Independent Book Reviews for Independent Readers.
Brunswick-born Pamela Molloy’s The Deserters (2018 Véhicule Press) is just about as perfect a story as you can get in under 200 pages. Practically a novella, The Deserters is about Eugenie a woman who inherits her grandmother’s derelict farm in New Brunswick. This is the farm her and her sister Ivy grew up on after they were left orphans by their parent’s death in a car accident.… Continue reading
he HMCS Winnipeg is a frigate in the Canadian Navy, and it is also the ship that Ordinary Seaman (OS) Nicola Peffers served aboard for approximately two years, starting in 2009. Fresh out of marine electrical training, she boards ship in Hawaii, full of optimism, excitement and national pride.
Refuge in the Black Deck is an amazing memoir of time spent aboard ship, and Nicola Peffers takes us along as she goes from a proud, intelligent wide-eyed recruit to a lifeless, burned out, alcoholic, weed-smoking shell of her former self by the end of her deployment.… Continue reading
Nimbus Publishing has produced two excellent titles dealing with issues that have been in the national headlines for some time now: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in the Canadian Armed Forces and the Residential School system which attempted to erase the Mi’kmaw culture from young children.
Fred Doucette (who currently lives in Fredericton, NB) was medically released from the army for PTSD in 2002.… Continue reading