, heard."...Not only is this a fascinating mystery, but to use Noah Richter's phrase, Delany gives the reader a real "sense of Canadian place"...But in this historical fiction, there is another "sense of place" given: the feeling of being a Canadian military nurse in the UK and some parts of Europe during WW II. Chapters about those experiences and two years of post-war nursing in England are interwoven with those of decades of
life at the cottage...the mystery of the "burden" carried by this WW II nurse makes for utterly fascinating reading.
--Shirley Stinson, Canadian Association for the History of Nursing Newsletter (Fall 2006)
Delany's fine second mystery (after 2005¹s Scare the Light Away) offers a breath of fresh air from north of the border. Soon after Elaine Benson agrees to assist Miss Moira Madison, who served with the Canadian Army Nursing Sisters during WWII, with her memoirs, Elaine learns that the first writer Moira hired drowned in the lake by Moira¹s summer ³cottage² after less than a week on the job. Later, as members of the privileged Madison clan gather at the cottage in Ontario¹s Muskoka region for Thanksgiving, tensions mount, culminating in a fire. Elaine suspects that someone will go to great lengths to prevent Moira from revealing certain family secrets.The alternating rhythm of chapters of contemporary narrative and shorter sections of Moira¹s recollections of life as an army nurse helps build suspense. The striking setting, the picture of the Canadian social elite and several deftly handled subplots make for a richly textured and highly satisfying read. -- Publishers Weekly (4.24.2006)
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherPoisoned Pen Press
- Publication date2006
- ISBN 10 1590582675
- ISBN 13 9781590582671
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages310
- Rating
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