One of the Chosen

June M. Blurton is a retired speech/language pathologist.

Danuta Gleed was born in a camp for people displaced from their
homelands by World War II. Following a childhood spent in Kenya and
England, she emigrated to Canada as a young adult. The collection and
editing of her writings followed her death in 1996.

It would appear that Gleed used these nine bleak and depressing short
stories as a means of dealing with some of the trauma in her own life.
In the words of one of her characters, “[t]here’s no difference
between the past and the present when the past is still going on in your
head.” With one exception, the stories concern displaced persons. Most
are told from the perspective of a female child or a young adult. The
adult women, including teachers and mothers, are despicable characters
with no feeling for a child’s misery. The fathers, though generally
more sympathetic, are alcoholics. Sexual abuse is at the core of two
stories; in addition to their dysfunctional families, the protagonists
must contend with the jeers and bullying of their peers.

Gleed evokes her settings with sensitivity and an impressive economy of
language: we feel the dust in Nairobi, the mist on the English moors,
the warmth of the sun reflected in a Canadian lake. Sympathetic or not,
Gleed’s characters are well-rounded. Her prose, though readable, is at
times weighed down by an excessive use of flashbacks. Readers are
advised that this book is not for the faint-hearted.