Join us for the launch of Elizabeth Hay’s
All Things Consoled
, a poignant, complex, and hugely resonant memoir about the shift she experienced between being her parents' daughter to their guardian and caregiver. A short reading will be followed by an on-stage conversation hosted by Charlotte Gray.
Jean and Gordon Hay were a formidable pair. She was an artist and superlatively frugal; he was a proud and well-mannered schoolteacher with a temper that could be explosive. Elizabeth, their oldest daughter, was said to be a difficult and selfish child. Elizabeth always suspected she would end up caring for her parents in their final years, a way of making up for the sins of her childhood, proving herself to be a good daughter after all. But as her parents, who had been ferociously independent people, became increasingly dependent on her, their lives changed utterly and so did hers.
In this startlingly beautiful memoir, with brutal candor and irresistible wit, Elizabeth Hay offers insight into the exquisite agony of a family's dynamics--sibling rivalries, miscommunications that spur decades of resentment all matched by true and genuine love and devotion--and reaches a deep understanding of the most unforgettable characters she will ever know, the vivid giants who were her parents.
Copies of the book will be available for purchase at the event. Proceeds support The Republic of Childhood, the Festival’s free Children’s Literacy program.
Elizabeth Hay is a marvel. She honours her parents in this portrait of their final years... Hay writes with sometimes scalding authenticity about aging and the challenges that come with the end of a life, but she is never less than tender.
