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- Pluck : a memoir of a Newfoundland childhood and the raucous, terrible, amazing journey to becoming a novelist / by Morrissey, Donna,1956-author.;
"A deeply personal account of love's restorative ability as it leads renowned novelist Donna Morrissey through mental illness, family death, and despair to becoming a writer--told with charm and inimitable humour. When Donna Morrissey left the only home she had ever known, an isolated Newfoundland settlement, at age 16, she was ready for adventure. She had grown up without television or telephones but had absorbed the tragic stories and comic yarns of her close-knit family and community. The death of her infant brother marked the family, and years later, Morrissey suffers devastating guilt about the accidental death of her teenage brother, whom she'd enticed to join her in the oilfields. Her misery was compounded by her own misdiagnosis of a terminal illness, all of which contributed to crippling anxiety and an actual diagnosis of PTSD. Many of those events and themes would eventually be transformed and recast as fictional gold in Morrissey's novels. In another writer's hands, Morrissey's account of her personal story could easily be a tragedy. Instead, she combines darkness and light, levity and sadness into her tale, as her indomitable spirit and humour sustain her. Morrissey's path takes her from the drudgery of being a grocery clerk (who occasionally enlivens her shift with recreational drugs) to western oilfields, to marriage and divorce and working in a fish-processing plant to support herself and her two young children. Throughout her struggles, she nourishes a love of learning and language. Morrissey layers her account of her life with stories of those who came before her, a breed rarely seen in the modern world. It centers around iron-willed women: mothers and daughters, wives, sisters, teachers and mentors who find the support, the wind for their wings, outside the bounds given to them by nature. And it is a mysterious older woman she meets in Halifax who eventually unleashes the writer that Morrissey is destined to become. An inspiring and insightful memoir, Pluck illustrates that even when you find yourself unravelling, you can find a way to spin the yarns that will save you--and delight readers everywhere."--- Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Morrissey, Donna, 1956-; Anxiety disorders; Brothers; Novelists, Canadian (English);
- Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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- Dispatches from Ray's planet : a journey through autism / by Finlayson, Claire,1957-author.;
"As a child, Claire's big brother Ray was always bright and inquisitive, and she looked up to him. But as the two became teenagers, Ray struggled to acquire the social skills that came more easily to Claire and their friends. Claire tried to help, pointing out what he should or shouldn't have said or done. Ray insisted that he wasn't the problem--"On my planet ...", he would explain, there were no social climbers, no cocktail parties, no subtle hints or subliminal messages to miss. On his planet, the telling of little white lies would be a capital offence. At sixteen, sitting with him in the high school cafeteria, Claire vowed to find Ray's "planet." After graduation, Ray took a job as a letter carrier with Canada Post, but after thirty-three years on the job he had developed plantar fasciitis, his feet so painful he couldn't walk. Instead of seeking medical help, he began leaving mail in his truck overnight--a serious dereliction of duty. He was fired, blew his appeal, and spiralled into a suicidal depression. Claire didn't know he was in trouble until he reached out to her by email. Thus began a remarkable email correspondence that pulled back the curtain on an inner life Claire couldn't have imagined. Where in-person interactions plunged him into hot water, by email, Ray's writing revealed a compassionate, funny, sad man who showed extraordinary insight into his often self-destructive way of navigating the world. Ray was fifty when Claire realized he might have Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), but by then, having survived without a diagnosis his whole life, Ray was reluctant to have a label pinned on him and resisted Claire's efforts to fix him by trying, in all sincerity, to make him more like her. Dispatches From Ray's Planet draws on Ray and Claire's correspondence to tell the story of two siblings from two very different planets. There are thousands of Rays in our world, hiding in basements or holding up walls at social functions. In this collective memoir, Claire and Ray share their journey with the hope that others can also learn that we all perceive the world in different ways, and that "different" does not necessarily mean dangerous."--- Subjects: Biographies.; Finlayson, Ray.; Finlayson, Claire, 1957-; Finlayson, Ray; Finlayson, Claire, 1957-; Autistic people; Autistic people;
- Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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- Hemingway's widow : the life and legacy of Mary Welsh Hemingway / by Christian, Timothy J.,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."A stunning portrait of the complicated woman who was Ernest Hemingway's fourth wife, exploring the tumultuous years of their marriage, and evoking her merry widowhood as she shapes Hemingway's literary legacy. Mary Welsh, a celebrated wartime journalist during the London Blitz and the liberation of Paris, meets Ernest Hemingway in May 1944. He becomes so infatuated with Mary that he asks her to marry him the third time they meet-although they are married to other people. Eventually, she succumbs to Ernest's campaign, and in the last days of the war joined him at his estate in Cuba. Through Mary's eyes, we see Ernest Hemingway in a fresh light. Their turbulent marriage survives his cruelty and abuse, perhaps because of their sexual compatibility and her essential contribution to his writing. She reads and types his work each day-and makes plot suggestions. She becomes crucial to his work and he depends upon her critical reading of his work to know if he has it right. We watch the Hemingways as they travel to the ski country of the Dolomites, commute to Harry's Bar in Venice; attend bullfights in Pamplona and Madrid; go on safari in Kenya in the thick of the Mau Mau Rebellion; and fish the blue waters of the gulf stream off Cuba in Ernest's beloved boat Pilar. We see Ernest fall in love with a teenaged Italian countess and wonder at Mary's tolerance of the affair. We witness Ernest's sad decline and Mary's efforts to avoid the stigma of suicide by claiming his death was an accident. In the years following Ernest's death, Mary devotes herself to his literary legacy, negotiating with Castro to reclaim Ernest's manuscripts from Cuba, publishing one-third of his work posthumously. She supervises Carlos Baker's biography of Ernest, sues A. E. Hotchner to try and prevent him from telling the story of Ernest's mental decline, and spends years writing her memoir in her penthouse overlooking the New York skyline. Her story is one of an opinionated woman who smokes Camels, drinks gin, swears like a man, sings like Edith Piaf, loves passionately, and experiments with gender fluidity in her extraordinary life with Ernest. This true story reads like a novel-and the reader will be hard pressed not to fall for Mary."--- Subjects: Biographies.; Hemingway, Mary Welsh, 1908-1986; Hemingway, Mary Welsh, 1908-1986.; Hemingway, Ernest, 1899-1961; Authors' spouses; Journalists; Women journalists;
- Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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- Just once, no more : on fathers, sons, and who we are until we are no longer / by Foran, Charles,1960-author.;
"In this vulnerable, honest, beautiful memoir, award-winning writer Charles Foran offers a brief and powerful meditation on fathers and sons, love and loss, even as his own father approaches the end of life. Dave Foran was a formidable man of few words, seemingly from a different era than his sensitive, literary son, Charlie. Among other adventures, Dave had lived in the bush, been snow-blinded, hauled a dead body across a frozen lake on a dog sled, dodged a bullet during a bar fight, and gone toe to toe with a bear. Aspects of his life were like tall tales while others were more somber and enigmatic. A decent father to Charlie and his siblings, and a devoted husband to Charlie's mother, Dave was a tough, emotionally distant man, prone to gruff cynicism and a changeable mood. As Charlie writes: "He struggled most days of his life with wounds he could not readily identify, let alone heal ... Not only did my father never get over what had happened to him as a boy, he didn't try. Men usually didn't try back then. And we just had to deal." When Charlie turned 55, his father began a slow and, as it turned out, final decline. And Charlie felt something he'd never imagined before: a mysterious desire to write about his relationship with his father. On the surface, the motivation was to help lift an inchoate burden from his father's shoulders, to reassure him that he was loved. But there was also another, more personal motivation. "Late into the middle of my own lifespan," Charlie writes, "sadness took hold of my being ... I wanted to say so frankly, never mind how glib it sounded, how uncomfortable it made me." In spare, haunting prose, Just Once pulls on these threads--unravelling a fascinating personal story but also revealing its universal context (suggested by the title "Just Once, No More," a quote from a poem by Rilke that applies to all of our brief lives). With its skillful prose, humour, affecting intimacy, and love of life even in the shadow of death and uncertainty, this short but very full book presents a nuanced, moving portrait of a fond but distant father grappling with the end of life as his son acts as witness, solace, and would-be guide while shakily facing his own decline. What story can we tell ourselves and those we love, this memoir asks, to withstand the insecurities of self and the inexorable passage of time?"--- Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Foran, Charles, 1960-; Foran, Dave.; Aging parents; Fathers and sons; Fathers; Parent and adult child;
- Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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- Mon ami est triste / by Willems, Mo.; Montagnier, Isabelle.;
LSC- Subjects: Gérald (Personnage fictif : Willems); Rosie (Personnage fictif : Willems); Éléphants; Porcs; Amitié; Émotions; Gerald (Fictitious character : Willems); Piggie (Fictitious character : Willems); Elephants; Swine; Friendship; Emotions;
- Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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- Mon chagrin à moi / by Vigneault, Mylen.; Roegiers, Maud,1982-;
LSC- Subjects: Chagrin; Tristesse; Résilience (Trait de personnalité); Grief; Sadness; Resilience (Personality trait);
- Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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- Une cachette pour les bobettes / by Poulin, Andrée.; Boum,1985-;
LSC- Subjects: Sous-vêtements; Raillerie; Tristesse; Écoles; Underwear; Ridicule; Sadness; Schools;
- Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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- On me cache quelque chose / by Florian, Mélanie.;
LSC- Subjects: Grands-mères; Grands-parents et enfants; Tristesse; Secrets d'enfants; Parents et enfants; Mort; Deuil; Grandmothers; Grandparent and child; Sadness; Children's secrets; Parent and child; Death; Bereavement;
- © c2007., Alice jeunesse,
- Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Results 201 to 208 of 208 | « previous