My Mother, the Nazi Midwife and Me by Gina Roitman

My Mother, the Nazi Midwife and Me by Gina Roitman

Gina Roitman: Photo by Lynn Hatwin

We've all heard stories from our mothers, stories that made us feel uncomfortable or that we rolled our eyes at. As young girls, the tales were often too far removed from our own experiences to have any meaning.

It's usually much later in life when these stories carry much more significance for us. These stories tell us who we are and add a few more pieces to our own identity puzzle.

Writer Gina Roitman has just released a chilling documentary featuring some incredible personal discoveries. She has spent the last eight years filming her investigation into a tale that her mother began telling her when she was very young.

Gina Roitman grew up in Montreal, but was born in Germany in the years following the Second World War. Her parents were Holocaust survivors whose family members had all perished in concentration camps. Roitman's mother often told her young daughter stories of the atrocities of Nazi Germany. But young Gina was living in a different country at a different time, and as can be expected, she wasn't all that interested in her mother's stories. She also refused to believe that all Germans could be as horrible as her mother said, something that infuriated her mother.

Around the world, many people believe that after World War II ended, the Nazis suddenly disappeared. But as we see in the documentary, this was not the case.

Roitman's parents met at an overpopulated Displaced Persons camp outside Passau, Germany, in the US military zone. When Roitman's mother became pregnant, she insisted that her daughter be born at a birthing centre, and not in the camp. Too many Jewish babies were inexplicably dying there; a murderer was ostensibly afoot. The mother said that she had saved Gina's life.

For Roitman, this was just one of her mother's paranoid stories. Then, many years after her mother had died, Roitman discovered the work of Anna Rosmus, a German historian who had investigated the treatment of Jews in Passau in the 20th century. It was then that Roitman heard the story again of the mysterious deaths of Jewish babies at the Displaced Persons camp at Pocking-Waldstadt where her parents had lived.

In My Mother, the Nazi Midwife and Me, a one-hour documentary, Gina Roitman returns to Passau for the first time in her life to meet Anna Rosmus, investigate her mother's claims and ultimately discover some important parts of her own identity. This is a moving documentary that should not be missed. The footage and stories are haunting.

To see a trailer of the film click here.

My Mother, the Nazi Midwife and Me will be showing on Saturday, May 18 on the CBC Documentary Channel. 

Other documentaries:
5 Broken Cameras by Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi
Detropia by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady
Finding Dawn by Christine Welch
The Fruit Hunters by Yung Chang


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Susceptible by Geneviève Castrée

Susceptible by Geneviève Castrée

Susceptible 
Geneviève Castrée
Drawn and Quarterly

Susceptible is Geneviève Castrée’s first full-length English-language graphic novel. The multi-disciplinary artist and Quebec native has crafted a moving tale about Goglu, a bright, dreamy little girl who has a less than ideal start in life. As the title implies, she is sensitive, but Vulnerable would have also been a fitting title.

The reader meets Goglu still in the womb asking about whether sadness can be inherited from one generation to the next. The little girl is born to a 19-year-old Quebec mother and her English-speaking logger boyfriend in 1981. Her father played a very minor parenting role before moving to British Columbia, “a mythical kingdom where dads go to disappear.”

Her mother like droves of other young people in the early eighties had gone out west to make some quick money during the Alberta oil boom and experience her first adult adventure. Her mother, Amère, which aptly reflects her bitterness, returns to Quebec alone to give birth, but family support is not forthcoming. The youngest of 16 children, Amère didn’t receive much herself in the way of parenting.

Goglu is a latch-key kid from the time she starts school. Her mother sets an alarm clock so that the six-year-old knows when it is time to get ready and catch the bus to school.

Amère is a struggling single mother who still parties like most 20-year-olds, but strictly on the weekends. She eventually meets her significant other, Amer, and they move in together, but Amer in no way assumes any fathering responsibilities, and he resents Goglu. The weekend parties continue, and too ashamed to invite friends over to her house, the girl finds herself alone, a lot. As a teen, Goglu is troubled by her mother’s increasing dependence on alcohol.

At her South Shore school, Goglu is an outcast, an odd duck among a bunch of suburban kids. But in high school, she makes friends through that great equalizer—drugs. She struggles to finish high school, as she starts to use harder drugs, and then eerily finds herself in her mother’s previous predicament, the one that ruined “her bright future.”

Geneviève Castrée shows genuine talent as a graphic novelist and has created a compelling story. Particularly innovative is the circular panel she uses to illustrate an intense argument with her mother. We can all attest that arguments tend to be circular in nature, often returning to the original accusations.

Of all the books I’ve read in the last few years, I found Susceptible the most heart-wrenching. Goglu, like many unwanted children, internalizes her mother and stepfather’s resentment, which unsurprisingly results in her own anger, depression and self-imposed alienation.

Although it would be easy to point the finger at Amère for being a poor mother, she too was an unwanted child. As a single-parent with few resources, she chose to live with another wage-earner to make life and decision-making a little easier. In her desperation, she not only chose a man she didn’t love, but also one who had little patience for her daughter.

A lot of people will find this a harrowing read, but for many this will be validation for their own experiences growing up in cash-strapped homes with ill-equipped parents. Susceptible should be on the bookshelf of every teacher, guidance counsellor, social worker and planned parenthood advocate.

I applaud the publisher for taking this risk on a story that could potentially help a lot of people, both young and old.

This has been cross-posted at Rover Arts.

Other reviews
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Studio Saint-Ex by Ania Szado

Studio Saint-Ex by Ania Szado

The gift of a book can change the course of a child’s life,” writes Ania Szado in the acknowledgments of her recent historical novel Studio Saint-Ex. Szado is referring to The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, which she received as a gift at age 11. This is when the seed of Studio Saint-Ex ostensibly was planted.

Ania Szado has researched the life of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry while he was writing The Little Prince in 1943 and has created his character and that of his estranged wife, Consuelo, based on widely known historical facts.

The Saint-Exupérys are in essence insta-characters, torn from the pages of history. Studio Saint-Ex is a fictionalization of their lives when they were living in New York as expats during the Nazi occupation of France.

Into the storyline, Szado has inserted her own original character, 22-year-old Mignonne Lachapelle, an ambitious young fashion designer, who meets Antoine de Saint-Exupéry through the French community. As can be expected, the young woman falls in love with the legendary writer.

As history would have it, the couple had an open marriage, and this serves as Mignonne Lachapelle’s promising point of entry into their lives. At the same time, the ingenue is trying to forge a name for herself in the fashion industry, just as there is an upsurge in demand for high-fashion items in New York.

In her first job as a designer’s assistant, Mignonne is ordered to drum up business in the French community, where fashion trends are started. As the wife of an exalted figure among expats, Consuelo is considered influential and, consequently, a highly prized potential client. While Mignonne proposes items from her clothing line to Consuelo, she is also trying to seduce her husband. The wife is wise to this and plays along, continually turning the situation to her own advantage.

Although initially the story has great narrative force, it quickly loses momentum and becomes predictable. What saves the book is some particularly inspired writing by Ania Szado on the art of garment design.

As tempting as it may be to use historical figures as the basis of a novel, history still imposes some rather severe limitations, particularly on this storyline. Szado states in the book’s Afterword that some sources suggest that Saint-Exupéry’s extramarital relationships were “exclusively platonic.”

Consequently, the love triangle serves as little more than a tease to readers, reducing the focus of the novel to the aspirations of the young fashion designer. In the end, the story becomes completely implausible when Mignonne manages to co-opt Saint-Exupéry’s work and catapult her own career.

Studio Saint-Ex is a forced fit. Ultimately, Saint-Exupery’s name and The Little Prince, among the best-selling books of all time, are used to draw in readers, but the story is too farfetched and contrived to take seriously.

This has been cross-posted at the Globe and Mail.


Other reviews
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The Last Runaway by Tracy Chevalier
Gay Dwarves of America by Anne Fleming
One Good Hustle by Billie Livingston
The World is Moving Around Me by Dany Laferrière
The Return by Dany Laferrière

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Irish Writer Colm Tóibín With Eleanor Wachtel

Irish Writer Colm Tóibín With Eleanor Wachtel

The Blue Metropolis Literary Festival has grown tremendously in popularity since its inception in 1999. Not only have pre-festival ticket sales soared, but so has the festival’s ability to draw internationally acclaimed writers. On Thursday night, the Blue Metropolis International Literary Grand Prix was presented to Colm Tóibín before a sold-out crowd at the Bibliothèque Nationale. The prize and $10,000 purse are awarded each year to a world-renowned author in recognition of a lifetime of literary achievement. The Irish writer is no stranger to literary awards, having won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Man Booker Prize, among many others.

Best-selling Canadian author and jury member Claire Rothman Holden told the audience how the jury had selected Tóibín over the other illustrious contenders, which included Barbara Kingsolver, Orhan Pamuk and Rohinton Mistry. It was in part the writer’s versatility. In addition to being a novelist and short story writer, he is an essayist, poet, literary critic, playwright and journalist. “It was also the ease with which he writes, and the fact that he has accomplished all of this before the age of 60,” said Rothman Holden.

After the formal award presentation, Tóibín was joined on stage by Eleanor Wachtel, the host of CBC Radio’s “Writers and Company.” It might be assumed that a man named one of Britain’s top 300 intellectuals would be a snob, but this was not the case. With a keen sense of humour, he spoke frankly with Wachtel about his recent work, Broadway play, religion and family.

Although the Enniscorthy native is best known for his novels The Master and Brooklyn, it was his most recent work, The Testament of Mary that seemed to most interest Wachtel. Tóibín chose to breathe new life into the tale of the mother of Christ, something he was surprised no one had tried before. Instead of the meek and mild version we’re all familiar with, Mother Mary is imbued with a fierce intelligence, in spite of being illiterate. In addition to being incurious about what her son is doing, she refers to the disciples as a group of misfits and leaves his crucifixion before he dies. The premier performance of the Broadway production of "The Testament of Mary" was performed last Monday night in New York, and as can be expected some religious groups were up in arms. Nevertheless, the author showed genuine enthusiasm for the standing ovation his play received, the instant reaction a novelist never sees from someone reading his book.

On the topic of religion, the audience learned that Tóibín had once entertained the thought of joining the priesthood. “My family thought it was funny,” said the writer. The second youngest of five children had even considered something grander. “If I’d joined the Church then I wanted to be a Bishop,” said Tóibín. He admitted, however, that in spite of being a sucker for stained glass and enjoying Bach’s religious music, he just couldn’t bring himself "to believe any of it.”

A recurring theme is Tóibín’s work is family. His university-educated father was a teacher, local journalist and historian. His death when the writer was only 12 was devastating. “It was one of the first things to surface in therapy,” said the author. “After a death, everyone acts as if nothing has happened, life goes on and the whole issue becomes unmentionable. It’s like having half your face bitten off, but still having to smile.” The author made a number of thought-provoking statements about the truth of our interior lives, our secret selves, and how these thoughts can sometimes only be validated through reading experiences similar to our own.

His wise words were more than worth the admission price. As I walked up the steps of the auditorium listening to other people’s excited chatter about what they had just heard, there was a rush to get out of the doors, but it wasn’t to go home. A larger than usual crowd was milling around the display tables with Tóibín’s books, smiling and looking exhilarated.

This has been cross-posted at Rover Arts.

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Bombay Wali and other stories

Bombay Wali and other stories

Bombay Wali and other stories
Veena Gokhale

A former Bombay journalist, Veena Gokhale has penned her first collection of 12 short stories set almost entirely in India. While her stories set in Bombay will impart a genuine taste and flavour of India familiar to Indophiles, there is a definite departure from traditional India in this collection, giving a sense that change is in the air. The author throws in a few surprises, such as a story set in Japan in the last third of the book, serving as a type of aesthetic contrast, in addition to a tale about a young Canadian woman who finds moving spiritual enlightenment in Kathmandu. For anyone who loves stories about the Indian subcontinent, this collection offers some gems that are both evocative and visually pleasing.

The title story, “Bombay Wali,” also the collection’s longest, brings together a number of young professional women eking out an existence in Bombay. Renuka’s dreams are shattered when she has her bag slashed and money stolen outside a bank. Too ashamed to tell her father, she entertains the idea of robbing a bank, a plan suggested by her friend Gulnar on a girls’ night out. In desperation, Renuka agrees to take part. For their disguise, six burqas are purchased, and then the plans abruptly change. This leads to a less than satisfying ending to an otherwise original and engrossing tale. “Bombay Wali” is a welcome shift from the traditional portrayal of Indian women.

Equally audacious is “the Room,” which opens with a young couple, Suj and Vikram, smoking an illicit substance. As their relationship becomes more intimate, Suj resists the pressure to take a key for a room from Vikram’s unsavoury friend so that the couple might be alone. Although Suj is portrayed as more sexually open than her friends, as the reader witnesses, the stakes are still high for even the most minor displays of public affection.

My favourite in the collection is “Zindagi Itefaq Hai” (Life is Chance). Vishwanath Iyer is an investigative journalist at The Disquieter, a small-time Bombay rag. As fate would have it, page two of his report, which contains a key quote, is blown out the window and into the alleyway. Unable to retrieve his page two, Vish rushes to the station where his source, a judge, is catching a train. Both humorous and realistic, this story is easy to visualize, “The station was a tide of bodies, a cacophony of sounds – human and mechanical, a solid flow of heat-resistant energy. Nevertheless, the announcer’s steady voice, talking alternatively in Marathi, Hindi and English, managed to prevail over the chaos.” In spite of its somewhat weak ending, “Zindagi Itefaq Hai” feels like the beginning of a very entertaining full-length novel.

Other noteworthy stories include “the Tea Drinker” about an adolescent boy who befriends a rich social outcast and “Freire Stopped in Bombay,” which details the ravages of hunger on a poor student who is too proud to borrow money. In addition, despite its pedestrian title, “Middle Age Jazz and Blues” is the most beautiful story in the collection. At a jazz concert, middle-aged single Feroza is struck by the vision of the love of her life, who died tragically.

As is usually the case, some stories are not as interesting as others. However, in spite of some vague references to “things” and “stuff,” a handful of heavy adverbs and some unconventional dialogue tags, Veena Gokhale shows genuine promise as a short story writer and future novelist. Let’s hope she chooses to write more about the Bombay newspaper world.


This has been cross-posted at Rover Arts.



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One Good Hustle by Billie Livingston
The World is Moving Around Me by Dany Laferrière
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Drawn & Quarterly Presents Alison Bechdel

Drawn & Quarterly Presents Alison Bechdel

It was still light out on Friday night when I left wearing rubber boots to see Alison Bechdel at the Ukrainian Hall, an event sponsored by Drawn and Quarterly and the Institute For Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies at McGill. As I trudged through the slush of the late spring snow and dodged spraying mud from passing cars on St-Denis, I wondered what Bechdel would talk about, even though I knew she really didn't have to do much to please the crowd. The syndicated cartoonist of the long-running comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For and critically acclaimed graphic memoirist has legions of adoring fans. The evening's presenter even told the crowd that a video of Bechdel rescuing an earwig from the kitchen sink garnered more than 7,000 views.

In the end, however, it was not her talk that was the most interesting, but the Q&A at the end. Both of her groundbreaking graphic memoirs Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic and Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama were more widely read than I had ever imagined. It was also interesting to see her reaction to personal questions that appeared to hit a little too close to home.

No one can deny that authors speaking in public have some expectation of privacy, so why wouldn't Bechdel?

A proponent of "the personal is the political," Bechdel (pronounced Bekdel) writes and draws about very personal issues in great detail. In her first wildly successful graphic memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, she chronicles her childhood and early adulthood in a rural Pennsylvania town and her complex relationship with her father, a funeral home director and high school English teacher. Her father is overbearing and at times violent, like many dads of that era, but he also lives a secret life. Just as the author is coming to terms with her own sexuality, she realizes that her father, too, is gay. It is around this time that there is a tragic accident and her father dies. However, the daughter sees it as a suicide.

Her second graphic memoir, Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama, is equally as personal. Bechdel writes about her relationship with her very distant mother, who never fully gives her blessing to the memoir. It is also abundantly clear that Fun Home was not a family favourite. Are You My Mother? goes into detail about Bechdel's relationships and her psychotherapy with multiple references to Virginia Woolf, Adrienne Rich and Donald Winnicott.  The book does not offer the same closure as Fun Home, but then making sense of our relationships with our mothers is often a work-in-progress.

Although Bechdel admitted at the Q&A that she was not pleased with the end-result of Are You My Mother?, it was nevertheless a critical success.

The talk and slide show of Dykes to Watch Out For were in fact short. The Q&A started like most other with a few timid questions until a sexologist came to the microphone to ask the author about the openness of her therapists to Bechdel's sexual orientation. The author was frank about her positive experiences. At any other Q&A, this would have been a cringe moment, but this time it wasn't. In fact, I nearly made a move to the mic myself. I had my own question. I wanted to know how the little Pennsylvania town where she grew up reacted to Fun Home. But clearly, I was not alone, as many more people quickly joined the line to ask a question. A therapist said that she used Are You My Mother? with her patients as a means to teach the heavy-handed writing of Winnicott. There was also a question from a teacher who taught Fun Home to his highschool English class. Bechdel said that the book was used in college English classes and that she always found it strange that students talked about her father as an actual character.

Then the question everyone was expecting materialized: What did Bechdel's mother think of Are You My Mother? The author took a step back and put her hand over her mouth before answering. Her mother was not happy. "I had to take her to Las Vegas," she said.

Then it was announced that there was enough time for two more questions for the last two people in line. The following person asked a question about the Bechdel test for films and then asked why neither of her siblings appeared in Are You My Mother? Again the author's hand covered her mouth. "Ahh, that's a bit of a hornet's nest," she said. "I can't talk about that." Then she waved her hand in the air and called an end to the question period, leaving one last person in line.

Alison Bechdel has truly espoused "the personal is the political" and her books have helped and validated the experiences of many, but I still think that her honesty and openness may have come at a very high personal price.

This has been cross-posted at Rover Arts.

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Gay Dwarves of America by Anne Fleming

Gay Dwarves of America by Anne Fleming

There are a lot of great writers in Canada, yet there seems to be little meritocracy. While some great writers are widely promoted, others rarely get the attention they deserve. This is the case of the inventive, unique and moving Gay Dwarves of America (GDA) by Anne Fleming.

True, it could be that GDA is a collection of short stories, not always the first thing people reach for when they read. Or, as the title suggests, some of the stories are unconventional, even outlandish, maybe not exactly what everyone might be in the mood for. Nevertheless, the reader will be generously rewarded with this refreshingly original collection of short stories. Fleming strikes that fine balance between humour and realism, reeling us in with a few laughs only to show us a more serious issue we might never have considered.

The nine-story collection contains a wide variety of tales, from the stellar and almost mainstream "Thorn-blossoms," about an eccentric hockey mom who must contend with her once ambitious journalist mother, now stricken with Alzheimer's, to the experimental and self-explanatory, "Thirty-One One Word Stories."

In the middle of the spectrum, there are stories about a boy on a unicycle, a bearded parasitologist named Edna and a musical about a bunch of wannabe artists working in inventory at the back of an outdoor equipment store. This story includes a chorus of cashiers and of course (?), a love triangle with the cuckold in a coma.Yes, this is a laugh-out-loud book, but it also elicits a range of other emotions.

The title story, "Gay Dwarves of America," is about two college roommates who, on a whim, set up a chat room for gay men with dwarfism. However, when one of the roommates receives a serious email from a mother who suspects that her son, a little person, is gay, a distance develops between the two friends.

My favourite, "Puke Diary" is about the funny and harrowing events surrounding each family member's experience with vomiting. This even includes an entry on Sarah, the family's cat. My least favourite was the "Backstock: the Musical." Although original, I found it long and had to restart it a few times.

GDA is not a quick read and is best enjoyed over an extended period of time, and preferably not on your commute to work. The conspicuous lime green jacket attracted quite a few smiles and inquisitive looks on the metro. Or was it my giggling?

Anne Fleming's stories have been widely published in literary journals, and she has been shortlisted for both the Governor General's Award for Fiction and the Danuta Gleed Award. That said, although GDA might not be considered mainstream fiction, I'm still surprised that it didn't generate more buzz. Fleming is an original talent that shouldn't be missed.

This review has been cross-posted at Rover Arts.


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Bone and Bread by Saleema Nawaz

Bone and Bread by Saleema Nawaz

As promised, here is my review of a book that I wanted to like but didn't, as it appeared in the Globe & Mail on Easter weekend 2013.

Bone & Bread
Saleema Nawaz
House of Anansi

Saleema Nawaz burst onto the Canadian literary scene in 2008 with Mother Superior, a widely praised collection of short stories. “My Three Girls,” a story from the collection, won the Journey Prize, while several other stories were published in established literary journals across the country. Bone & Bread, Nawaz’s first full-length novel, is based on the characters in “Bloodlines,” also a story in Mother Superior.

In Bone & Bread, Beena and her younger sister Sadhana live in a tiny apartment above a bagel store in Montreal’s Mile End. Their father, Vishram Singh, the bagel shop owner, dies suddenly, leaving the business to his younger and more traditional Sikh brother, Harinder. The Singh family in India had disowned their eldest son because of his marriage to a white American woman, Beena and Sadhana’s mother, in spite of her conversion to Sikhism.

After the father’s death, their apartment is set ablaze by neo-Nazis, and Sadhana soon shows signs of obsessive compulsive disorder. Tragedy strikes again when the mother dies, leaving the two young teens in the care of Harinder, the girls’ only living relative in Canada. Within a year, Sadhana is hospitalized for anorexia, an illness she battles her whole short life, while Beena finds herself pregnant. The child’s father, Ravi, a bagel shop employee, is nowhere to be found.

Beena tells their story from the present as an adult living in Ottawa with her now 18-year-old son Quinn. Sadhana, the actress, dancer and political activist, has died, and Beena must return to Montreal and empty her apartment. In the process, she uncovers evidence that raises suspicions about the circumstances surrounding her sister’s death. She also discovers that Sadhana had secretly contacted Ravi, a rising right-wing political star.

Bone & Bread is ambitious with easily enough material for two novels. Nawaz successfully portrays a strong yet tumultuous bond between the two sisters, and the author is equally adept at showing the extreme demands of caring for a loved one with anorexia. However, the economy of words and razor-sharp prose of Mother Superior are not to be found in this novel. Instead, there is effusive detail that adds little depth to the story and does not advance the plot. “She sent us an invitation in the mail, on crisp, cream-coloured cardstock, neatly handwritten in feathery script she could only produce with her fountain pen. Turquoise ink,” writes Nawaz of Sadhana’s preparations for a party that would serve merely to contrast the two sisters’ lifestyles. Most sentences are as heavily wrought.

Then there is the issue of the baffling similes and metaphors, leaving the reader momentarily distracted by what exactly is being evoked, “regret has simply become the shadow I would cast if I stood in the sun.” These distractions are unwelcome, especially when the storyline is confusing. With the narrative switching often from the backstory to Beena in the present reminiscing about the past, the novel needs all the coherence it can muster.

However, even these problems might have been overlooked if the author had chosen to show rather than tell so much of the story. The result is language that prevents the reader from experiencing the action first hand. Nawaz writes, “I sat back, watching Sadhana animate the conversation, expounding in her desultory way to Quinn, drawing him out, taking obvious pleasure, as she always did, in his quick mind, his willingness to listen.” Something as simple as dialogue might have made this scene clearer and more accessible to the reader.

While I was not immediately aware of the problems in Bread & Bone, I eventually realized that I was putting the book down every few pages to catch my breath and make better sense of it. Unfortunately, not everyone will be able to pick it up again.

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I Wanted To Like the Book But Didn't

I Wanted To Like the Book But Didn't

Recently, I received a novel to review for a national newspaper. I was thrilled! The book in question was to be one of the 13 literary highlights of 2013, according to the National Post. It was also set in Montreal's Mile End, an area where I  lived for nine years--another reason to love the book. The young Montreal-based author had also written a beautiful collection of short stories that I enjoyed. It would seem that I had every reason to like the book.

But I could only read a few pages at a time before I put it down. It was spring, the March break, daylight savings time, a change in seasons...I had plenty of reasons to be tired. But that had never stopped me from reading before. I always have at least one book on the go.

No, I was convinced that I just needed a longer stretch of reading time so that I could really get into the book, enjoy it. But I kept putting it down, and when I didn't put it down I grew frustrated with the author's often circuitous way of getting to the point. I started to look more closely at my source of frustration--too many heavy adjectives, long sentences, metaphors that left me dumbfounded. The story had plenty of tragedy, but it didn't feel dramatic.

First and foremost, I'm a reader, and four years ago when I learned that publishers and online magazines would send me books to review on my blog for free, I was ecstatic. But before I agreed to read anything, I researched the books and authors for some assurance that I was going to like what I read. (After all, I wasn't getting paid for this.) It was a wonderful world. I could choose almost anything that sparked an interest, and my research almost always paid off. In the vast majority of cases, I liked the books and wrote positive reviews.

I quickly discovered that when I read a book for review, I read differently. I followed every narrative thread, reread parts I liked, and took notes when the story slowed. When I finished a book, I mentally went through the story. If any doubt or questions arose, I re-read the book to make sure that I hadn't missed anything. In other words, I am fully aware that every novel is someone's labour of love and try to give the writer every benefit of the doubt.

I know a second read sounds arduous and work intensive, but this is my idea of fun. The second read allows you to see how the book is put together and gives you a much greater appreciation of the craft behind it. I almost always like a book more my second time through.

Rereading this particular novel for review was a slog for a number of reasons. For starters, it was easy to get bogged down in all the details that didn't advance the plot. In addition, I wanted to like the story but didn't. Finally, in all honesty, writing a negative review is a lot more work. You have to continually examine what is confusing and frustrating. Then, of course, you have to read passages yet again to make sure you got it right.

In my second read, I underlined everything I liked and disliked, and although I ended up writing an equal number of positive and negative remarks in the margins, I didn't change my mind. A book has to be exceptional to come across as "good," especially to a reader who will only read it once. I came away with a few strengths I hadn't previously considered, but my original criticisms were confirmed.

As I was preparing to write the review two weeks ago, the media hype for the book began. Then I started to fret and swear a lot. Not only was I going to write my first highly critical review, I was going to do it in a national newspaper. To make matters worse, in the tiny enclave of  English-speaking writers in Montreal, there's only about two degrees of separation.

Fortunately, a fellow reviewer and writer urged me to be honest and give constructive criticism with proof to back up my opinions.

Well, I wrote it and submitted it two weeks ago. In the meantime, the Montreal Gazette, the Toronto Star and the National Post have all published favourable critiques. My review will be appearing soon. I promise to post it. After of course, I wash the eggs off the front of my house.

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Fanny & Romeo by Yves Pelletier and Pascal Girard
One Good Hustle by Billie Livingston
The World is Moving Around Me by Dany Laferrière
The Return by Dany Laferrière
5 Broken Cameras by Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi
Detropia by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady

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Fanny and Romeo by Yves Pelletier and Pascal Girard

Fanny and Romeo by Yves Pelletier and Pascal Girard

Fanny & Romeo
Yves Pelletier
Pascal Girard
Conundrum Press

Unfortunately when the biological clock goes off, there is no snooze button, and thirty-something Fanny, a freelance graphic artist, knows this all too well. While she obsesses about having children, her pragmatic partner, Fabien, thinks that saving more money should be their first priority. Fanny’s dire need to nurture takes her down a comical yet realistic path in Yves Pelletier’s Fanny & Romeo. The Quebec director, actor and comedian of Rock et Belles Oreilles fame has teamed up with award-winning artist Pascal Girard to create this modern-day love story, set in a small Quebec town.

Many women who have worked on their careers in their twenties with the hope of starting a family in their thirties will readily identify with Fanny and her uncontrollable urge to reproduce. Fanny not only prepares Fabien a full breakfast but also packs the allergy-prone real estate agent a peanut-free lunch. To make matters worse, their bungalow looks onto a street inhabited by young boys playing road hockey, with an ever-present golden retriever bounding back and forth. It’s all too much for this wannabe mom.

Fanny needs an escape and goes to the video shop where she runs into none other than Cedric, her two-timing ex. He’s with his new girlfriend who, as fate would have it, is expecting a child, something the two-timer refused to do with Fanny. After picking up a few films with mothering themes, she heads over to her friend’s apartment, and by chance, meets the irresistible Romeo, a fluffy orange tabby her friend has taken in but must give away. Fanny is immediately smitten with Romeo, much to the chagrin of Fabien, who is allergic to cats. As expected, Fanny’s mothering instinct takes over, and the feline drives a wedge between the couple. Fanny goes solo until she learns that cats, too, are fickle creatures.

Yves Pelletier has penned a story that will resonate with many people. We all know someone who wanted children but for whatever reason had to settle for a dog or cat. Fanny’s obsession with Romeo, her doting on him, bathing him and taking him in a backpack to sit on Santa’s knee are funny, particularly because we all know a few crazed cat lovers who would do this if kitty would allow them. However, Pelletier has used a third-person objective narrator, which prevents the reader from knowing Fanny’s thoughts and, consequently, from establishing a connection with the character. As a result, Fanny’s character is flat when it could have easily been fleshed out with a few more thought balloons or some interior monologue. The author also relies on dialogue to give information and advance the narrative. This works in fiction, but a lot of this information could have easily been given in the graphic component. In the end, the story comes across as the first draft of a great idea.

In terms of graphic elements, Pascal Girard has produced some nice water colours, particularly some great establishing shots. But there is a heavy reliance on the six-frame page, which at times becomes monotonous. In addition, too many of the frames are medium close-up and medium-long shots, which further create a distance between the characters and the reader. A few more close-ups zeroing in on expressions would have added some variety and necessary detail. Finally, the architectural style of the bungalow, the town centre and the apartment of Fanny’s friend felt more like the South Shore of Montreal than a small town. Instead, the reader pieces this together by the sheer number of times Fanny unwillingly runs into Cedric.

Overall, Fanny & Romeo is a good story with solid graphics, but the reader can sense that the writer and artist did not work closely together on this. As a result, this album does not reflect the talent of either artist, whereas closer collaboration would have probably yielded something truly remarkable.

This was crossposted at the Montreal Review of Books.

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