Jalna

Susan Merskey is freelance writer in London, Ontario.

The Whiteoak family has lived in Southern Ontario in a big, old,
red-brick house since Grandmother Adeline and her husband Philip, a
captain in the British army, arrived in Canada in the 1860s. On rich
farmland cleared from the forest, they build their home, naming it Jalna
after the military station in India where they had first met.

In 1924, Jalna is home to Adeline, her bachelor sons Nicholas and
Ernest, her granddaughter Meg and grandsons Renny, Piers, Eden, Finch,
and Wakefield. Adeline has outlived her husband and one son, Philip. Her
widowed daughter, Lady Augusta, has come from England for a visit. Her
parrot, Boney, regularly shrieks Indian curses down upon the family.

The eldest grandson, Renny, has inherited Jalna from his father, and
fiercely protects the lands, the house, all who live there. When Piers
and Eden bring their brides to live there, family tensions are
exacerbated when Renny falls in love with Eden’s wife, Alayne. Amid
laughter, tears, and tumult, the book ends with the celebration of
Adeline’s 100th birthday.

When it first appeared in 1927, Jalna won the Atlantic Monthly–Little
Brown Award for Best Novel. Mazo de la Roche subsequently wrote 15 more
Jalna novels. Although it was written first, Jalna occupies seventh
place in the chronological Whiteoak family saga. This new edition was
published in 2006, along with The Master of Jalna and a new biography of
the author primarily intended for senior high-school students.

De la Roche’s rich and satisfying family saga proved to be addictive
to previous generations of readers. It is likely to cast a similar spell
over 21st-century readers.