This is a story of family, of death, and of the art of living. It is also the story of the ties that bind a mother to a daughter and the dynamics that govern their love. Shaped as a memoir, shared by Sarah Flett and her daughter Rhegan, the narrative begins with the death of Sarah’s husband and builds in complexity with the untimely and sudden death of Rhegan. Are life and death at their core intertwined? As Rhegan speaks from beyond the grave, her life is revealed in unexpected ways to her mother. And as Rhegan reconstructs her past and her memories of the last six months of her life, their impact and energy become one with her mother’s own remembering. This unheralded reconnection forms the nexus of the novel. It becomes their shared memoir. Through it the reader is invited into the intricacies of grieving and the irreducible nature of mother-daughter love. Sorbie’s steady hand meshes the dual narrative perspectives using land and water imagery. Within this narrative frame, the balance that grieving and celebrating, and holding on and letting go require is carefully constructed. Rhegan’s and Sarah’s lives become meaningful because we share in their heartbreak and their joy. Their lives intertwine and together become the memoir of a good death. As Robert Kroetsch writes, “When the dead speak we must listen. Anne Sorbie’s dead and eloquent narrator is full of wild humour, pain, rebellion, compassion, wisdom. And she tells a wickedly good story.”
Memoir of a Good Death
Author: Anne Sorbie
ISBN: 9781927068144 Categories: Fiction, Literary
ISBN: 9781927068144 Categories: Fiction, Literary
Publication Date: 15 January, 2012
Dimensions: 6 x 8.62"
About the Author
Anne Sorbie was born in Paisley, Scotland and she lives and writes in Calgary. She has worked as a chamber maid, a waitress, an office mail clerk, an accounts payable clerk, a revenue accountant, a production accountant, a supervisor of revenue, gas and oil marketing accounting, a technical writer, and a freelance corporate writer. Anne has taught English at Red Deer College and Creative Writing at Mount Royal University.