All Things Consoled
Aug 2019 · Hachette UK
Ebook
304
Pages
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About this ebook
Winner of the 2018 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Award for Non-fiction
A poignant, complex and hugely resonant memoir about the shift from being a daughter to a guardian and caregiver, by a prizewinning author.
From Elizabeth Hay, one of Canada's most celebrated novelists, comes a startling and beautiful memoir about the drama of her parents' end, and the longer drama of being their daughter.
Jean and Gordon Hay were a formidable pair. She was an artist and superlatively frugal; he was a proud and principled schoolteacher with an explosive temper. Elizabeth, the so-called difficult child, always suspected she would end up caring for them in their final years, in part to atone for her childhood sins.
Philip Roth once said, "Old age is a massacre". All Things Consoled takes you inside the massacre as Hay's ferociously independent parents become increasingly dependent on her.
With remarkable wit and honesty, Hay lays bare the agony of a family coping as old age turns into the tragedy of living too long. In the end she arrives at a more nuanced understanding of her mother and father, and of herself as their daughter. They were and remain the two vivid giants in her life.
A poignant, complex and hugely resonant memoir about the shift from being a daughter to a guardian and caregiver, by a prizewinning author.
From Elizabeth Hay, one of Canada's most celebrated novelists, comes a startling and beautiful memoir about the drama of her parents' end, and the longer drama of being their daughter.
Jean and Gordon Hay were a formidable pair. She was an artist and superlatively frugal; he was a proud and principled schoolteacher with an explosive temper. Elizabeth, the so-called difficult child, always suspected she would end up caring for them in their final years, in part to atone for her childhood sins.
Philip Roth once said, "Old age is a massacre". All Things Consoled takes you inside the massacre as Hay's ferociously independent parents become increasingly dependent on her.
With remarkable wit and honesty, Hay lays bare the agony of a family coping as old age turns into the tragedy of living too long. In the end she arrives at a more nuanced understanding of her mother and father, and of herself as their daughter. They were and remain the two vivid giants in her life.
About the author
ELIZABETH HAY is the author of the #1 bestseller Late Nights on Air (2008), which won the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Her other works include Alone in the Classroom (2012) and His Whole Life (2015). In 2002, she received the prestigious Marian Engel Award, and for All Things Consoled she was the winner of the 2018 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Award for Non-fiction. She lives in Ottawa, Canada.
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