In Winter I Get Up at Night
Book Review of Jane Urquhart's novel
Like some winter nights, this story seems to go on and on forever. Too still. Too quiet. Emer Remembers, it could be called. Emer McConnell remembers the tornado that ripped through her rural Saskatchewan childhood home, killing her mother and crippling her. She has plenty of time to reflect as she lays convalescing in a hospital bed. She remembers the tree her mother cuddled like an infant all the way from Ontario to transplant in prairie soil. She remembers the stories of Irish relatives and ancestors. She remembers her cheerful father and the way he could infuriate her dark-minded mother just by his optimism. She remembers the train conductor who rides the endless CPR rails west and then east.
The childrens' ward where Emer lives in pain amid other children who live in pain is like a separate country, passport surrendered. Doctors and nurses and visitors come and go, but the children are prisoners. Emer does not outgrow this habit of confinement. She limps into adulthood without efficacy, becoming an unappreciated music teacher, an uncherished lover, a woman lost in the ruins of her own storm ravaged landscape. Bundle up before reading.