Call Me Mimi.

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

Call Me Mimi deals with finding one’s self while searching for a “missing” parent. The only child of a single mother who worked two jobs to pay for her daughter’s tuition to Montreal’s exclusive St. Mary’s Academy for Girls, Mimi Morissette had been essentially friendless during her six years at the school. Among the rich, svelte “beautiful people,” Mimi had stood out, not just in an economic sense but also because of her appearance. Now 17, the 5 foot, 2 inch Mimi, who weighs 170 pounds, “survived” St. Mary’s by retreating into fantasy worlds in which she became a beauty pageant winner, Queen Elizabeth II’s confidante, and Celine Dion’s close personal friend. Mimi’s overriding fantasy, however, involved her father, someone entirely unknown to her because her conception was the result of her divorced mother’s having gone to a Toronto sperm bank. During the summer between grade 12 and university, Mimi decides to go to Toronto to find her father. Instead, she discovers the person she is inside her skin through her interactions with an estranged aunt, Tante Amélie, and her university student coworkers at a bookstore, Luc and Fiona, with all of them having their own identity challenges. The theme of responding to grief, so prominent in After, is also found in Call Me Mimi as the principal players respond to deaths, both actual and metaphorical. Recommended.