Who hasn’t struggled at times with their relationship with
the “parental units”? A couple of recent
books explore these complicated and inevitable connections from unique perspectives. Not only are their situations compelling but
both writers are immensely skilled at story telling as well as being candid and
generous with their feelings.
I’ve been following Priscila Uppal’s writing since loving
her 2002 novel The Divine Economy of
Salvation which was dedicated “for my mother wherever she may be”.
Blog # 7 featured Winter
Sport, her poems celebrating the 2010 Olympic Games. In an essay covering
the Paralympics, Priscila credits her father, a paraplegic who raised Priscila
and her brother as a single parent, for her dedication to physical activity. In
September, Dundurn Press launched Projection,
encounters with my runaway mother. This tells the compelling tale of Priscila’s
chance discovery of her mother’s whereabouts on the internet and her subsequent
contact and visit to her in Brazil . This story is poignant, witty and surprising (isn’t
it usually kids who run away?) and Priscila takes us on every step with her on
this painful but illuminating voyage of discovery.
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| credit www.schwichow.de |
Abandonment, whatever the surrounding conditions, is one of
life’s most brutal blows.
Both of these books handle it with a dash of wry humour in places,
raw pain in others. Each woman explores her parent in a sensitive, loving way
despite hurtful circumstances that could foster blame, either of the parent,
themselves or both..
Writers have once again stepped up to the plate, helping us
to make some sense of life and the slings and arrows it sends our way.
