The Garden of Eden

Monika Rohlmann is an environmental consultant in Yellowknife, Northwest
Territories.

Sharon Butala’s latest novel opens in an Ethiopian famine camp, where
hunger, sickness, and hopelessness mirror the inner struggles of Lanny
Stone—who, through her volunteer work, hopes to impose meaning on a
life scarred with disappointment. The action shifts to Saskatchewan,
where we meet the uncle and aunt who raised Lanny. Aunt Iris is the
book’s focal point. This unfulfilled rural housewife’s journey of
self-discovery is initiated when she travels to Ethiopia to find Lanny.

Written in the third person, the novel lacks the intimacy of Butala’s
earlier narratives, The Perfection of the Morning (1994) and Coyote’s
Morning Cry  (1995), both of which feature first-person narrators.
Nevertheless, The Garden of Eden presents some interesting correlations
between where Ethiopia is now and where the prairie grasslands are
headed.