Filling the Belly

Description

127 pages
$19.95
ISBN 1-894345-56-8
DDC C813'.6

Author

Publisher

Year

2003

Contributor

Reviewed by R. Gordon Moyles

R. Gordon Moyles is professor emeritus of English at the University of
Alberta, co-author of Imperial Dreams and Colonial Realities: British
Views of Canada, 1880–1914, and author of The Salvation Army and the
Public.

Review

“My name is Rosa. I keep secrets.” In this bittersweet story, Rosa
Keegan’s secrets are revealed in sympathetic detail. The only daughter
in a large Newfoundland family, she is surrounded by filial and parental
love but is sadly haunted by the memory of a forced sexual encounter and
embittered by the death of her father. Courageously, she works through
her ordeals by expressing her fears and frustrations in a secret
journal. In so doing, she achieves a measure of peace and manages to
transcend her personal angst. “The wind finds a resting place in her
belly” and, in a final self-confident moment, “she ascends the
mountain trail towards Lark Harbor head.”

But it is not her story only that captivates, as brilliantly told as it
is. It is, as well, Manuel’s control of nuance, her finely crafted
sentences, the originality of her images that pleasure us immensely. How
could one begin better than this: “There are places in this garden
where to be is like dreaming with the sun in your belly. The stump where
Father sits is one of those places. She leans against him, her leg slung
over his knee, and when she breathes, it is the living scent of stories
and safe times, of spruce trees and tobacco, of Father with a few
jollies in his belly that rumble like thunder when he throws back his
head and laughs.” That is evocative writing at its best, and Tara
Manuel as stylist and storyteller is a writer with a promising future.

Citation

Manuel, Tara., “Filling the Belly,” Canadian Book Review Annual Online, accessed July 13, 2025, https://cbra.library.utoronto.ca/items/show/17684.