Swimming into Darkness

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

Thora, a 13-year-old girl of Icelandic origin, is spending the summer on
a lake near a small town in Saskatchewan. The year is 1962, and the
provincial government has introduced a bill to socialize medicine.
Supporters of the bill believe that Medicare is a progressive step.
Gretchen, Thora’s best friend, is the daughter of a doctor and the
doctors are on strike. Their supporters believe that Medicare will
interfere in the way doctors do their business. The two girls get caught
up in the turmoil, taking different sides.

Gretchen is a loner, but Thora hovers on the fringe of a group of older
teens. The stress produced by the situation causes tension between them,
and when Gretchen is attacked Thora does not go to her defence. The
tragic outcome and Thora’s inability to confess her part in the
accident haunts Thora for the next 36 years.

Thora, now an archeologist, is supervising the restoration of an
Icelandic-Canadian poet’s house in Alberta. There is a mystery as to
why this prolific writer suddenly stopped writing. When Thora solves the
mystery, she is able to confront her own guilt.

Gail Helgason has created a believable character in Thora, both as a
young teen and as an older woman, and she has written a fine story.
However, the author has an unfortunate tendency to signal events ahead
of time, and nothing except confusion is gained by not keeping the two
episodes separate. Nevertheless, the story itself makes the book well
worth reading. Swimming into Darkness won the Alberta 2002 Best First
Book award.