If Home Is a Place

June M. Blurton is a retired speech pathologist.

World War II was drawing to a close when a mother and her two teenage
daughters fled from Estonia ahead of the advancing Soviet armies.
Despite the appalling conditions in Europe they survived the refugee
camps and eventually immigrated to Canada. They prospered and raised
their own children, but the strongest force in their lives remained
their attachment to Estonia and their hatred of the Soviet Union, which
had enslaved their small country.

Esther is the Canadian-born daughter of one of these refugees. Although
she has no first-hand knowledge of Estonia, she has internalized her
parents’ attitudes and has therefore never felt that she belongs
anywhere. It is not until the Soviets are driven from Estonia that she
is free to claim Canada as her home and to live her own life.

The author uses a series of flashbacks to contrast the older
generation’s physical struggle for survival in Europe in the 1940s
with Esther’s emotional struggle in Canada in the 1990s. This format
tends to be cumbersome, but the stories of the two generations are
compelling. There are graphic descriptions of the chaos that was Europe;
of the displaced people in the refugee camps; of the lack of the bare
necessities of life; of Estonia under Soviet domination; of the
emotional baggage carried by the children of refugees; and of
commune-style life in British Columbia.

Kivi’s writing makes her characters and their emotions real.
Altogether, this is a very satisfying book.