Family Ties

with Zalika Reid-Benta, Carol Rose GoldenEagle and Michael Crummey

Hosted by CBC’s Alan Neal

In Person Fiction

Sunday

Oct , 2019

6:30pm

Eastern

Christ Church Cathedral

414 Sparks St. • Ottawa

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Carol Rose GoldenEagle Michael Crummey · Photo by Mo Pho Zalika Reid-Benta

A gripping and credible page-turner about children surviving in the wilderness, but more than that: this Adam and Eve struggle to make sense of a world that’s somewhere between Eden and Hell. Michael Crummey writes like an avenging angel, never putting a word wrong.

Emma Donoghue

For better or worse, what could be more central in our lives than family ties? Three of our country’s most acclaimed authors sit down with CBC’s Alan Neal for a taste of their new work and a conversation on how we are defined by familial relationships—especially in extreme situations.

A rich portrait of growing up between worlds, Frying Plantain by Zalika Reid-Benta explores how, in one moment, friendship and love can turn to enmity and hate, well-meaning protection can become control, and teasing play can turn into something much darker. This Giller-nominated debut artfully depicts the tensions between mothers and daughters, second-generation Canadians and first-generation cultural expectations, and Black identity and predominately white society.

Bone Black, the latest novel from Carol Rose GoldenEagle who won the Aboriginal Literature Award for Bearskin Diary, tackles the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women through the lens of Wren, whose twin sister, Raven, mysteriously disappears after the two spend an evening at a local pub. As she follows media reports, Wren realizes that the heartbreak she’s feeling is shared by too many other families, indeed for whole Nations. Something within Wren snaps and she decides to take justice into her own hands.

A brother and sister are orphaned in an isolated cove on Newfoundland's northern coastline in the Giller-nominated novel, The Innocents by Michael Crummey. Their home is a stretch of rocky shore governed by the feral ocean, by a relentless pendulum of abundance and murderous scarcity. Still children with only the barest notion of the outside world, they have nothing but the family’s boat and the little knowledge passed on haphazardly by their mother and father to keep them alive. A riveting story of hardship and survival, and an unflinching exploration of the bond between brother and sister. By turns electrifying and heartbreaking, it is a testament to the bounty and barbarity of the world, to the wonders and strangeness of our individual selves.

Books available for purchase at every event: Proceeds support our free children’s literacy programs.

The Authors

Carol Rose GoldenEagle

Carol Rose GoldenEagle is Cree/Dene with roots in Sandy Bay, northern Saskatchewan. She is the multi-disciplinary artist and author of the award-winning novel Bearskin Diary and poetry collection, Hiraeth, a 2019 finalist for the Rasmussen, Rasmussen and Charowsky Indigenous Peoples’ Writing Award. Before pursuing her art on a full-time basis, Carol worked as a journalist for more than 30 years in television and radio at APTN, CTV and CBC. She lives in Regina Beach.

Michael Crummey

Michael Crummey first novel, River Thieves, was a finalist for the 2001 Scotiabank Giller Prize, and his second novel, The Wreckage, was a finalist for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. His third novel, Galore, won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (Canada and the Caribbean) and was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award. His last novel, Sweetland, was also a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award. He lives in St. John's, Newfoundland.

Zalika Reid-Benta

Zalika Reid-Benta is a Toronto-based writer whose work has appeared on CBC Books, in TOK: Writing the New Toronto, and in Apogee Journal. In 2011, George Elliott Clarke recommended her as a “Writer to Watch.” She received an M.F.A. in fiction from Columbia University in 2014 and is an alumna of the 2017 Banff Writing Studio. She completed a double major in English Literature and Cinema and a minor in Caribbean Studies at University of Toronto’s Victoria College. She also studied Creative Writing at U of T’s School of Continuing Studies. Her debut story collection, Frying Plantain, was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. She is currently working on a young-adult fantasy novel drawing inspiration from Jamaican folklore and Akan spirituality.