Return Journey

Noreen Mitchell is a librarian with the Toronto Public Library.

An airline flight from Halifax to London provides the framework on which this story is built. Having been summoned to Canada by her aunt, Jane is now on her way home to England. She is not travelling alone, however, since the purpose of her visit has been to serve as escort to her disabled mother who is going back to the country she left many years ago. The trip represents a return journey not only in fact for Jane and her mother, but also one in spirit since the time on board the plane is spent on recalling the events of the past. While Jane tries to resurrect only those memories which will amuse and soothe her companion, her unspoken words in the narrative reveal the full depth of the family’s pain and suffering caused by her mother’s gradual physical and mental deterioration. The mysterious progressive disease is never identified but, given the desperate request she makes of her daughter, it is clearly insupportable to Jane’s mother.

This first novel is extremely well crafted and catches the reader’s interest from the beginning: “My mother had been issued with a one-way ticket to Hell; she never travels alone. She can’t; she needs assistance every inch of the way.” The colourful past that Jane recounts follows the successive moves of her family through three continents; the description of the cultural and personality clashes which occur seem informed by the author’s own varied experiences. Her acute observation is evident, too, in the finely drawn characters. Even though the hopelessness of Jane’s mother’s condition is at times ponderous, the strengths of this book make Return Journey worth the trip.