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Very Canadian🍁🇨🇦—very French-Canadian⚜️🇨🇦—about a young woman who—following her mother’s death—searches through her possessions, trying to understand who she was. She seemed a stranger to Hanna—always so distant. Her search uncovers surprising information that lifts some of the ever-present fog.

She discovers, in part, that the St. Lawrence River links three generations of her family in ways she could never have imagined. We learn about one of the worst nautical disasters in Canadian history. On a very foggy evening in May 1914, near the mouth of the river, the ocean liner, Empress of Ireland, is struck by the Norwegian collier, Storstad, and sinks in just 14 minutes, killing 1012 of the 1477 souls on board. Of the 138 children, only 4 survive.

Frequently asked in the book: ��Do poems save us from suffering?�� Poetry does, in fact, save both mother and daughter. Though it’s not revealed why, both kept their poetry to themselves, never revealing its existence to anyone.

A short poem from the final few pages, written by the author—Hélène Dorion, award-winning poet, author, and multidisciplinary artist—especially touched my heart:

like a flame that bows and leaps,
as sound waves pass,
poignant as first love remembered,
the past, the lost, the never-to-be
glimpsed between the coming and the gone.

It’s quite a moody novel so it may not be for everyone, but those who choose to read it will be justly rewarded.

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🔹from a poem by Yves Bonnefoy, trans. Hoyt Rogers