“Years of impeccable research resulted in a work of historical fiction set in 1730’s New France where-in a girl in disguise must conceal her real identity or die. A marvelous story based on the life of an obscure historical figure who challenged the restrictions imposed on outsiders in post-colonial Canada.”

– Book Club Recommendations 2013

Good Reads for the Road

The Tale-Teller
author Susan Glickman
publisher Cormorant Books

by Alessandra Ferreri

In 1768, a young woman arrives at the port of New France disguised as a man.

The success of her journey undiscovered is short lived as she is quickly picked out for questioning by Quebec officials. Rather than speak plainly, the woman named Esther Brandeau, delves into a fantastic story about her unusual upbringing on a remote island by a family of apes.

Skeptical of her story, the officials put Esther under house arrest until they can decide what to do with her. No one suspects that Esther is  Jewish, and thus prohibited from entering New France. With her fate left to the officials, Esther keeps her true self shrouded in mystery.

Instead, the power of her tale-telling charms the minds and hearts  of everyone she encounters and Esther becomes a societal sensation with stories of exotic beaches, pirate raids, kidnapped children, desert nomads and lost love, all with gorgeous detail and delicate insight far beyond her years and social position.

Based on a real figure, The Tale-Teller is a detailed look at Canadian society in 1768 and a commentary on the strength and versatility of a young woman who chose to combat the social limitations of her gender and religion with shrewdness and imagination.

Not only does author Susan Glickman illuminate the beauty of New France in the 18th century, but she takes us all over the world through the delightful musing of a female hero you cannot help but love. My only complaint would be that I wanted it to last longer. At just over 200 pages, The Tale-Teller is a rather quick read, which leaves some details skimmed over in favour of others and I’m a greedy reader when it comes to historical fiction.  Published by Cormorant Books (a fabulous Canadian publisher) in 2012, The Tale-Teller is a rich, poetic read for the historical-fiction lover.

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Today’s Music

Susan Glickman’s book, The Smooth Yarrow, shows a chilling awareness of mortality through the accumulation of injuries like broken bones and the loss of teeth. Not old yet, she is close enough to celebrate elderly women “who use their best china every day / and jump the queue at the grocery store because they have so little in their baskets / and no time to waste.” Even her garden poems mix exquisite celebrations of new life with knowledge of the transience of beauty. The first section of her work is called “Homeopathic Principles.” Whatever the truth of homeopathy as a medical practice might be, the philosophy of treating an illness with drugs that induce its symptoms is – suggestive. A poem can build up our resistance by administering mild doses of the very toxins that we suffer from in living: sickness, age, grief. The loss of a loved one is the greatest toxin of all, and Glickman’s elegy  for her father, “Breath,” offers not consolation but a powerful recreation of his passing, with the breath of the dying man as the focal point for a family unsure how to react. Emily Dickinson’s great poem, “IheardaFlybuzz–whenI died” comes to mind, but the confusion in Glickman’s poem is in the watchers, not the person dying. “We hesitated, no longer sure what to pray for.” Uncertainty is the paradoxical remedy here, evidence of how deeply the family cares. The poem that deals explicitly with homeopathy as a metaphor is “Homeopathic Remedies for Scar Tissue.” Glickman knows that life is a series of scarring experiences. One remedy is to smear sandalwood paste on the injury. It will attract bees, from which we may learn how to dance in the sun and how to fight back, though a bee’s self-defence is fatal. But life is fatal, after all. In one of her excellent garden poems she celebrates the compacted hearts of rosehips (analogues for the mature poet), and calls them “Late bloomers: late / as in late Brahms. Not tardy / but ripe.” The analogy with the great autumnal works of Brahms is a good one and also fits Glickman’s own wise and elegant work.