2022-10-01 Reader's Digest Canada

Miami called again. “Is your father their dad was grizzled and seven kilo-
named Don Cavers?” grams lighter, but otherwise fine—his
children drove him home.
“Yes!”
“A merchant ship has rescued him Only later did it occur to Cavers how
from a life raft. He’s OK. He’s safe.” close he’d come to perishing. He was
lucky. During his time adrift, the Carib-
crew members had dropped a rope lad- bean had been calm. If he hadn’t hap-
der from the deck. Cavers didn’t real- pened to activate the emergency bea-
ize how weak he’d become until he con and been picked up by the Bulk
tried to climb it. It felt, he said later, “like Pangaea, he could easily have become
climbing Mount Everest.” On board a drifting corpse. “Ninety-nine times
he was checked out, deemed healthy, out of 100,” Captain Jean House of the
fed a bit of chicken and gravy, and Joint Rescue Coordination Centre in
given a robe and size-10 Crocs for his Trenton told the CBC, “it would have
size-13 feet. His infected lacerations gone the other way.”
were attended to, and then he slept.
Compared to most of us, Don Cav-
Cavers spent three days aboard the ers is a heroic adventurer. Today,
Bulk Pangaea en route to Jamaica, then grateful to be able to play with his
three more days in port confined to a grandkids and tend his garden, he
room as a Covid-19 quarantine precau- regrets that he didn’t properly test the
tion. Before he disembarked, the crew boat’s systems. He regrets that he didn’t
gave him a handmade “Rebirth Certif- have a portable, waterproof GPS with
icate.” Finally out of quarantine, he him. He regrets inconveniencing so
passed through customs and was taken many people. He regrets the loss of his
to Montego Bay. There he boarded a uninsured boat.
flight to Toronto, and then home to B.C.
Mostly, he regrets the worry and
Grube-Cavers and her brother, grief he caused his family. “It was not
Tristan, met him at the airport in a hero’s journey,” he says. “It was a
Kelowna. After an emotional reunion— fool’s journey.”

Paper Trail

Books are a uniquely portable magic.

STEPHEN KING

Every reader exists to ensure for a book a modest immortality.
Reading is, in this sense, a ritual of rebirth.

ALBERTO MANGUEL

rd.ca 49

reader’s digest

AS KIDS SEE IT

“Honey, do you think you could try being a little less overprotective?”

You know you’ll be sub- When I was a teacher, up the ladder and came MIKE SHIELL
jected to many years of I’d ask students to find a down pregnant.”
practical jokes when word in the dictionary,
your toddler swings give the meaning and — ORVILLE COLE,
open your washroom use it in a sentence. My
door and points a pair of favourite answer was: Dartmouth, N.S.
binoculars right at you. “My word is pregnant. It
means carrying a child, We gave our grandson a
— ASHLEY ASHFIELD, like the fireman went fishing pole for his
fourth birthday. When
Hampton, N.B. he opened his present

50 october 2022

he exclaimed, “Wow! A My six-year-old couldn’t remember
fishing machine.” the word “tomorrow” so she called
it “nexterday.”
— BONNIE HUGHES,
— @KBROUGH
North Webster, Yukon
now and just revealed “Keep her. I worked
My daughter has just it seemed like the only hard to get her here!”
learned how to wiggle way out of eating the
her eyebrows. She asked meatloaf they served — SHAWNA MATHIESON,
me if I could do it, so I at preschool.
did. Then she said, Watson, Sask.
“Wow, you can do it so — JESSICA HOLMES,
fast! It must be because My seven-year-old
you only have one eye- comedian asked if I could get him
brow so it’s easier.” something so he could
After our special Moth- send a letter the
— @SHARRZEOR er’s Day breakfast, I old-fashioned way.
heard my three-year-old Paper? An envelope? A
I was babysitting my say to his sister, “Have stamp? No, he wanted
five-year-old grand- you heard of Brother’s his own email address.
daughter and as a treat Day? It’s where you
I took her to McDon- make your brother a — @MOMMAJESSIEC
ald’s to get an ice really special breakfast
cream cone. When to show him how much During a conversation
she finished, I asked you love him.” with my nine-year-old
if she enjoyed it. Her granddaughter, I told
response was, “Yes, but — TAMMY TSANG, Toronto her that when I was her
now my tummy’s cold age our house was the
so I think I need fries to My son begged for a sib- first on the block to
warm it up.” ling for years and then it have a colour TV. She
finally happened. When asked me, “What colour
— JOYCE HELLEWELL, my daughter was one, was it?”
she would pull toys out
Windsor, Ont. faster than we were able — DEBORAH BRETTELL,
to put them away. I
When my son was looked at her six-year- Williams Lake, B.C.
young, he became veg- old brother and said,
etarian for a year, and “What are we going to Send us your original
we always thought it do with her?” He replied jokes! You could earn $50
was because of his kind with a very serious face, and be featured in the
heart and love of ani- magazine. See page 6 or
mals. He’s a teenager rd.ca/joke for details.

rd.ca 51

reader’s digest

HEART

An unlikely

friendship helped

my son grapple

with divorce,

death and...
GreatThe

BY Jowita Bydlowska THE APARTMENT MY SON, Hugo, and I moved into after
my divorce was nice, but the feeling we had was of
illustration by nikki ernst holding on to a raft amidst angry waters. We were on
the west side of Toronto, about a 30-minute drive from
Hugo’s dad’s new home. During the first week he
stayed with me there, my eight-year-old son responded
to the change in his life by trashing his room before
finally letting tears come and allowing me to hug him.

At that time, he also developed a new fear—the fear
of death. “I can’t sleep. I am thinking about death,” he
would say when I would catch him with his eyes wide
open, in the darkness of his bedroom, his little body
tightly surrounded by a cordon of beady-eyed stuffies.

rd.ca 53

reader’s digest

Hugo had always considered him- hands folded, and it was this little rebel- (PREVIOUS PAGE, TORN PAPER) ISTOCK.COM/PETEKARICI
self an atheist, ever since his dad had lion that made me trust him. He was one
told him at age four that God, like of the first people I confided in about
Santa, wasn’t real—and that when we my divorce. His pragmatic response and
die, we turn to dust. For Hugo, it had lack of sentimentality—“It sucks now,
been just something to say to make but it will get better”—helped me gain
adults laugh and confuse his innocent perspective on my grief. I knew that
buddies in kindergarten. But now that Denis himself had gone through many
he was growing up, he was finally hardships, his recent cancer being one,
grasping the concept of time, and that and yet he had a healthy, no-nonsense
he was slowly but surely moving attitude that inspired me.
toward the big unknown. But I think
his fear of death also came about MY SON HAD BEEN AN
because nothing seemed certain any- ATHEIST EVER SINCE
more: our little family was no longer a HIS DAD TOLD HIM AT
unit, and our lives were divided into AGE FOUR THAT GOD
split-custody homes. When the nights
got too hard for Hugo, we’d fall asleep DIDN’T EXIST.
holding on to each other like two mon-
keys, all the unknowns stayed away for I was not the only person taken with
one more night. Denis—my son became an instant fan
when they met at a celebration of my
THAT SAME YEAR, I’d started going to one year of sobriety. As we socialized
a new addictions group that met twice a while balancing our slices of cake on
week. The group was a safe place where flimsy Styrofoam plates, Hugo was
no hard topic was off the table. The best polite and charming, but he felt the
conversations would often happen after adults were talking down to him and
our meetings were over, and my favou- he was squirming to leave. That is,
rite person to talk to was Denis, an until Denis introduced himself, shak-
80-year-old contrarian and cancer sur- ing his hand and asking Hugo what he
vivor who was considered by everyone thought about the “bad cake.” Hugo
else in the group to be a grump. At the said he thought the cake was just fine
end of each meeting, we were supposed and then pressed Denis about why he
to stand up and hold hands. I would do didn’t hold hands at the end of the
this even though it made me uncom- group meetings, a detail I’d shared
fortable—I disliked the forced intimacy with Hugo.
of it—but Denis refused. Like a broken
link in a circle, he stood there with his

54 october 2022

“I’m not in kindergarten,” Denis clenching a bit as I held back tears.
said, and my son chuckled. Then they Maybe I was harsh, but I had a vague
talked about being atheists, because notion of wanting to teach my son
Denis remembered from my stories about death, of showing him that death,
about my precocious kid that this was like friendship (or love that ends in a
something they had in common. He divorce), was part of life. I hoped that,
told Hugo that he’d never met an eight- by nurturing a relationship between
year-old atheist before. Denis and Hugo, I could normalize this
terrifying thing for my kid, who still
HUGO WONDERED worried about his own end.
IF DENIS WAS GOING
TO DIE AND I TOLD Hugo’s big brown eyes searched my
face, his forehead scrunching as he
HIM HE WAS. said quietly, “Okay. Can I visit him?”
“SOON?” HE ASKED.
And so he did. On our way to Prin-
“I’ve never met an 80-year-old athe- cess Margaret’s, Hugo insisted on get-
ist before,” Hugo deadpanned, and ting a gift. What do you get a grumpy
Denis erupted in laughter. From that old man whose only request was, at
time on, the two would ask for updates its most extravagant, a Tim Hortons
on each other (“Denis got a new cam- coffee, black? A sparkly Beanie Baby
era to take his bird-watching to the dragon, of course—the perfect gift, we
next level”; “Hugo has finished all joked, for someone with such a sparkly
the  Harry Potters.”). The updates demeanour. Denis was amused and
included, eventually, a devastating proudly displayed the dragon next to a
one when Denis’s cancer came back. stuffed elf someone else had given to
him, also as a joke. He let Hugo have
I explained to Hugo that his octo- his hospital pudding. We went into the
genarian buddy was staying at the common room and played the card
Princess Margaret Cancer Centre now, game Up and Down the River, with
and said I was going to visit. Hugo writing down scores on a sheet
of paper. He’s always loved numbers
“Is he going to die?” Hugo asked. and charts and strategy.
“Yes,” I told him.
“Soon?” “We should play chess,” Denis said.
“Sooner rather than later. Before the “Do you play chess?”
summer is over,” I answered. I spoke
gently but firmly, feeling my throat “No, but you can teach me,” Hugo
allowed.

Denis pretended to be appalled, “If
I have to,” he said. “What kind of per-
son doesn’t play chess?”

rd.ca 55

reader’s digest

I SET UP visits with Denis every Sunday, and the wide, murky Don River. On our
always bringing my son with me. We ate first visit there, Denis pointed out that
Tim Hortons while they played chess, the Don Jail shared the parking lot
and we talked about Denis’s wild adven- with the facilities—and told Hugo a
tures as a farm labourer in Alberta morbid tale about the last execution
before he became a lawyer in his 50s, there in 1962, of two men by hanging,
“just to see what that was like.” Denis one of whom maintained his inno-
never talked about his cancer, but cence until the end. “It’s all haunted
Hugo had said more than once that up there,” he added casually, and
maybe they—the doctors—had made laughed when Hugo’s eyes went wide.
a mistake. Denis seemed totally fine!
Once, when feeling particularly
AS DENIS’S HEALTH sparkly, Denis convinced us to head
DETERIORATED, WE out for tacos at a cheap street-food
STUCK TO HIS ROOM, joint a 10-minute walk away that took
WHERE HE AND HUGO us half an hour when he allowed Hugo
to push him all the way there. It wasn’t
PLAYED CHESS. an easy task, as the wheelchair kept
getting jammed in the crevices of the
Except he wasn’t. He’d long walked streetcar rails. Denis felt proud of
with a cane, but that gave way to a being able to treat us, and my kid put
walker, which then became a wheel- on a show of pretending to dine as if in
chair. Eventually, Denis was moved to a fine restaurant, bending his plastic
Hennick Bridgepoint Hospital for pal- utensils in ridiculous ways as he tried
liative care. Hugo’s only comment on to cut up the tacos.
the new location, which he called the
“dying hospital,” was that it didn’t AS DENIS’S HEALTH deteriorated, we’d
seem like anyone was dying in it. Com- sometimes only make it to the hospi-
pared to Princess Margaret’s, which tal’s rooftop patio, or stick to Denis’s
was surrounded by the concrete of the room, where they’d play chess.
downtown and filled with fragile peo-
ple in hospital gowns, Bridgepoint was Throughout all this time, we didn’t
bright and clean and not depressing at talk about his illness or the fact that he
all. From Denis’s windows, we could was going to soon die or what it all
view a sprawling hill of trees and meant. But eventually we had to deal
bushes, grounds dotted with fountains, with the issue of our last visit—the one
when saying goodbye would mean
saying goodbye for good. Hugo and I
were scheduled to go to Europe for the
rest of the summer, and we came by

56 october 2022

with some coffee and then went up “I don’t know. Have a nice trip?” he
onto the roof, where it was so windy said and laughed uneasily. After we’d
that the chess pieces kept falling over. left a clunky message, he added, “But
Afterwards, Hugo pushed Denis down he’s an atheist, so he’s not even
the long, bright hallways, running at going anywhere.”
some points and making one wild turn
that caused Denis to huff loudly. Hugo TWO YEARS LATER, in January of 2020,
kept forgetting that his friend was so Hugo’s beloved grandmother passed
fragile, and Denis didn’t have the away, and he accepted her death stoi-
heart to reprimand him. We dropped cally, quipping that he had had train-
him off in his room, and it was the first ing in death with Denis. I don’t know
and the last time we hugged, stiffly— if my son’s sleepless nights went away
Denis’s disdain for physical contact because of those Sunday visits, but we
taking a back seat to this sweet, awk- did settle into our new life, despite all
ward moment. the uncertainty. My son no longer
obsesses over death, although he has
And then we left. Hugo cried on admitted that he’s still scared of the big
the streetcar. unknown—but who isn’t? And I’m not
sure if he’s an atheist anymore, either.
WHILE WE WERE AWAY, While replacing his phone this past
A RELATIVE OF DENIS’S Christmas, I found a couple of mes-
sages sent to his grandmother’s num-
CALLED TO TELL US ber, one reading: “Where are you?”
HE ONLY HAD DAYS, OR
When I asked him about it, he said,
HOURS LEFT. “I was sad and I missed her. It was
comforting.”
A month later, a relative of Denis’s
called me while Hugo and I were on the Like all parents, I try to soften blows
Adriatic coast, the shimmering sea vis- and dispel myths and monsters, and I
ible from the windows of our villa as I know that with Denis, I was trying to
took the call. He had only days, maybe make death less scary, give it a human
hours, left, they told us. He could no face or, even more straightforwardly,
longer speak. After hanging up, Hugo help him make friends with it. I don’t
and I decided we would record a voice know if Hugo texting his grandmother
mail for him. “What should I say?” is a sign of a spell being broken, but I
Hugo wondered. know that he understands now that
people live on after they’re gone, and
“What do you want to say?” recognizing that is one way to make
peace with the great unknown.

rd.ca 57

Orbisculation Nation

Their dad invented IN THE EARLY AUGHTS, Hilary Krieger, ISTOCKPHOTO.COM/SIMARIK
the perfect word. now 44, was sitting in her parents’ Bos-
After he died, they ton home when her friend accidentally
started a quest to get squirted himself with an orange slice.
it into the dictionary. “I said, ‘Oh, the orange just orbiscu-
lated,’” she recalls. “And he said, ‘It did
BY Sadie Dingfelder what?’” The two made a five-dollar bet,
and Hilary gleefully grabbed the family
FROM THE WASHINGTON POST dictionary. She flipped to the “O” sec-
tion and stared at the spot on the page
where “orbisculate” should have been:
“My first thought was, What’s wrong
with this dictionary?”

Aghast, Hilary burst into her dad’s
study and told him the shocking news:
“Orbisculate” was not in the dictionary!

58 october 2022

reader’s digest

Looking sheepish, her father confessed hatched an elaborate plan to get the
that he had made up the word when he word officially recognized.
was in college. He defined “orbiscu-
late” as the action that happens “when THE SIBLINGS’ GOAL is to put the word
you dig your spoon into a grapefruit to use publicly enough that it has a
and it squirts juice directly into your chance of becoming legitimate. Get-
eye,” though the family also applied it ting a word into the dictionary isn’t
to other fruits and vegetables that unex- easy, but the Kriegers’ 78-point plan,
pectedly spritzed. “We had been using as described on their website, orbiscu-
it our whole lives, as if it were a real late.com, is spot-on. Encouraging peo-
word,” Hilary says. ple to use “orbisculate” in a wide vari-
ety of contexts, such as in comic strips,
Out five dollars and wondering what news stories and the name of a Ben &
other fake words might be lurking in her Jerry’s sorbet flavour, will leave a com-
vocabulary, Hilary was mad. But she pelling trail of evidence for lexicogra-
quickly came to see her dad’s made-up phers to follow.
word as a gift, one that encapsulated
his mischievous and inventive spirit. Merriam-Webster adds about 1,000
“It speaks to his creativity and the idea new words to its master database every
that, even when something’s painful year, words that then trickle down to
and annoying, like getting grapefruit the company’s print and online dictio-
juice in your eye, you can laugh and naries. The batch of new words the com-
have fun with it,” she says. pany released in January 2021 was heavy
on pandemic-related vocabulary such
Two decades later, Hilary told that as “long-hauler” and “pod.”
funny story again and again, in sad cir-
cumstances. Her father, Neil Krieger, Editors at the dictionary’s whisper-
died of complications from Covid-19 in quiet office in Springfield, Massachu-
April 2020, at age 78. Since the Kriegers setts, scour newspapers, academic jour-
couldn’t have a proper funeral, Hilary, nals, books and even cartoon captions
who now lives in New York, spent a for new words. “What we’re looking for
lot of time on the phone talking with is usage in publications with a large
friends and family, and the “orbiscu- and broad readership,” says senior edi-
late” story kept coming up. tor Emily Brewster.

“I began to think ‘orbisculate’ is such Brewster and her colleagues gener-
a great word; it should be in the dictio- ally track words for years or even
nary!” says Hilary, an editor at NBC decades before nominating them for
News. She called her younger brother, dictionary status. This ensures that
Jonathan, who lives in Boston and runs flash-in-the-pan coinages—think Will
an online trivia company. Together they Smith’s use of “jiggy,” to mean trendy

rd.ca 59

reader’s digest

(briefly popular in the ’90s)—can’t a uniform of sorts—a citrus-festooned
sneak in. But if a word really takes T-shirt that you can buy on their web-
off, it can quickly become official. site. (Proceeds go to Carson’s Village,
“The word that has the record for a charity that helps families in mourn-
most quickly entering the dictionary ing.) Friends of the Kriegers often take
is Covid-19, at 34 days,” Brewster says. pictures of themselves wearing their
“The term before that was AIDS.” T-shirts and text the images to the sib-
lings. The Orbisculation Nation is also
In addition to diseases, words helping the Kriegers check off items on
describing concrete phenomena that their list for orbisculation domination.
affect many people tend to get picked
up. “That’s one of the things ‘orbiscu- One family friend went rogue and
late’ has going for it—there is no single put a homemade orbisculation warning
word that captures the squirting in the sign on a pile of clementines in a gro-
eye that certain fruits do,” she says. cery store (Goal No. 16). Strangers who
were inspired by the campaign used the
If the Kriegers accomplish all of the word in an online crossword puzzle
goals they outline on their website, “The (Goal No. 1) and a homemade car-
word’s status as an established member toon (Goal No. 25).
of the English language would be pretty
irrefutable,” Brewster says. And when the “Because Language”
podcast announced online voting to
But to make it all happen, they need determine its word of the year in 2020,
help from friends and strangers. Orbisculation Nation put its favourite
word over the top. “‘Orbisculate’ felt
EVEN IF THEY don’t succeed in getting like a refreshing splash of citrus in an
the word added to the dictionary, the otherwise grim year of words,” says
Kriegers’ project may still help buffer podcast host Daniel Midgley.
them against some of the feelings of
despair and hopelessness that have It has been more than two years since
struck many families who have lost Neil’s death, and his children are still
loved ones to Covid-19, says psychol- reeling from the loss. But their cam-
ogist Robert A. Neimeyer, director of paign to get their father’s word into the
the Portland Institute for Loss and Tran- dictionary has helped them recapture
sition. “They have come up with a cre- a little of the joy that has been missing
ative way of memorializing their father, from their lives. “I could picture him
by building a community around this being really excited,” Jonathan says.
thing that’s distinctive about him,” “He’d say, ‘It’s dynamite!’ That’s a thing
Neimeyer says. he always used to say.”

That community, which the Kriegers THE WASHINGTON POST (MARCH 10, 2021),
named Orbisculation Nation, even has COPYRIGHT © 2021 BY WASHINGTON POST

60 october 2022

FRIGHT NIGHT the same Rocky who
was just here?” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied, “but
now I’m the sequel.”

— GCFL.NET

Why couldn’t the skele-
ton cross the road? He
didn’t have the guts.

— REDDIT.COM

Spider’s Swindle
Halloween is just a scam
by Big Cobweb to sell
more big cobwebs.

— @CHASEMIT

“This brew is quite hoppy— It’s my favourite holiday
they must have added too much toad.” because you can tres-
pass on a stranger’s
SUSAN CAMILLERI KONAR Candy Crush knew it would come property and make a
Halloween never scared back to haunt me. non-negotiable
me until I became a demand without getting
parent. There is nothing — REDDIT.COM in trouble.
scarier than overtired
kids in costumes get- Going the Distance — @MCNASTY
ting hyper from sugar. One year a trick-or-
treater came to my door Why did the vampire
— @OUTSMARTEDMOMMY dressed as Rocky, in take an art class? He
boxing gloves and satin wanted to learn how to
What Goes Around… shorts. Shortly after I draw blood.
I threw a boomerang at gave him some goodies,
a ghost the other day. I he returned. “Aren’t you — @ALIOOP326

Send us your original
jokes! You could earn $50
and be featured in the
magazine. See page 6 or
rd.ca/joke for details.

rd.ca 61

LIFE LESSON

GUIDED
How to
spot bad
advice when I later saw a financially savvy
acquaintance at a party, I decided to
BY Christina Palassio ask for her advice.

illustration by jeannie phan As the conversation deepened,
however, I felt my stomach tighten in
i recently found myself agonizing over frustration. While I’m sure my friend
a financial decision. I had three wanted to help, her advice was imme-
options, and having spent consider- diately off the mark. She didn’t ask me
able time researching them felt rea- questions or consider how my goals
sonably informed, but I was still not might differ from hers. She simply told
fully confident in which to choose. So me what she would do, and I quickly
found myself tuning out her mono-
logue. The exchange left me feeling
discouraged.

When we ask someone for advice,
we look for a range of responses: a

62 october 2022

reader’s digest

reader’s digest

thoughtful and objective perspective, afraid to get creative with whom you
information to fill a knowledge gap, ask, and don’t assume you know every-
guidance from someone we trust. Done one’s expertise. When you receive the
well, the exchange can benefit both advice, listen to your body. Are you
parties, adding nuance to each person’s tensing up or resisting? It could be a
thinking and strengthening their bonds. sign that the advice that’s coming your
way isn’t right for you—or it could
Bad advice, on the other hand, can mean someone is challenging your own
harm relationships and make a tough biases and assumptions. Take the time
decision even tougher. The worst to check in with yourself on which it is.
advice-givers can invite second-
guessing, undermine your values and ARE THEY ENGAGED?
lead you astray. Even the most well-
intentioned bad guidance can leave us David Eddie was an advice columnist
feeling exasperated, misunderstood for nearly two decades. In that time, he
and even more confused. Luckily there learned that good advice-givers ask
are things we can all do to avoid giv- questions that help them better under-
ing—and receiving—bum advice. stand where you’re coming from and
what your goals are. They don’t assume
CONSIDER YOUR “ASK” they know the answer—or that you
have the time, resources or ability to
To help head off bad advice, get clear approach the challenge in the same
on your needs. Are you asking some- way they would. “You want someone
one to help you think through options who’s going to drill down into the
you might take to resolve a problem? problem with you and take the time to
Are you asking someone to provide understand the shape of it,” he says.
advice as your friend or as an objective
observer? Do you want help with I wish my friend and I had talked
something that’s closer to instruction more about my financial situation
or coaching—like how to plant a fall before she delivered her advice. She
garden or ensure you get the next big may have given different tips if we’d
promotion at work? Communicating been able to walk through my goals
both your problem and your expecta- and concerns, which options I was
tions will help your advice-giver considering, and who else I had con-
approach your questions thoughtfully sulted. Don’t assume your advice-giver
and with a goal of their own in mind. is being self-centred. It can take time
to formulate smart, empathetic ques-
Next, make sure you’re intentional tions—and a run-in at a party, for
about whom you ask, and consider if example, may not be the best setting
you need a range of opinions or one for true consideration.
well-informed perspective. Don’t be

64 october 2022

DO THEY UNDERSTAND While Kohli ultimately ignored the
YOUR VALUES? advice, she wishes she’d asked herself
if the other party understood her val-
When it comes to human relation- ues before entertaining—and fretting
ships, things can get murky. Our differ- over—their advice.
ent backgrounds, beliefs and personal
philosophies mean there often aren’t TRUST YOURSELF
one-size-fits-all solutions. When
advice-givers assume that what’s best Personally motivated advice is usually
for them is also what’s best for you, or pretty easy to spot. A parent may
that their advice should always guide encourage a certain university path
you to what’s most socially or cultur- because they believe it brings more
ally acceptable, problems can arise. prestige or financial independence. A
friend may advise their secret crush to
Sahaj Kaur Kohli knows this first- leave their current partner. It’s harder
hand. When she was 30, the New Yorker when people don’t recognize their
and first-generation American founded own underlying biases.
Brown Girl Therapy, an Instagram
mental health community for children That’s why Eddie often gathers a
of immigrants that now has over range of perspectives. He calls his group
200,000 followers. But when Kohli of advice-givers The Panel, and it’s made
decided to go back to school to become up of his wife, mom and some friends
a clinical mental health counsellor, she and colleagues. Their advice helps him
was advised to delete her social media see different sides of sticky issues—
accounts and try to remove information pushing him to consider different angles
about herself from the Internet. The and outcomes. But in the end, he’s the
advice-giver felt it might interfere with one who makes the decision. “I believe
her new career. But Kohli disagreed. in the saying, ‘Seek the advice of many,
but follow your own counsel,’” he says.
“It felt like a rejection of what I
wanted to do with my life,” she says. In other words: trust your gut. Kohli
Kohli pinpointed generational and subscribes to the same approach for
racial differences in how she and the herself and her clients. One of the big-
other person thought about mental gest lessons she’s learned as a mental
health and therapy. Whereas her health professional, she says, is that
advice-giver saw her social media everyone is an expert on their own life.
presence as a career blocker, Kohli She sees her role as asking questions
believed it was an important way for to help a person get the perspective
her to build a community. She saw no they need to make a choice—even if
reason to hide her lived experience; in those around them may disagree with
fact, it was an asset. it. Now that’s good advice.

rd.ca 65

ENVIRONMENT

As the climate
crisis turns
communities
into danger
zones, one
Alberta town
is left behind

BY Drew Anderson

FROM THE NARWHAL

66 october 2022

reader’s digest

A resident of Drumheller, Alberta,
during the destructive flooding of 2005

reader’s digest

driving into the valley housing the grappling with similar problems: cli- (PREVIOUS SPREAD) THE CANADIAN PRESS/JASON SCOTT
little spit of land that is the tiny com- mate change has made areas that
munity of Lehigh, Alta., feels like enter- were once livable—even desirable—
ing another world. Wide-open prairie into danger zones.
drops suddenly into a landscape more
suited to a moon of Jupiter. Across the country, flooding is con-
sidered the biggest climate change risk,
The valley was shaped by the forces consuming more than 75 per cent of
of climate and change: water cascaded federal disaster assistance, according
from glacial lakes as the ice age slowly to a 2020 policy brief from the think
whimpered away. Rivers, rain, snow tank Centre for International Gover-
and wind carved channels into the land. nance Innovation.
The process left a deep and long scar.
The slow-but-steady impact of climate
Nestled in that valley, the town of change means, says the World Bank, that
Drumheller stretches along a flood as many as 216 million people could be
plain encompassing several commu- forced to move within their own coun-
nities. Among them is Lehigh, a once- tries. As of July 2022, about a dozen of
bustling hamlet of coal miners and them live in Lehigh.
their families, now reduced to a smat-
tering of homes spread out over a small, The local government is busy forti-
flat plain. All of them hug the temper- fying. The Town of Drumheller has over
amental Red Deer River. $55 million, mostly from the provincial
and federal governments, to spend on
The area is prone to flooding, and dikes and berms to protect itself. But
almost all of the inhabited areas are about $20 million of that funding has
identified by the provincial government been allocated to buy out properties
as flood zones. Drumheller was wal- and force many residents out of their
loped in 2005 and again in 2013, but homes. The government plans to wipe
the recorded history of flooding dates these communities off the map before
back over a century. The situation is the flood waters do.
only expected to get more intense.
In Lehigh, the entire community will
Climate projections show that the disappear. Residents find themselves
area will face more extremes in the near caught up by forces they can’t control,
future. A warmer climate can hold more where questions of fairness, of equity
water and dump it at will. Lehigh will or the subjective values of home and
face an inundation. hope take a back seat to the pressures
of climate adaptation. Also at play are
Drumheller is not alone. Whether billions in infrastructure and a govern-
it’s due to sea level rise, wildfires or ment bureaucracy hell-bent on keep-
land sliding into the sea as permafrost ing Alberta’s rivers at bay.
melts, communities across Canada are

68 october 2022

Many feel they are not getting a fair don’t inspire him. Plus, he says, he’s

shake for their little plot of Alberta, or embittered with the way the flood-

that their best interests are being ignored mitigation process has played out. It

as Drumheller races ahead to protect boiled over at a meeting earlier this

itself from the next flood. year, where he “said a few words” that

resulted in charges of uttering threats

john carls has lived his whole life in the against a town employee. (Those

Drumheller Valley, looking after land charges have since been dropped.)

for an oil company for almost 30 years For Carls, the central issue is that

while his wife worked as a nurse at the he doesn’t want to leave his home. He

hospital in town. She continues to work refused access for an appraisal and has

there, while he’s now retired. Nineteen told the town to talk to Don Mallon,

years ago, they bought a home in Lehigh the expropriation lawyer he shares with

and settled in. It’s where Carls wanted several other residents of Lehigh. But

to live out his days. he’s also lost faith in the area he once

“Somebody comes and tells you that considered home. “I’m getting out of

you need to get out of your house—it’s Drumheller altogether,” Carls says. “I’ll

not good,” he says. “You buy a house, never live here again in my life. Terri-

you figure you’re there. I’m 83 years ble place. They just seem to be able

old. It’s not the time to pack up and to push people around whenever they

start moving.” feel like it.”

COURTESY OF FLOOD RESILIENCY PROGRAM/TOWN OF DRUMHELLER Lehigh is a small community Drumheller, located next to the Red Deer
on a patch of land that extends River, is a perennial flood risk.
from Highway 10 to the Red

Deer River. Tall cottonwood

trees are flanked by sandy cliffs.

Stretches of highway separate

it from Drumheller proper and

the slightly larger community of

East Coulee, where an old hotel

sits vacant off the highway—a

sign of livelier times.

Carls says that being forced to

move elsewhere means his wife

will have to quit her job. But they

don’t want to buy a new place,

and the offers his neighbours

have received for their homes

rd.ca 69

reader’s digest

If he must go, Carls plans to move should prepare for an even greater tor-
to Barrhead, northwest of Edmonton, rent in future floods, potentially up to
where his son lives. For others, there is 1,850 cubic metres per second.
resentment at being forced to leave,
but a grudging acceptance that climate “Some of those areas that were bor-
mitigation is important and they’ll have derline before would be under mini-
to go. For them, fair pay for the land mum of a half-metre of water now,”
they leave behind is critical. Drohomerski explains.

Penny Head moved to Lehigh in 2012, The town’s plan calls for a series of
one year before flood waters inun- berms—both new ones and older ones
dated her home. She and her husband that will be fortified—stretching from
chose the area because they loved the east to west to form a protective barrier
valley and wanted to live near the river. around many buildings and homes.
She says her house, now clean and But in the seemingly callous calcula-
upgraded, was “a shack, overgrown tions of government, the province
and horrible” when they bought it. requires projects it funds to protect at
least as much property value as the
She too plans to leave the Drum- mitigation will cost.
heller area and has signed on with the
same lawyer as Carls. Both say they’ve According to the provincial gov-
been frustrated with the town’s actions. ernment’s 2014 Red Deer River Basin
But Head wonders where they will go flood study, it would cost more than
and what they’ll be able to afford. $1.3 million to protect Lehigh—more
than the value of all the properties.
“We’ve put a fortune into this house,”
Head says, explaining that they put The town looked at other options,
their life savings into it. “Because this including dredging the river to make
was our forever home, nothing’s been it deeper, widening the channel to
done cheap.” allow more water to flow by or even
raising houses. In all cases, says Dro-
flood mapping by the province follow- homerski, the process was expensive
ing the 2013 devastation of southern and wouldn’t work.
Alberta showed that Drumheller should
prepare for floods with a metre or more That means residents can either take
of water beyond earlier projections, says the offers to buy their properties or go
Darryl Drohomerski, the town’s chief through expropriation, but one way or
administrative officer. In the 2013 flood, another, the town will clear the land.
river waters raged through Lehigh at
1,370 cubic metres per second. New Lehigh is just one small example of
guidelines suggest the community what’s known as “managed retreat” or
“planned relocation”—moving homes
and communities out of harm’s way as
part of climate change adaptation.

70 october 2022

Robert McLeman, a pro-

fessor of geography and

environmental studies at

Wilfrid Laurier University

who studies climate change

impacts and migration, says

it is an enormous issue that

governments are just now

starting to grapple with.

He points to Miami Beach

as an example where the

costs to relocate in the face

of rising oceans are astro- Drumheller residents stand near the swollen Red
nomical. “You’re talking Deer River in June 2013, with the town’s famous
about tens, if not hundreds, T. Rex statue in the distance.
of billions of dollars to relo-

cate these folks,” McLeman says. “There points to the debate about rebuilding

isn’t enough money in the United States in New Orleans or balancing Indige-

to do it properly.” nous connections to the land with alle-

In the U.S., the federal government viating environmental risk.

has already allocated billions of dol- “To be successful, the people who are

lars for large-scale managed-retreat going to be relocated, or at risk of being

programs to replace piecemeal efforts relocated, need to be part of the plan-

at buying out individual properties. ning process,” he says. “If it’s just sort

Canada, with a smaller population of imposed upon them, then every-

and fewer large cities hugging its coast- one’s going to be unhappy. And there

lines, doesn’t have to grapple with that could be pushback.”

same scale of disaster-proofing, but it’s

THE CANADIAN PRESS/JEFF MCINTOSH still an enormous problem that will dawn james owns three lots without

impact northern communities, cities homes in Lehigh after hers was

like Vancouver and Halifax and river destroyed by the 2005 floods. She says

valleys across the country. “These deci- that she and her husband, who cur-

sions are going to come up time and rently live in Calgary, were finally in a

time again,” McLeman says. place to start rebuilding and hoped to

Just like in Lehigh, the cost-benefit retire to the community.

analysis that drives these decisions She too is holding out for expropria-

for governments is cold comfort to tion. She’s working with the same lawyer

those in the community. McLeman as Carls and Head and says the town has

rd.ca 71

reader’s digest

not been fair in the way it has dealt with with expropriation,” Kaplinsky says.
residents. “They’re not making it so you What the process can’t really account
want to take their offer,” James says.
for is the true value of the home to
In mid-March, the town offered her its owner.
$29,000 total for all three of her lots,
an offer she scoffed at. “That may have fairness implications
because maybe somebody else doesn’t
The town says it is basing its offer on want to buy my property, but I’m will-
the appraised value of the properties, ing to live here,” Kaplinsky says. “In
and residents are welcome to have their fact, this place is more valuable to me
own appraisals done. If a resident’s than it is to others. I have roots in the
appraisal is within five per cent of that community. I have a history here.”
of the town, the town will pay the
higher price. Otherwise, a third-party THE EXPROPRIATION
appraiser will be brought in. PROCESS CAN’T

James wants the town to pay market REALLY ACCOUNT FOR
value for their homes and to also cover THE TRUE VALUE OF A
costs, including moving expenses. She HOME TO ITS OWNER.
can’t understand why the town would
come in with low offers when expro- many lehigh residents are frustrated
priation could cost them more in fees and have lost trust in the town govern-
and likely more in payouts to residents. ment. They say the communication has
been poor and they feel that consul-
Eran Kaplinsky, a law professor at tations have only amounted to the
the University of Alberta, says under town telling them what has already
expropriation, the owner would get been decided.
market value—based on the value
before it was reduced by, say, a munic- James went so far as to help with a
ipality saying the homes would be petition that was submitted in June
razed. There could be compensation 2021 and ended up with approximately
for expenses, improvements to your 2,300 signatures collected from around
property or even a higher payout that Drumheller asking the province to
would allow you to afford an equiva- investigate the flood-mitigation office
lent property elsewhere. The town through what’s known as a municipal
would also cover legal fees. inspection. The province reviewed the
complaints but stopped short of a seri-
“But if the value of the property is ous knuckle-rapping.
already low because of the circum-
stances, the environmental risks or other
factors, then that is reflected in market
value, because that has nothing to do

72 october 2022

“While the review noted some incon- the drumheller valley has changed
sistencies with respect to communica- over the years. The coal mine closed in
tion and transparency of the town’s 1984, one year before the Royal Tyrrell
flood-mitigation project, the remaining Museum of Paleontology opened. Now
concerns are not of sufficient severity the town is eyeing a future based more
to warrant an inspection,” Alberta Min- on tourism than on natural resources.
ister of Municipal Affairs Ric McIver
wrote to Drumheller Mayor Heather The town centre, with its recreation
Colberg in response to the petition. facility just down from a giant Tyran-
nosaurus rex statue, will be safe behind
Drohomerski feels the town has done a new flood barrier, and river views for
a good job of reaching out to residents many will transform into a mound of
and contends there’s a lot of misin- earth several metres tall. The flooding
formation spreading. Neither Head, will be held at bay.
James nor Carls agree, and they feel
that communication hasn’t improved. In Lehigh, however, the small com-
munity’s history will come to an end.
Hana Ambury, a researcher with the Homes will be torn down by 2024,
Alberta Land Institute, which works to according to government plans. The
inform public debate and decision mak- spit of land that was Lehigh will inevi-
ing around land use in the province, tably flood again, with only the cotton-
and of which Kaplinsky is also the direc- woods to impede the flow. Head will
tor of research, says that municipalities live elsewhere, possibly on a property
are starting to realize that they have to she owns on Pine Lake, southeast of
clearly communicate environmental Red Deer, if she gets enough money to
risks to residents to prevent confusion build. James will find another place
and frustration in the future, but that to retire. Carls is off to Barrhead.
doesn’t necessarily help those already
living in a disaster-prone community. “What they don’t understand is that
we’re very much a community. We all
“In our research, we’ve seen that those know each other, and most of us are
people who are attached to their com- friends,” Head says.
munities, who are attached to their
homes, often have a lower rate of accept- “I was looking forward to them build-
ing mitigation and transformative action ing there,” she says, pointing to the
on the landscape,” she says. “So, for empty lot across the way where James
example, in Fort McMurray, we’ve seen was planning to put up a house. “We
that people don’t want the trees around could sit out and have a glass of wine
their homes cut down, even though that in the evening or something. But all
will reduce their wildfire risk, because of that is gone.”
that’s not why they bought their homes.”
© 2022, THE NARWHAL NEWS SOCIETY. FROM
“THIS WAS OUR FOREVER HOME,” BY DREW ANDERSON,
THE NARWHAL (APRIL 2, 2022), THENARWHAL.CA

rd.ca 73

SOCIETY

reader’s digest

A MUSHROOM BURGER IS, well, a burger with mush- How Lebanese
rooms. After that, the sky’s the limit. It might be immigrants
topped with white, yellow or blue cheese, onion made the
rings, avocado—whatever floats your ’shroom. mushroom
burger a
But there’s one region of the world where the menu staple
mushroom burger is a definable entree—a sizable
beef patty smothered in sautéed canned mushrooms BY Omar Mouallem
and sauce comprised mostly of cream of mush-
room soup. You’ll find it across Alberta and inland FROM QUENCH MAGAZINE
British Columbia, but also 10,000 kilometres away, photographs by
in the mountains of Lebanon—homeland of the amber bracken
man who popularized it in Western Canada.

Rudy Kemaldean didn’t actually bring the burger
recipe with him in the 1950s, when he immigrated

The

Sauce
rd.ca 75

reader’s digest

with his brother from Baalchmay, a vil- WHILE THE MUSHROOM BURGER recipe

lage 15 kilometres uphill from Beirut. is standardized, the Burger Baron fran-

He found the sauce in Edmonton, at chise isn’t. It’s not really even a franchise.

one of a few remaining outlets of Burger The original iteration of Burger Baron,

Baron, a floundering fast-food shack branded by Jack McDonnell, went bank-

that made a roaring comeback after rupt in 1961, a few years before the Leb-

he bought it. His relatives joined him, anese immigrants discovered it, and

and the Kemaldeans/Kamaleddines since the status of the company’s intel-

(the spelling varies depending on which lectual property was unclear following

brother filed the paperwork) were soon the bankruptcy, the entire brand was

running a dozen Burger Barons. After basically public domain.

civil war broke out in Lebanon, these The McDonnell and Kemaldean fam-

restaurants became training grounds ilies did manage to come to an agree-

for future Canadian citizens who were ment, and trademarks for the Burger

hired as cooks, learned the recipes and Baron name and logo were granted

then took those secret sauces with them in 1998, but the legal grounds of the

to small Prairie towns when it was Kemaldeans’ corporate ownership are

time to strike out on their own. shaky. Regardless, you can’t patent a

They opened dozens of burger joints, recipe—only an entirely novel food—

often under the same name and logo, and so their secret mushroom sauce

without any legal permission. remains part of the collective memory

of Lebanese Canadians.

The mushroom Only a few Burger Barons
burger and its remain in Edmonton, but you’ll

signature sauce find the iconic burger at mom-

and-pop diners throughout the

city and beyond. Whether

the restaurant owners call their

establishment Burger Baron,

Burger Barn, Baron Family

Restaurant or something else

entirely, their businesses thrive

in mostly rural communities. I’m

related to several of these pro-

prietors, and one, the owner of

Boondocks Grill in High Prairie,

370 kilometres northwest of

Edmonton, is my brother, Ali.

76 october 2022

Despite small discrepancies between fessed up to three more additions—
the mushroom burgers, they are remark- soya sauce, Tabasco, Worcestershire—
ably consistent. Ali learned the recipe then, somewhat suspiciously, he added,
from our dad, back when the family “There are some spices.”
business was in fact called Burger
Baron Pizza & Steak. Our dad trained “Sumac? Cumin?” I asked.
with his uncle, who bought one of the “I don’t like to talk about that.”
original Burger Barons, in a neighbour- Khalid “Kelly” Kamaleddine denied
ing town, from another Lebanese man using any spices but insisted there was
who apprenticed with Rudy in the ’70s. a fifth ingredient, plus a specialty soya
I have tasted all four of their mush- sauce. I wasn’t sure if these were red
room burgers—and many more span- herrings. When I pressed him, he said,
ning Alberta—and they all strike the “Go ask your dad.”
same balance of tanginess, saltiness I did—but my dad, long retired, could
and soupiness. not remember the proportions or
whether there was, in fact, a fifth ingre-
The sauce base is an open secret. dient. So I asked my brother.
Nothing can conceal the distinctive- Ali could only recall it the way he
ness of Campbell’s cream of mushroom was taught, using industrial soup cans.
soup, and the restaurant owners have Indeed, his recipe was a square dance of
given up trying. It’s the other ingredi- soup, Tabasco, soya and Worcestershire.
ents that are harder to pin down. Does he cook the soup or thin it out
with water? I asked. No—but make sure
I HAVE INTERVIEWED many Burger the soup is Campbell’s recipe. “No low
Baron owners about the secret sauce. sodium or low fat.”
Nobody was willing to reveal the recipe, “Families like yours and many others
with the exception of Sam Chehdi. The were given a chance at making some-
long-time restaurateur in Mayerthorpe thing for themselves,” Rawan Kemal-
(population 1,140) insisted the sauce is dean, the daughter of retired Burger
nothing more than soup, straight out of Baron owners, told me. There may not
the can. To prove it, he proceeded to be a patent to the brand and food, and
cook mushroom burgers this way for us each location may have mastered their
while our cameras rolled. He then fed own style of the sauce, but she hoped
them to our crew. Though it was a very we would covet this one secret to living
flavourful burger, something tasted off. out the immigrant dream.
And so, for now, it remains a trade
Walid Sahr of Whitecourt, who immi- secret of the Lebanese burger mafia.
grated in 2000 and got into the busi-
ness based on his first transcendent OMAR MOUALLEM IS THE WRITER AND DIRECTOR OF THE
experience with a mushroom burger, LAST BARON, A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT BURGER BARON,
ON CBC GEM (BURGERBARONMOVIE.COM).

rd.ca 77

HUMOUR

MyHut
A backyard my first reaction when my son told
sanctuary promised me last summer I was going to be a
grandmother, and that the baby and
solitude—until I his parents would live with me, was
realized that I didn’t unbounded joy. My second reaction
was to build a 10x10 wooden hut in my
want to be alone backyard. It comes with a silver key
that is mine alone.
BY Cathrin Bradbury
My son, Kelly, and his partner, Von-
FROM THE TORONTO STAR nie, moved in a few months later, in
illustration by graham roumieu between relocating to Toronto from
Guatemala and saving up for their
78 october 2022 dream bachelor apartment. Mean-
while, we all fit in the white stucco
two-storey family home in midtown
Toronto, eat mostly healthy meals—
sometimes together, sometimes not,

reader’s digest

reader’s digest

no pressure—and share a copacetic, needs a cement slab, which involves
early-to-bed-and-rise schedule. soil disposal bins, a cement mixer and
a four-person work crew.
With a full house, however, I now
work where I sleep. The surprise baby “Doing a lot of these huts, I hear,” I
news was when my gaze turned to the said to the cement boss.
potential of the old tool shed at the back
of our haphazard yard. Where others “These what?”
saw a teardown, I saw a magical portal “Huts. You know. What we’re
to another world. A place, after a modest building.”
fix-up with a few nails and a hammer, “I wouldn’t know anything about
to write and explore an unabashedly that,” he said, smoothing the fresh
interior life, just a few footsteps away. cement in broad sweeps with his pal-
let. “We call these shed slabs.”

IN A HUT, THE a hut is not a house.
ONLY MOVEMENT This is the kind of profound thinking
IS OF YOUR OWN
that comes from working inside my
THOUGHTS. now finished hut.

one of the things about building a hut In footsteps, this gleaming spruce-
is that it requires a lot of decisions. The wood structure is 33 small steps from
mind-twister is that you need a hut, my back door. But in all other ways my
and the room it provides for contem- daily journey to the end of the backyard
plation, to decide whether you need a can’t be measured in something as
hut. In this period of decision making, unremarkable as putting one foot in
which lasted about six weeks, people front of the other while holding a mug
would say words to me, and I would of coffee, the key that unlocks the hut
wonder how long good manners door and a woollen blanket, because it
decreed before I could steer the con- gets chilly out here sometimes.
versation to my hut. (About a minute
was where I generally landed.) Existing There are the sounds, to begin there.
shed or new prefab? (the latter, in the From the house, the noises are of cars
end); facing garden or house (garden); and ambulances and boots over ice
roof angle (sloping down to the north); and snow. Back here, it’s rain, sleet and
wiring complexities; heating. A hut wind, except it’s like the weather is
happening inside the thin walls of the
hut, not outside. It can be worrying,
but it keeps you alert. The birds’ songs
are nice; the manic squirrels trying to
dig through the roof—they seem
affronted by my presence—less so.

80 october 2022

The other thing about a hut that is blanket, and walk the 33 steps back to
nothing like a house (or an apartment, the house. Kelly is the house cook;
or anywhere people live) is that a house Vonnie and I the sous-chefs. Kelly
has momentum. People arrive and hands me a head of cabbage for the
leave, things are dropped off at the door, fish tacos, explaining how he wants it.
mail is delivered, garbage is taken away. “Thinly sliced. Not chopped.”
In a hut, the only movement is of your
own thoughts. That the word “hut” was “So, Mom,” he says after a bit, look-
taken over by marketing to mean some- ing sadly down at my unevenly sliced
thing welcoming and fun—Pizza Hut! cabbage. “We’re thinking we’re going
Sunglass Hut!—is a misdirection. Hut to maybe keep our eyes open for an
comes from the old English hydan, to apartment nearby.”
hide, cover or conceal. The plot twist is
that a hut is less a place to hide out in, “An apartment? But how will the
or to give the slip to prospective grand- baby get to my hut?” I was shaken as
children, than it is a place to find what much by the idea of them moving
is hidden from you. as by the ancient wobbly timbre of my
voice. I sounded like one of the hyster-
I think about my grandchild-to- ical fathers in a Jane Austen novel
be—a recurring hut fantasy is him run- when his daughter announces her
ning to the end of the path and knock- plans to move a few hundred metres
ing on the hut door; yes, he knocks, he across the flowering meadow to live
is a polite child—and the risk of new with her new husband.
love. And whether I can protect him
from the dangerous world, and how this “You know, a place of our own,”
hut is going to be too cold for him in the said Kelly.
winter and I’d better get more blankets.
“Ah,” I said. “Right. Of course.”
As day darkens into evening, Kelly I can’t think what it’ll be like when
and Vonnie come down from working they’re gone. If their light doesn’t
upstairs in their own offices, and then shine on my hut at the end of the day,
the kitchen at the back of the house is does the hut even exist? Or, if it does
suddenly ablaze with light. It’s one of exist, should it? It’s too big a thought
the best parts of my day, when those to grapple with as we assemble the
lights come on. It’s when I understand fish tacos.
that the hut, and my retreat to it, is I’ll think about it on Monday. In
made warmer by the light that comes the hut.
from the house.
Cathrin Bradbury is the author of
I quickly turn off the hut’s heat The Bright Side.
and lights, gather up my mug, key and
© 2022, CATHRIN BRADBURY. FROM “WHY I JOINED THE
GREAT HUT RUSH OF 2022,” THE TORONTO STAR ( JANUARY
22, 2022), THESTAR.COM

rd.ca 81

reader’s digest

BOUNDEDITORS’CHOICE
The conviction of
Guy Paul Morin
for the killing of
nine-year-old
Christine Jessop
remains one of the
most notorious Canadian
cases of failed justice.
Thirty-six years
later, aided by forensic
genealogy and new
resolve, they found
her real killer.

ININFAMY
BY Malcolm Johnston FROM TORONTO LIFE

rd.ca 83

reader’s digest

ON WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1984,

Janet Jessop was returning home to hanging on the hook higher than the (PREVIOUS SPREAD) COURTESY OF TORONTO POLICE SERVICE
rural Queensville, Ont., from a day trip little girl could reach. Her school bag
to Toronto with her son, Kenny, 14. was on the counter, and the mail and
They’d been visiting Kenny’s father, newspaper had been brought inside.
Bob, who was spending 18 months in Around 5 p.m., Christine still hadn’t
the Toronto East Detention Centre for returned home, so Janet went to the
swindling some elderly friends. Janet park to search. She walked through
planned to get home soon after Chris- the cemetery calling out her daugh-
tine, her nine-year-old daughter, ter’s name. She phoned Christine’s
stepped off the school bus. Christine friends, including Leslie Chipman,
was an explorer, an imaginative kid who explained that she went home
who would happily spend hours play- when Christine didn’t show up for
ing in the cemetery behind their house. their park date.
Her dog, a beagle named Freckles, was
her constant companion. After sunset, Janet called the York
Regional Police. The York force was
In music class, her teacher had small, with one officer for every 860
handed out recorders, and Christine was residents. They had no major crimes
eager to show hers off to her mom and unit and had never dealt with a child
Kenny. But she found the family’s two- abduction or a child murder. When a
storey farmhouse still empty. Christine constable arrived on scene, he removed
had made plans that day to meet her Christine’s coat from the hook for closer
friend Leslie Chipman around 4 p.m. at inspection. Detectives came in through
the park. As arranged, Leslie arrived the back and side doors. The plastic
at their spot and waited for her friend wrapping of the newspaper was thrown
to show. And then waited some more. away without being dusted for finger-
prints. Well-meaning neighbours
Janet arrived home with Kenny at passed in and out of the home, touch-
around 4:10. Oddly, Christine’s red ing this and that. If Christine had
bicycle was lying on its side in the shed, been abducted, crucial evidence was
its kickstand damaged. They walked now compromised.
inside and noticed Christine’s jacket

84 october 2022

Police set up a command post in the he was as close to the culprit as he
nearby fire hall and enlisted residents would ever be.
to help conduct a series of haphazard
searches of the area. Still, day after day, CALVIN HOOVER HAD dark hair, prom-
not a trace. inent front teeth and a thin face made
to look even thinner by his oversized
Bob Jessop was released from jail on glasses. He was a 28-year-old tradesman
humanitarian grounds, and he and from Scarborough who had a predilec-
Janet issued desperate pleas to the tion for drinking, partying and gambling.
public for their daughter’s return. Police
knew that most abductions weren’t Both Calvin and Heather worked at
random; they’re usually perpetrated Eastern Independent Telecom. Heather
by someone with a pre-existing rela- was a dispatcher and Calvin did instal-
tionship. And so the Jessops supplied lations. Bob, Christine’s father, was the
the names and numbers of anyone lead installer. The itinerant nature of
allowed to enter the home without a the work gave Calvin cover to come
family member being present. One of and go from home when he wanted,
those names was Calvin Hoover, a fam- and he would occasionally leave for
ily friend who worked with Bob at hours at a time, day or night, speeding
Eastern Independent Telecom, which off without explanation.
provided telephone wiring for busi-
nesses across the area. THE LONGER CHRISTINE
WAS MISSING, THE
The day after the disappearance, Cal- MORE INEVITABLE
vin’s wife, Heather Hoover, had rushed TRAGEDY FELT TO
to console Janet and help where she THE JESSOPS.
could. Sergeant Raymond Bunce of the
York police interviewed her. Heather At work, he developed a friendship
explained that she had been at work with Bob, and the two families—Hoovers
on the day of Christine’s disappearance. and Jessops—gathered for barbecues
She assumed her husband had been and birthdays. Heather sometimes
working too, and told Bunce as much. babysat Christine, who referred to her
Eventually, after patiently answering a as “Auntie Heather.” Though they lived
long series of questions, Heather told more than 50 kilometres apart, Janet
the officer that her husband was with and Heather would meet often to share
their children and she had to hurry a pot of tea and watch the kids play.
home. Calvin Hoover, the man who
abducted Christine Jessop, was never
interviewed. The conversation ended,
and Bunce left it at that, unaware that

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One such visit happened two days Calvin Hoover in 1996 COURTESY OF TORONTO POLICE SERVICE
before Christine went missing. On the
evening of October 1, 1984, Janet loaded half-dug pit. He walked closer and real-
Christine and Kenny into the car to ized with horror what it was: a corpse,
visit the Hoovers. While she was there, badly decomposed. There were multi-
Janet mentioned that she would be ple stab wounds to the chest, some
going to visit Bob in jail two days from deep enough to penetrate the verte-
then and that Christine was too young brae—these were later deemed the
to be in such a grim environment. It’s official cause of death. The body was
possible—even probable—that Calvin dressed in a beige turtleneck sweater
learned from Heather that the little girl with a blue pullover, and a blouse with
would be home alone. The opportu- buttons missing. Next to the right foot
nity, however, would prove to be dan- was a pair of little girl’s underwear.
gerously brief. There would be only min- In the tall grass lay a recorder with
utes between when Christine stepped “Christine Jessop” written on it.
off the school bus and when Janet and
Kenny returned home. When the Jessops heard the news,
they were shattered. The torturous wait-
IN THE DAYS AFTER CHRISTINE disap- ing and wondering were over, but now
peared, the Jessops prayed for the safe a lifetime of mourning lay ahead.
return of their daughter, but the longer
she was missing, the more inevitable BECAUSE THE BODY WAS found in
tragedy felt. At the Jessop house, Christ- Durham Region, the case shifted
mas passed with no tree, and only a from the York police to the Durham
few presents for Kenny. No one felt
much like celebrating.

By December 31, 90 excruciating days
had passed without progress. While
residents across the province prepared
to ring in the new year, in the hamlet
of Sunderland, 56 kilometres east of
Queensville, a man named Fred Pat-
terson and his two daughters went
looking for their dog on the large,
wooded property next to their home.
Just off the bend of a trail, Patterson
spotted something unusual—what
looked like a pile of garbage next to a

86 october 2022

Regional Police. The scrutiny of a homi- his junior, so there wasn’t much
cide investigation would be overwhelm- cause for interaction. He once helped
ing, unlike anything its officers had her catch Freckles, who was running
dealt with before. loose. Another time, Morin had gone
over to help relight the pilot on the Jes-
Investigating the case were two vet- sops’ furnace. That was the extent of it.
eran detectives named Bernie Fitzpat-
rick and John Shephard, who went by The detectives asked about his where-
Fitz and Shep. They pressed the Jes- abouts on the day Christine went miss-
sops for a list of possible suspects— ing. Morin knew he had been at work,
anyone who stood out. Next door, just a furniture manufacturing facility in
over the fence, lived the Morins, a Vaughan, 57 kilometres to the south.
close-knit family. Their younger son, Fitz and Shep would later discover that
25-year-old Guy Paul, was kind and he had punched out at 3:32 p.m.
respectful. He had no criminal record. That meant he could have returned
But, Janet recalled, Guy Paul hadn’t home no earlier than 4:14 p.m., too
participated in the search for Chris- late to abduct Christine before Janet
tine when just about everyone else in and Kenny got home at 4:10.
Queensville had pitched in. She also
happened to mention that Guy Paul THE DETECTIVES
played the clarinet and kept honey- KNEW JURIES WERE
bees. Fitz scribbled in his notepad HARD TO CONVINCE.
words that would destroy a life: “Clar- BUT SCIENCE WAS
inet player. Weird-type guy.”
IRREFUTABLE.
GUY PAUL, THE SECOND-YOUNGEST of
six siblings, was classically handsome, The detectives playfully engaged the
with a neat part and strong brow. He young man in more small talk. They
loved woodworking, puzzles, little prob- asked him what he thought of Chris-
lems that required patience and focus. tine, and Morin described her as “sweet
On the clarinet he was a virtuoso, able and innocent.” Morin, who had a habit
to play intricate pieces from memory. of filling anticipated lulls with what-
ever thought was in his head, fatefully
On the afternoon of February 22, added: “But they sometimes grow up
1985, Fitz and Shep wandered over to be corrupt.” Today, Morin doesn’t
and engaged Morin in conversation. deny having said that, but he says he
Casual, friendly, they invited him into meant it in a general sense: as girls
their car for a chat. How well did he
know Christine Jessop? Not well,
he said. She was more than 16 years

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become adults, they lose their childlike suspects—for example, if a blond hair COURTESY OF GUY PAUL MORIN
innocence, which to most ears is hardly was found but the suspect had brown
a controversial statement. To the detec- hair. It was unreliable, though, for
tives, it was tantamount to motive. including suspects: that is, proving a
definitive match. That’s because char-
CALVIN HOOVER SHOWED UP at Chris- acteristics of hairs from one person’s
tine’s funeral and wake, extending head vary from hair to hair, and even
his condolences to the family. At both, the characteristics of a single hair may
police officers were in attendance, snap- differ from tip to bulb.
ping photos of attendees.
“CONSISTENT”
Hoover had been careful enough not WAS THE WORD THE
to be seen picking up Christine after DETECTIVES WANTED
school. Yet at the same time, he had TO HEAR. THEY NOW
committed his crime so hastily that
he’d left a trail of leads. His semen was HAD THEIR MAN.
on Christine’s underwear, and a single
dark hair was trapped in her necklace. After so much time exposed to the
Police rushed that strand to the Centre elements—as long as 90 days—the Jes-
of Forensic Sciences in Toronto. Juries, sop necklace hair had severely degraded.
the detectives knew, were hard to con- A forensic scientist named Stephanie
vince. But science was irrefutable. A Nyznyk, however, told Fitz and Shep
hair match could change everything. that the hairs were “macroscopically
similar”—which essentially meant that
A few weeks later, Morin arrived at his to the naked eye, both hairs were the
jazz group and learned that the band- same colour. Nyznyk went further, stat-
leader’s daughter, accompanied by her ing that, microscopically, Morin’s hair
friend and classmate—who happened was “consistent with” the necklace
to be an undercover police officer—was hair, according to Shep’s recollection.
doing a cosmetics class project on hair
analysis. She asked the group whether “Consistent” was the word the detec-
they would mind if she plucked a few tives wanted to hear. They now had
strands of everyone’s hair. After she left, their man.
the officer discarded all the hair sam-
ples but Morin’s, which she handed Guy Paul Morin was on his way to
over to her colleagues Fitz and Shep. band practice on the evening of April
22, 1985, when he saw flashing lights
Hair analysis was fashionable at the in his rear-view mirror. He pulled over,
time and often used in criminal pro-
ceedings, yet its usefulness was lim-
ited: it was a reliable way to exclude

88 october 2022

Guy Paul
Morin in 1981,
outside his
family’s home

reader’s digest

feeling sheepish. He watched as two was, she decided, closer to 4:20 p.m.—
cops approached the car and was sur- perhaps even as late as 4:35 p.m.—that
prised to recognize the friendly detec- she’d returned home.
tives he’d spoken to weeks earlier.
“What’s up guys?” he said. Fitz and Shep At trial, flimsy evidence was brazenly
told him they were arresting him for torqued to present Morin as the sadis-
the murder of Christine Jessop. “What? tic killer the Crown needed him to be.
You’re joking,” said Morin. Mysterious red fibres found on Chris-
tine’s body and in Morin’s car were
WHEN THE VERDICT presented to the court as evidence that
WAS READ ALOUD, THE the little girl had been inside the car.
But an anonymous letter later claimed
COURTROOM SAT IN that the technician testing the fibres
STUNNED SILENCE FOR had worn a red sweater and no lab
coat, facts that Nyznyk’s boss investi-
SEVERAL SECONDS. gated and ultimately kept to himself.
And as for the Morins’ story that their
FOR FITZ AND SHEP, the easy part— son hadn’t arrived home on the day of
finding a suspect—was done. The dif- the disappearance until 5:30 p.m. (he
ficult part was making the evidence had stopped for groceries and gas after
line up. The most problematic issue work): a psychologist who interviewed
was Morin’s rock-solid alibi. the Morins testified that they were a
part of a secretive, protective, patho-
Fitz and Shep retraced Janet and logical family system.
Kenny’s route on the day of the abduc-
tion and suggested that Janet must have The police had also planted an
remembered it all wrong. She replied undercover sergeant named Gordon
that she’d made no such mistake. She Hobbs in Morin’s jail cell. Morin, he
knew she had to make an important testified, had made stabbing motions
call to her husband’s lawyer at 4:50 toward his own chest, demonstrating
p.m., and she remembered looking at the way he’d committed the crime.
the clock on the wall when she got Hobbs also explained that Morin had
home. Perhaps, suggested Fitz, the confessed by saying that he would
clock was running slow? Janet allowed “redrum the innocent.” The story,
that it was conceivable. Gradually, over according to Morin, had been horrifi-
the months that followed, their steady cally mangled. Hobbs had asked him
pressure eroded her confidence, and about his favourite movies. Morin
she eventually revised her timing. It had seen the 1980 horror film The
Shining, wherein the little boy repeat-
edly croaks “redrum”—murder spelled

90 october 2022

THE CANADIAN PRESS backwards—in the film’s scariest scene. A FRESH FEAR PERVADED Queensville
Morin couldn’t remember the title so after the verdict. Many people believed
referenced “redrum” instead. Morin was guilty and had simply got-
ten lucky. Media thronged outside the
When that sensational little nugget Morins’ home. The family found men-
got into the papers, Morin’s fate seemed acing notes in the mailbox. One night,
sealed. There were too many enigmatic someone threw a beer bottle through
utterances, too much strange behaviour, their window.
and police hadn’t turned up any bet-
ter candidates. In the wake of the acquittal, the police
and the Crown were embarrassed, their
In the end, after a masterful closing failings on full display. But there were
statement by his lawyer, Clayton Ruby, no suspects they liked any better than
and just one day of deliberation, the Morin. In May 1990, a new trial com-
jury decided that Morin was not guilty. menced on a technicality related to
When the verdict was read aloud, the instructions the original judge had
courtroom sat in stunned silence for given to the jury regarding the mean-
several seconds. Kenny Jessop wept ing of reasonable doubt. This time, the
openly. Immediately afterwards, the Crown’s theory was even more absurd:
Crown told the media they were con- Morin, they argued, must have seen
sidering an appeal. Christine holding her new recorder and,
like some sadistic pied piper, lured her
A decade after with the sound of his own woodwind
his initial arrest, into his car. As he had done in the first
Morin was acquitted. trial, Morin mounted the stand and
proclaimed his innocence.

The jury retired on July 23, 1992, and
eight days later returned a unanimous
verdict: guilty. One jury member, later
interviewed by Linden MacIntyre of
The Fifth Estate, said she knew Morin
was guilty by the way he never looked
at the jury while he was testifying.
Morin, 32 by this point, was sentenced
to life in prison.

THE KINGSTON PENITENTIARY was
home to Canada’s vilest humans, yet
to many of them, Morin, a convicted

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reader’s digest

child rapist and murderer, was the most convinced Morin was the killer, pro-
despicable creature among them. Morin posed they test again. For Lockyer, the
learned that many inmates wanted to risk, of course, was that the DNA evi-
mete out justice of their own. Thank- dence would prove that Morin was the
fully, the most feared inmate on killer. Morin practically begged his
Morin’s cell block had followed his team to proceed. Days before the trial
story and decided he was innocent. He was set to begin, there was news, and
put out the word that Morin wasn’t it was seismic: the semen on Chris-
to be touched. tine’s underwear was not Guy Paul
Morin’s. Three days later, he was free.
IN THE PUBLIC EYE, All charges were dropped, his record
SUSPICION WOULD wiped. The moment was a decade in
FOLLOW MORIN UNTIL the making, yet he knew better than to
CHRISTINE’S REAL celebrate too joyously: in the public
KILLER WAS FOUND. eye, suspicion would follow him until
Christine’s real killer was found.
Outside the prison, enough people
knew something was wrong—the facts CALVIN HOOVER WAS ALWAYS a drinker,
just didn’t line up—that a citizens’ but when he heard the news that Morin
group had formed to protest Morin’s had been cleared, he became a con-
conviction. Morin hired new lawyers, stant presence at local pubs, usually
James Lockyer and Joanne McLean. In telling Heather and the kids that he was
February of 1993, they successfully headed out to work. It was alarming
filed for appeal, and Morin was granted enough for Hoover that Morin had been
bail. By that point, he’d spent two and exonerated, but the fact that it was
a half years in courtrooms and nearly achieved through DNA testing must
18 months in six different facilities. have terrified him. Now the police,
armed with the weapons of science,
Morin’s appeal was scheduled to were surely inching closer by the day.
begin in January of 1995. As Lockyer
and his team pored over the previous In the years after he killed Christine
trials’ twists and turns, they became Jessop, Hoover was haunted by so many
aware of significant breakthroughs in demons that at least some kind of cos-
DNA typing which allowed testing on mic retribution was spooled out in a life
samples that were previously too dete- riddled with sleepless nights, tortured
riorated to be reliable. The Crown, so thoughts, depressive episodes and panic
attacks. In 2014, he attempted what the
police deemed “suicide by motor vehi-
cle,” but he survived.

92 october 2022

At a news conference on October 15, 2020,
Toronto Police Chief James Ramer sits next
to a screen displaying photos of Hoover.

THE CANADIAN PRESS STEVE SMITH JOINED the Toronto police share 1,200 centimorgans. From there,
in 1996 and embarked on a low-profile it would be a quick one-two to find
career of solving robberies. In 2019, the culprit.
wanting to help the families of missing
loved ones, Smith transferred to cold But the results were disastrous. They
cases. He was especially interested in showed only two matches, and they bore
the new field of genetic testing tech- 50 centimorgans each, which meant
niques, which had helped detectives probably third cousins at best. The con-
in California identify the Golden State nection between those cousins and
Killer. He decided to focus his efforts the killer was so distant that building
on the province’s most high-profile a common family tree would involve
cold case: Christine Jessop. He submit- roughly 33,000 names.
ted the DNA from Jessop’s underwear
to Othram, a Texas-based genetic test- Smith ran the DNA through a second
ing start-up, which generated a profile database called Family Tree, which
and uploaded it to a database called returned an additional three matches,
GEDmatch. The results would be but again, nothing closer than a dis-
expressed in terms of centimorgans, tant cousin. If there was a glimmer of
the unit by which familial proximity is good fortune, it was that two of the
measured. Siblings, for instance, might matches were on the killer’s maternal
side, and three were on the paternal. It
was hardly a breakthrough, but it was

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reader’s digest

enough progress that they could shrink THERE WOULD BE NO justice for Chris-
the family tree to about 400 names. tine Jessop. Back in the summer of 2015,
Hoover lived outside of Port Hope with
Working with a group that included one of his sons. He was a sad, anxious,
an in-house genealogist, Smith con- isolated man. When his son went out
sulted burial records, birth records, to a wedding, Hoover opened a bottle
town registers, social media and more. of red wine, stepped into the garage,
Over the course of eight months, they sealed the door with tape, placed head-
fleshed out a tree all the way up to a phones over his ears and flipped on
man named Henry Hoover Jr. He had the generator. With carbon monoxide
been born in 1804 in Lennox, Ont., near spewing into the room, he sat down
Belleville. The discovery was a mile- in a lawn chair and waited for life to
stone, but a daunting amount of work drain from his body.
remained to populate the tree to deter-
mine which of Hoover’s great-great- NEVER, IN ALL THE
grandsons had killed Christine Jessop. YEARS THAT HAD
PASSED, HAD BOB
Soon, they had arrived at two possible OR JANET JESSOP
families. Smith and his team investi- SUSPECTED HOOVER.
gated members of both surreptitiously.
Eventually, they narrowed their scope When Smith learned Hoover was
to a single person: Calvin Hoover. dead, he tracked down two vials of
blood that had been kept at the coro-
Today, the Toronto police use a file ner’s office after the autopsy. Testing
management system called Power by a forensic biologist concluded that
Case that allows them to electronically Hoover could not be excluded as a
search all files from a major case. Smith candidate, which meant one of two
punched in Hoover’s various addresses things: either he was the source of the
over the years into the system. To his DNA profile and was the killer, or
surprise, he got a hit. One of Hoover’s the profile originated from someone
former Scarborough addresses, a town- who just happened to have the same
house by the Toronto Zoo, was in one DNA profile. The forensic expert told
of the police notebooks. Hoover, Smith him the first scenario was three tril-
learned, was a Jessop family friend lion times more likely than the second.
who’d been listed as a close contact at It was incontrovertible: the murder of
the time of the abduction. He’d had
regular access to the Jessop home and,
as Heather Hoover’s interview notes
suggested, was probably aware that
Christine would be alone on October
3, 1984. Finally, Smith had his answer.

94 october 2022

Christine Jessop had been solved, 36 the media for more than 10 years, his
years after the fact, aided by science, good name destroyed, a job where he
time, persistence and a little luck. can be alone suits him just fine.

Smith delivered the news in person Guy Paul had never visited Chris-
to Janet Jessop. Never, in all the years tine’s grave, through the cedars at the
that had passed, had Bob or Janet Jes- back of his mom’s backyard. We walked
sop suspected Hoover. Like everyone into the cemetery, the birds quietly
who knew the man, they are left with chirping, the passing cars barely audi-
more questions than answers. ble. Before we realized it, her head-
stone lay before us, and we both fell
IN THE SUMMER OF 2021, I met Guy Paul silent. Etched in pink stone, just above
Morin at his childhood home in Queens- an engraving of Freckles, was a short
ville. He was unrecognizable for an tribute: “In loving memory of Christine
instant, with a short salt-and-pepper Marion, dear daughter of Robert and
beard and a full head of white hair. But Janet Jessop, sister of Kenneth.”
the bold features remained, the strong
brow, the neat part. What was there to say? In the public
consciousness, the names Guy Paul
In 1997, Guy Paul Morin and his Morin and Christine Jessop are forever
parents accepted a settlement from linked. According to the many lies
the province of $1.2 million. He would people believed over the years, his was
have been entitled to more if he’d pur- the last face she ever saw. But the truth
sued a trial, but he’d had enough of is he barely knew her. And here they
courtrooms. Instead, he took a course were, two names bound in infamy,
in piano technology and found work together at last. Finally, Guy Paul piped
that suited him: repairing pianos, some up, as courteous and kind as the day
of them priceless. He tunes each string Shep and Fitz knocked on his door.
by ear, a task that requires someone “Rest in peace there, little girl,” he
who knows music intimately and has said, and we left.
the patience and focus to tighten each
string just so. After being in the glare of © 2021, MALCOLM JOHNSTON. FROM ”THE HUNT FOR
A KILLER,” TORONTO LIFE (DECEMBER 2021),
TORONTOLIFE.COM

Optimist Club

Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.

HELEN KELLER

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

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reader’s digest

reader’s digest SOME WRITERS RELIABLY churn out
new books every year. Then there’s
BOOK CLUB Ann-Marie MacDonald, one of Cana-
da’s greatest (and most elusive) novel-
Ann-Marie MacDonald ists, best known for her breakout novel,
returns with a the Oprah-stamped Fall on Your Knees,
about several generations of a family
Gothic spellbinder on Cape Breton. MacDonald likes to
disappear from the literary landscape
BY Emily Landau for a decade or longer, but she always
returns with something epic and orig-
96 october 2022 inal. Her latest, Fayne, has a couple of
things in common with her past works:
it arrives after a (comparatively swift)
eight-year hiatus and, at more than 700
pages, is as heavy and unwieldy as a
cinder block. Otherwise, it’s unlike any
other book that she’s written—in the
best possible way.

MacDonald has said that the idea for
Fayne came to her in a flash: first, she
imagined a windswept landscape.
Then she drew a picture of the pan-
orama, adding a person in late-19th-
century clothing. In the novel that
emerged, the scene became the site of
Fayne, an ancient, crumbling estate on
12,000 acres of rugged moorland. The
figure became Charlotte Bell, a preco-
cious pre-teen who lives on the estate
with her father, Lord Henry Bell. Char-
lotte hearkens back to the tomboyish

child intellectuals of 19th- and early stunted by gender expectations,
20th-century literature, like Anne Shir- including the vivacious, long-dead
ley or Jo March, with an eidetic mem- Mae, an American heiress tormented
ory, an endless reserve of spunk and a by the grief of multiple miscarriages,
fondness for Greek and Latin tomes. and Charlotte’s prickly aunt Clarissa, a
What’s more, Charlotte is plagued with brilliant spinster in black silks whose
a so-called “Condition” that renders sex thwarted her academic pursuits.
her “morbidly susceptible to germs.”
As a result, she sees no one other than At its core, Fayne is an old-fashioned
her father and her loyal nursemaid, Gothic novel complete with an estate
Knox. Her mother, Mae, and her older in disrepair, a desolate setting and a
brother, Charles, are dead, memorial- young protagonist plagued by myster-
ized in an imposing oil painting that ies about herself and her home. Even
hangs on the landing of the home’s said protagonist’s name—Charlotte
main staircase. Bell—pays homage to Gothic great
Charlotte Brontë and the male pen
CHARLOTTE IS name she used, Currer Bell. Fayne
PLAGUED BY straddles the borderlands of England
and Scotland and, according to Knox,
MYSTERIES ABOUT of the human world and the world of
HERSELF AND HER faerie. Charlotte is also a character on
DESOLATE HOME the borders, in her case between child-
hood and maturity.
Because Charlotte’s mysterious con-
dition keeps her isolated, her father Gothic novels use the haunted house
hires a young male tutor to teach her as a double for the haunted body, and
about the modern sciences—evolu- MacDonald adopts this convention
tion, paleontology, chemistry—and with a wink and a twist. In Fayne, the
questions about her past and true house mirrors not just the complexities
identity begin to emerge. The book’s of womanhood, but also of queerness.
length gives MacDonald the freedom As the novel progresses, and her father
to develop her characters, who pop pushes her toward traditional feminin-
into three dimensions via candid let- ity in the form of corsets and petticoats,
ters and flashbacks. Through these Charlotte begins to question the story
digressions, we meet several fascinat- of her family and her so-called “Con-
ing figures that have been tragically dition,” uncovering thorny dynastic
secrets and a liberating truth about her-
self. Fayne is a big investment—of time,
of focus, of wrist strength—but the
twists are worth the page count.

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reader’s digest

BRAINTEASERS

IN-TILE-IGENCE Test IN-TILE-IGENCE TEST BY DARREN RIGBY; ONE TOO MANY COOKS BY EMILY GOODMAN; (TURKEY ILLUSTRATION) ISTOCK.COM/MARKO BABII
Easy Which one of
these four tiles could
not be used to cover
a floor if you had an
infinite supply of
them? Flipping them
over is allowed.

One Too Many Cooks
Easy You’re about to share a Friendsgiving
meal with five of your nearest and dearest.
Each friend made a different side. The
problem? Larry is a terrible cook, so you don’t
want to sample his dish. Based on the following
clues, can you figure out who made what—and
which item to leave off your own plate?

Friends Dishes Clues
DIVYA MASHED POTATOES Q Yuta did not make a dish with a
EMILIO CORNBREAD vegetable or grain in its name.
JASMINE MAC AND CHEESE
LARRY GRAVY Q Emilio made a side with only one
YUTA GREEN BEAN CASSEROLE word in its name.

Q Divya made the mac and cheese.

Q Jasmine did not make the green
bean casserole.

98 october 2022