A Palace in Paradise by Mehri Yalfani
The life of Iranian exiles in Toronto and the rumour that there is a traitorous woman in their midst provides drama and a lot of soul-searching in A Palace in Paradise.
mental health
Claremont by Wiebke von Carolsfeld
One of the welcome surprises I get from time to time is reading a work of fiction set in a location near where I used to live. Claremont by Wiebke von Carolsfeld (2019, Linda Leith Publishing) is set not only in Toronto but in the Trinity-Bellwoods neighbourhood where I lived for about a year back in the late 1980s. We rented a house on Massey Street (technically in neighbouring West Queen), just a stone’s throw (OK, a 9-minute walk!) to 46 Claremont St.… Continue reading
Side by Side by Anita Kushwaha
According to the Government of Canada website, every day, an average of more than 10 Canadians dies by suicide. For every person lost to suicide, many more experience thoughts of suicide or suicide attempts. For every death by suicide, at least 7 to 10 survivors are significantly affected by the loss. For Kavita Gupta, the protagonist of Anita Kushwaha’s award-winning novel Side by Side, it is the loss of her brother Sunil that has affected her and her parents.… Continue reading
About Face: Essays on Recovery, Therapies, and Controversies of Addictions in Canada Edited by Douglas Gosse
About Face: Essays on Addictions, Recovery, Therapies, and Controversies seeks to broaden the conversation around addiction in Canada.
My Chaos: Searching for My New Normal by Rick C. Benson
Rick C. Benson BA, BEd, MA (Pastoral Studies) is the current Director of Spiritual and Religious Care and is a Grief Recovery Specialist working out of St. Joseph’s Hospital in Saint John, New Brunswick.
I first heard of Mr. Benson’s book in Horizon Health Network’s internal newsletter, the Horizon Star. I quickly got in contact with him and he sent me a copy of the book for the purposes of this review along with this thought:
… Continue readingI really wanted the book to help a broader readership … to bring healing from many approaches and help others like yourself bring healing to those we interact with in healthcare.
The Bus by Adam Pottle
a six-hour window on April 21, 1941, The Bus (Quattro Books, 2016) features eight different narrators: six mental patients, the doctor who will kill them, and the man who will burn their corpses. Crammed into a bus with thirty-five others and unable to see out the painted windows, the patients are transferred from the Scheuern institution to the Nazi euthanasia clinic in Hadamar, Germany. (From Quattro Book’s website)
The Third Reich had a policy of mercy killing those deemed “incurables” such as the mental patients Nadja, Frederich, Sebastian, Leopold, Emmerich and Judith, all passengers unknowingly on their way to be gassed in a “shower room”, then cremated.… Continue reading