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3.63 AVERAGE
3.63 AVERAGE
One of the very best things about the Stella Prize is that every year the longlist unearths one or two mysterious gems published by small presses, which hitherto have barely been on the literary radar*. The prize’s democratic judging processes encourage the careful consideration of underrated work, of books that don’t necessarily have huge marketing budgets, or are not published to widespread acclaim, reviews and sales – but that are always such a joy to discover (thank you, #stella19 bookclub!).
The Erratics falls squarely into this category. It’s a deeply impressive memoir about a dysfunctional family. Not only is it Vicki Laveau-Harvie’s debut, the book’s genesis with the now-defunct Finch Publishing (it was out of print at the time of its Stella longlisting; this edition was subsequently speedily reissued by HarperCollins) makes its high quality all the more impressive. It’s both poignant and wickedly funny, the writing is beautiful (those pitch-perfect, effortless metaphors!) yet absolutely readable and engrossing. I don’t think the form or content will be for everyone, but I really loved it.
*Think: The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree; Panthers and the Museum of Fire; Poum and Alexandre; The Media and the Massacre; In My Mother’s Hands.
The Erratics falls squarely into this category. It’s a deeply impressive memoir about a dysfunctional family. Not only is it Vicki Laveau-Harvie’s debut, the book’s genesis with the now-defunct Finch Publishing (it was out of print at the time of its Stella longlisting; this edition was subsequently speedily reissued by HarperCollins) makes its high quality all the more impressive. It’s both poignant and wickedly funny, the writing is beautiful (those pitch-perfect, effortless metaphors!) yet absolutely readable and engrossing. I don’t think the form or content will be for everyone, but I really loved it.
*Think: The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree; Panthers and the Museum of Fire; Poum and Alexandre; The Media and the Massacre; In My Mother’s Hands.
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
This memoir is... intense, although when you read it, it feels like you're not really learning all that much. The language sweeps you away with its amazing, pointed descriptions of unkind Canadian winters, brushes with death from sharing roads with ice truckers, to the extent that you nearly forget that you're reading about an extremely painful event in the author's life: essentially a plot to commit her unstable mother in order to save her father's life.
And that's where I thought the strength of this memoir lies: instead of close-ups and high levels of detail and marching out evidence after evidence of why her mother is unstable, the author appears to ask the reader to simply believe her when she says that she had her reasons to cut contact, and that she has had her reasons to move as far away as possible. There's no need for social porn; for readers to gorge on misery for misery's sake. Once she mentions details from her past, her mother's behavior is so incomprehensible that you might not believe it anyway, so why bother trying to convince you any further than that?
To me, The Erratics is a soul-sister to the Norwegian novel The Testament: both involve estranged siblings dealing in different ways with their emotionally abusive parents when they are getting too old to take care of themselves, and how that affects the family members' relationships with each other. The Testament is one of the more emotionally intense novels I've read in the recent years, and I keep on thinking back to it every now and then. After reading The Erratics, I'm finding my mind going back to thinking about it in the same way.
And that's where I thought the strength of this memoir lies: instead of close-ups and high levels of detail and marching out evidence after evidence of why her mother is unstable, the author appears to ask the reader to simply believe her when she says that she had her reasons to cut contact, and that she has had her reasons to move as far away as possible. There's no need for social porn; for readers to gorge on misery for misery's sake. Once she mentions details from her past, her mother's behavior is so incomprehensible that you might not believe it anyway, so why bother trying to convince you any further than that?
To me, The Erratics is a soul-sister to the Norwegian novel The Testament: both involve estranged siblings dealing in different ways with their emotionally abusive parents when they are getting too old to take care of themselves, and how that affects the family members' relationships with each other. The Testament is one of the more emotionally intense novels I've read in the recent years, and I keep on thinking back to it every now and then. After reading The Erratics, I'm finding my mind going back to thinking about it in the same way.
Daughters Rescue Dad
Review of the Anchor Canada paperback edition (2021) of the Finch Publishing paperback original (2018)
The Okotoks Erratic "Big Rock" in Okotoks, Alberta, Canada. Photograph sourced from AmusingPlanet.com
Vicki Laveau-Harvie grew up on an isolated ranch near the town of Okotoks, Alberta, Canada about 20 miles south of the provincial capital of Calgary. She now lives in Australia after a career as a translator that took her to France as well. Her sister lives in British Columbia on the west coast of Canada. Both sisters had been disinherited and estranged from their parents for almost 20 years before they took steps to save their father from their delusional mother when the latter shattered her hip and was hospitalized as a result.
The story of this rescue and of some of its background is told in Laveau-Harvie's memoir The Erratics, which uses the analogy of the famous local Okotoks split erratic rock (pictured above) to symbolize the family separation and estrangement and the various torn and split feelings of the daughters' attempts to reconcile with their parents. Laveau-Harvie wrote this originally as a writing exercise but won several awards in Australia as a result, including the Finch Prize to publish it and the Stella Prize for women's writing.
Laveau-Harvie does not go overboard on the story of her mother's delusional excesses, the story is told straightforwardly from her own experience and that which is reported to her by her sister and their partner who were closer at hand during various emergencies. The short of it is that the parents were in their 90's while still living at the ranch home. While wildly spending money on various scams and schemes and luxury purchases, the mother was gradually starving and abusing the father through lack of proper home care. Various literary devices such as flashbacks and flashforwards, foreshadowing and delaying disclosure are used throughout, as well as incorporating the local indigenous legend of the origin of the Okotoks Erratic rock. As Margaret Atwood summarized in her brief Twitter review (linked below) the resulting true-life drama "reads like a novel."
My thanks to Karan for the loan and discovery of this book!
Other Reviews
"A searing, brilliantly-written memoir about a destructive and cunning mother; reads like a novel" from [a:Margaret Atwood|3472|Margaret Atwood|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1282859073p2/3472.jpg] on Twitter, March 2, 2020.
Review at Alberta Online, December 1, 2020.
Review at BookPage.com, August 25, 2020.
Related Article
At 77, Alberta expat Vicki Laveau-Harvie has become a literary sensation in her adopted home of Australia in the Calgary Herald, September 12, 2020.
Review of the Anchor Canada paperback edition (2021) of the Finch Publishing paperback original (2018)
The Okotoks Erratic "Big Rock" in Okotoks, Alberta, Canada. Photograph sourced from AmusingPlanet.com
Vicki Laveau-Harvie grew up on an isolated ranch near the town of Okotoks, Alberta, Canada about 20 miles south of the provincial capital of Calgary. She now lives in Australia after a career as a translator that took her to France as well. Her sister lives in British Columbia on the west coast of Canada. Both sisters had been disinherited and estranged from their parents for almost 20 years before they took steps to save their father from their delusional mother when the latter shattered her hip and was hospitalized as a result.
The story of this rescue and of some of its background is told in Laveau-Harvie's memoir The Erratics, which uses the analogy of the famous local Okotoks split erratic rock (pictured above) to symbolize the family separation and estrangement and the various torn and split feelings of the daughters' attempts to reconcile with their parents. Laveau-Harvie wrote this originally as a writing exercise but won several awards in Australia as a result, including the Finch Prize to publish it and the Stella Prize for women's writing.
Laveau-Harvie does not go overboard on the story of her mother's delusional excesses, the story is told straightforwardly from her own experience and that which is reported to her by her sister and their partner who were closer at hand during various emergencies. The short of it is that the parents were in their 90's while still living at the ranch home. While wildly spending money on various scams and schemes and luxury purchases, the mother was gradually starving and abusing the father through lack of proper home care. Various literary devices such as flashbacks and flashforwards, foreshadowing and delaying disclosure are used throughout, as well as incorporating the local indigenous legend of the origin of the Okotoks Erratic rock. As Margaret Atwood summarized in her brief Twitter review (linked below) the resulting true-life drama "reads like a novel."
My thanks to Karan for the loan and discovery of this book!
Other Reviews
"A searing, brilliantly-written memoir about a destructive and cunning mother; reads like a novel" from [a:Margaret Atwood|3472|Margaret Atwood|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1282859073p2/3472.jpg] on Twitter, March 2, 2020.
Review at Alberta Online, December 1, 2020.
Review at BookPage.com, August 25, 2020.
Related Article
At 77, Alberta expat Vicki Laveau-Harvie has become a literary sensation in her adopted home of Australia in the Calgary Herald, September 12, 2020.
Excellent read about a woman and her sister dealing with their elderly narcissistic destructive mom who has broken her hip, and trying to help the dad who has sustained severe emotional, psychological, and physical harm from being isolated with the mom for many years.
I came to this book as it was listed on a year-end best-of list for Australian non-fiction books (though the author is originally from Canada and the setting is Alberta/BC). It is a memoir, and like many memoirs, focused on a very dysfunctional family (Tolstoy was so correct...). I was completely engrossed in The Erratics, finishing it in just a few sittings. Given how unhinged the mother (source of the dysfunction) is, one would think the reading would be bleak. However, the book is written in a more detached way, and at times with black/gallows humour, making it less harrowing but still very affecting.
This is like a sibling memoir to Tara Westover’s Educated, but in a completely different register. The author’s artful and violent use of language captures the ruggedness of Alberta and the story of her parents there in such a way that she can tell it in very few words. With a distanced chill, Laveau-Harvie chronicles her mother’s madness and the contagion of it as it gaslights and separates her father from his children. I especially appreciated her determination to included the differences between her sister’s and her own response to the heightening danger of their mother’s delusional and manipulative decline (even as both siblings try to protect their father from her abuse). I never call books brave, but this one is.
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced