Going Home

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

Home: a place we’ve come from; a place that’s a part of us. Home
isn’t necessarily where we live, but it is a place that always lives
in us.

This small collection of writings celebrates that concept of home, as
recognized by 11 Canadian authors. Margaret Laurence and David Helwig
are the two well-known authors represented in the anthology,
“anchoring” it in the way Zellers and Eaton’s anchor a shopping
mall. The other writers have varying degrees of local and regional
acclaim but are not yet nationally recognized.

The concept of home as presented by these authors is far from
traditional. No rose-bowered cottages here. Home, we’re told, could be
as tenuous as a campsite by a river, an apartment in the city, a garden,
a street in Brazil with store-front funeral homes, a dance pavilion, or
even a doll house. Collectively, the writings reach for a new meaning of
home. It is not where we grew up, but a place that holds meaning for us.


Some of the writings are definitely nonfiction. The cover blurb
pronounces some pieces to be “stories”; probably that means
there’s at least some fiction in the mix. Not knowing if I’m reading
fiction, fact, or fictionalized fact makes me feel cheated. The
collection is interesting but, for me, doesn’t generate a lot of
excitement.