I usually write about non-fiction books, but I do read fiction, albeit slowly, in bed (on a good night, I can get through one page). But I did manage to finish two books that I highly recommend.
The Arctic Fury by Greer Macallister (2021, Sourcebooks) tells the story of a group of courageous and tenacious women adventurers who head out to the high Arctic, north of Hudson Bay (past Repulse Bay – what a name!) to search for the missing Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin and his expedition, which disappeared in the ice in 1845.
The expedition was organized by Lady Jane Franklin, the captain’s wife, who was living in Boston at the time in a lavish hotel suite, financed by — well, you’ll have to read the book!
In real life, Lady Jane actually did finance several search parties to find her husband.
This is not only a riveting adventure story with an abundance of disaster and human struggle, as well as survival (for part of the group), but also a nerve-wracking courtroom drama. I couldn’t put it down.
I did a little bit of research on Lady Jane Franklin. As a young woman in London, she swooned over Peter Roget of Roget’s Thesaurus fame and was a compassionate philanthropist, working for female convicts, and educational and cultural projects, mainly in Australia, where a fern was named after her — “Hymenophyllum frankliniae.”
Historical fiction often urges us to do a little further investigating and Franklin’s Arctic exploration, including the search for him, is an adventure.
If you peruse through the shelves of a used book shop, you will likely discover a vast array of books on the exploration of the north. In the wonderful book Across The Top Of The World, A Quest for the Northwest Passage by James P. Delgado (1999, Douglas & McIntyre, Vancouver) an entire chapter is devoted to Captain Franklin.
The warmer months may entice you to pick up a book of short stories to read on the deck with a cool gin and tonic. Frequently laden with heavy or serious content, all within a few compact pages like a quick punch, this type of fiction has the ability to evoke flashes of memory and spontaneous emotional responses in the immediacy of reading.
I recently read a few selections from The New Oxford Book of Canadian Short Stories, selected by Margaret Atwood and Robert Weaver (1997, Oxford University Press, Ontario).
Celia Behind Me by Isabel Huggan describes the bullying of a chubby girl “because her head was so round and she seemed so bland and stupid and fruitlike.” I had a pang of deep empathy for my mother and others with vision problems when I read that Celia wore “very thick glasses;” there’s something so deeply vulnerable about people with poor sight who wear thick glasses, especially if they lose them or the glasses break. I feel for their helplessness as they try to find their glasses, perhaps crushed or tossed in a shrub by a bully.
Mum told me that she was bullied by a group of girls in school because her parents were not married (in the 1930s!) but one tough girl told the gang: “Don’t pick on Molly — she wears glasses.” When Mum was elderly and frail, she had dark glasses and the lenses were a pinkish colour, and we joked that she saw the world “through rose-coloured glasses” and it was partly true, literally, although we never discussed that part.
Flowers for Weddings and Funerals by Sandra Birdsell begins with coral-coloured gladiolas. Mum hated glads and never had them in the house, so I didn’t either, although I was always intrigued by them.
After Mum died, it took me two years to buy a modest bouquet from the little corner store in James Bay. They were small and yellow, very modest and elegant — quite subtle for gladiolas. They sat in my window amongst the geraniums and candles and I loved them as I hoped I would — the gamble (to do something that Mum so totally disliked) was a success! And now, every autumn, I buy the store out of glads. Sorry, Mum.
This short story is a rather melancholy memory of growing up between traditions with grandparents who make jam and sugar cookies (and sell glads), and a silly boy with no respect for a lush home-grown tomato that the grandmother grew. He throws it, watching in delight as it smatters and splatters on a telephone pole.
Dad grew tomatoes — he developed his own seed in his little homemade greenhouse and called it Bruno’s Best, and if anyone had thrown one of his tomatoes at a telephone pole, I would have forced them out of town!
So, this summer, pick up a book of short stories and see what memories and emotions come flooding back for you!
