Terra Firma

Ian C. Nelson is the former Assistant Director of Libraries (Collection
Management & Budget) at the University of Saskatchewan and Dramaturge
for the Festival de la Dramaturgie des Prairies.

Poet Christiane Frenette (1986 winner of the Octave-Crémazie prize)
received the 1998 Governor General’s Award for fiction for her first
novel, La Terre Ferme. Her poetic background is evident in virtually
every line of this novel, which gives haunting voice to the lives of
those left behind when two boys set themselves adrift on a suicidal
raft. The resonance of their action is felt throughout their village.
The collective and individual mourning for them colors everyone’s
life. In particular, a mother is caught up in the fear that her daughter
has followed the boys in suicide, since she has left abruptly taking
with her a newspaper clipping about the incident. The narrator captures
finely observed family and social rituals with an amazing economy of
words.

There is nothing ordinary about this novel. It magically incorporates
both suspense and poetry as it takes the reader on an emotional journey,
much like that of the girl. The reader may often feel a need simply to
pause in the narrative in order to savor lines as pure as poetry (e.g.,
“The paradise of little girls who died in ditches”). The celebrated
Sheila Fischman is responsible for the fine translation. Highly
recommended.