Review of Zohra Zoberi’s book 

“Therapeutic Lies” 

(By Rubyha McKenzie)  

The book itself, Therapeutic Lies, is comfortable to hold, with its soft silky finish.  Its cover, done by artist Zainab Mansoor Zuberi, pours out in brilliant colour, the totally consuming relationship of the dementia patient and his caregiver. Between its two covers lie 202 pages that follow, in clear language, the Dance of life between a famous scientist, researcher and professor- Dr. Mujeeb Zoberi, and his beloved wife Zohra, as he slides into Dementia, and passes in 2018. 

Printing Legacy Inc. carefully and classically crafted this book with its opening Blank page, its Title Page,  Copyright page, Dedication page with epigraph, its 2 page acknowledgement of the sponsorship by The Mississauga Arts Council,  and support by the Alzheimer’s Society Peel, its Table of Contents which includes a Foreword by Katie Griffiths of Peel Alzheimer, the Introduction:  which includes the early years of Dr. Mujeeb Zoberi and his wife Zohra; General Information and Guidelines for Patients and Care Partners;  4 Stages of Decline, into Afterword by a Geriatric Specialist Dr. Ali Ahmad, Acknowledgements, References, and About the Author, Zohra Zoberi herelf. 

Despite its rigorous conformity to formatting and layout, its font is elegant in its simplicity, and allows the reader to move through the book effortlessly. In truth and in fact, Zohra Zoberi accomplishes what she sets out to do- to give us a spare handbook, easy to travel with, that is chock-full of relevant information and data: spliced-in at just the right time. These gray research based inserts, are strategically placed, as the love story of her dementia journey with Mujeeb, unfolds. Her style of writing is light, conversational, emotionally engaging and filled with funny innuendo. I became quite engrossed in this story, which I shall call, The Third I, almost a continuation of The Other I, her previous autobiographical work.   

I have known Zohra Zoberi as a WEN member.  This was the calm, collected, sophisticated artist: the poet, the author of The Other I, the playwright, and hostess of soiree evenings…but never did I suspect the existence of this fourth person – The Care Giver of Mujeeb, still trying to find the path forward after his passing in 2018. 

He was the love of her life, the spouse with whom she conceived and raised a son, who in turn, gave her three beautiful grand-daughters. Yes, Mujeeb was a part of The First I, the academic, the scientist, the Professor who was swept off his feet by a seventeen year old, and had the good sense to court her through letters, and line up a job offer that would attract and bring stars to her young eyes. . .  

He it was, who opened the bud that was Zohra: he showed her the world as his traveling companion throughout Europe, Africa… and other parts. He supported her advanced education and interests in sports, music, art and culture. She learned a lot about his work, his interests, and shared his love for mushrooms, even sketching the illustrations for his award winning book about mushrooms, Tropical Macro-fungi.  

 Therapeutic Lies is not just a manual for care-partners. More than a manual, it is the bringing to a full circle, the sacred ritual that is marriage.     

Zohra Zoberi, author and wife of Mujeeb, takes us on a journey in this book, not just as a time-line of Mujeeb’s decline, but of the essence of marriage, that not all partners are called upon to live-up to.  

The joyful “YES” to Mujeeb’s proposal of marriage at 17; the joyful “YES” to his request to accept the lucrative job offer in Nigeria, were both gateways into the luxury life that Mujeeb provided: excitement, adventure, freedom to grow socially, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. . . without the strings of being a parent. It was the fulfillment of the dream of every teenager. This was the “I” of her memoirs. The Other I was when he could no longer provide for that dream- the move to Canada, and his loss of earning power, and health.   

Now a mother with a growing family, Zohra, literally puts on her ‘running shoes’: to find employment, creating a whole career in banking;  to use her creative resources to give voice to her stories rooted in the cultural diversity of music, language, ritual and ceremony, celebration and cuisine; via her memoirs, poetry, drama; to generate connection with the various arts resources of Mississauga: The Mississauga Arts Council; Writers and Editors Network, Oakville Literary Cafe,  the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Ontario Trillium Foundation. 

During this period of time, as Mujeeb’s mental health deteriorated, the one question that buoyed her spirit, fuelled her stamina was, “How can this happen? How can this ‘demon’ take away this brilliant mind of my husband more and more every day?” She referred to it as ‘Demon-tia’, a metaphor that Katie Griffiths loved! 

 She sought help from the Alzheimer’s Society of Peel, and got the support that a family care-giver needs: the medical understanding and mental health education, about what was happening to Mujeeb; the connection to the Hospitals, Medical Services, and PSWs that provided day-to day resources. Zohra acknowledges and gives credit to Alzheimer’s Society Peel, in Therapeutic Lies, “for warmly welcoming and supporting this mental health related literary art project”.  

Later-on, from Katie Griffiths- Director of Community Services, Alzheimer’s Society Peel, came the reinforcement and support for sharing her stories as a care giver. This relationship developed into a warm and mutually supportive platform that blossomed into the publishing of Therapeutic Lies, in 2026.    Blossomed was used twice, I changed it.  

Through her powerful spirituality- her humility, her prayer-life, her love for, and respect for all peoples and cultures; her compassion for the suffering, and her own refusal to be disrespected- Zohra transmuted her path as Mujeeb’s caregiver, into the clear-eyed, straightforward narration of Therapeutic Lies– the story of Mujeeb’s decline within the cocoon of their marriage, and family life.   She gave credit for that identity and self-image to her beloved father, and later to Mujeeb, who always re-enforced her, and in his last days whispered . . . Don’t be naïve and never be Bechaaree. (Helpless woman) 

We, as parents have done it with our babies and young children. They simply did not have the emotional capacity, the language or cognition to deal with the loss of a pet, a loved one: a favourite cuddly toy, a doll, a family member. So, what did we do? Julie Andrews couched it well in words that we still hum. . . Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, helps… 

In Zohra’s case, she had the support of family and a few close friends, PSWs, and other professionals to help her use very creative ways, and language to deal with his uncontrollable and sometimes violent bursts of rage, obsessive need for her presence, and the secretive dark side of his disorder- stealing, lying, hoarding, and paranoia.  

In the case of her family, she specifically mentions her son, and his wife, who tried very hard to relieve her so that she could have time for self-care. This would only last for a very short time, as invariably Mujeeb, her husband grew increasingly agitated by her absence, and demanded that he be taken to her at once. . .They had no choice but to comply.  

She writes about the loving, creative, and gentle ways their grand-daughters supported his need for nurturance, fun, and entertainment. Initially, Zohra felt very guilty about using those ‘creative’ ways to fool, or lie to Mujeeb, but soon realized that, he just did not have the psychological resources to deal with the real-life decisions of self-care: medical appointments, medication, and personal care from time to time; of realising that Zohra herself, his wife, also had social, emotional needs that did not involve him; of  decisions regarding home and property, finances, and of travel plans, and most important of all, of dealing with the reality that she had increasingly become the bread-winner.  

 In all these ways Zohra slowly and surely learned how to arrive at peaceful loving solutions with Mujeeb. She eventually came -to- terms with using these untruths, guided by the professionals of The Alzheimer’s Society of Peel, and her daily interaction with the PSWs of the health care system of Mississauga. She encapsulated these subterfuges in the title of her book: Therapeutic Lies, because it simply and effectively describes how she was able, thanks to these creative untruths, to take care of Mujeeb, the dementia patient, and of herself as the care giver. 

I cannot think of a more fitting accolade for Zohra, when in June 2026, she was awarded the MARTY’S   Lifetime Achievement Award in Mississauga. It does crown her for her work over the past 50 years, as a playwright, author, and humanitarian who ‘exemplifies a profound commitment to fostering empathy and cultural understanding…’.  But what it does not mention is that powering all these achievements is the heart-energy of this woman Zohra Zoberi.   

In Therapeutic Lies Zohra gives us in plain simple language the road map of how one spouse takes care of another, when the chips are down. In so doing, she undergirds and enriches the lives of their son, daughter-in-law, anyone who needs support as a care-giver in Mississauga, ON Canada, but most importantly, passes on to their grand-daughters, what it means to really take care of someone you love.                                                                                                        

 

Reviewed by Rubyha McKenzie, M.Ed. 

Montessori Education, AMI 

Loyola College, MD 

A Pocketful of Starlight Ó2022 

Rubyaah: Emerging From the Mists of Time Ó2018 

 July 14th 2026 

 

In the most inaccurate sense, The Girls of Priory Hall could be a workplace romance. Yes, it is a romance, but not the usual type—boy meets girl—full of deception, angst, and humour. Wheatley is not repackaging the usual rom-com as in TV programs such as The Office. But the novella has the elements of a true love story: loneliness, longing, isolation, admiration, seduction and, above all, vulnerability.

 

All human interaction happens in a setting or situation. Isla Owen, the twenty-year-old something heroine, arrives at Priory Hall, the semi-remote Quebec boarding school (women only)—at Pemberton—near Sherbrooke. Fiercely independent, Isla left her working-class family in Britain to forge a life and career in Canada.  Like the Mississippi in Huckleberry Finn or New York City in The Catcher in the Rye, Priory Hall is the thread that integrates Isla into the rigours of teaching while interacting with the “old biddies,” other teachers (old and young), girl students, townsfolk, and men in this remote environment. We assume the third-person narrator is sympathetic to Isla and is not old. Wheatley’s referencing to the “biddies” throughout suggests an antipathy toward the aging women—by both Isla and the storyteller.

 

Like Huck Finn and Holden Caulfield, Isla ventures into a different world with new experiences and various characters. Unlike Holden and Huck, she encounters something different: passion, sensuality, and love. Love comes at unpredictable times and in the most unexpected places for Isla and most of us. You can meet someone crossing the street, in a coffee shop or workplace and fall head over heels. But as Tina Turner once crooned, “What’s love got to do with it?” In time, the answer to this question hits Isla hard, as it does for many; it’s reality. Love can catch you unawares, but can it keep you? Wheatley is skillful enough to make us empathize with Isla Owen—whether we want to or not. Sometimes, one feels that Isla is undeserving of our compassion, but the reader’s desire is irrelevant. Empathy is hard for any writer to elicit in the reader, and Isla’s self-absorption prevents us from connecting freely to her secret, unrequited passion—not love.

 

Miss Owen’s covert longing is for the school’s illustriously seductive but coolly reserved and self-assured administrator, Vera Annesley. The eventual affair happens in the confines of her boss’s boudoir—a boudoir like no other, replete with all the trappings of success: chic clothing, rows of expensive shoes, and a pink silk bedcover. Vera’s apartment (like her appearance) is orderly, imbued with a tastefully calm ambience but ripe for seduction.

 

There’s no doubt Vera is Isla’s boss. Because of this, Wheatley runs the risk—which she takes—of creating a power-over dynamic between the more mature  Vera and the naive but not unwitting (or unwilling) younger teacher. Is Miss Owen truly that vulnerable? Is Vera as strong and committed as she appears early in the book? Is Vera approaching the old biddie stage and needing reassurance that she still has the power to attract her object of desire? Does she still have “it?” These are the questions Wheatley plants in the reader’s mind. Moreover, who is the dominant force—the older woman—or the ingenue? Who’s controlling who?

 

It’s difficult not to explore the underlying psychological (Freudian), sociological (class distinction), political (Rene Levesque’s  Quebec liberation) and literary (Rowenna’s Difficult Term) themes that intersperse and encapsulate the storyline. Vera’s illustrious shoe collection is Freudian; Isla’s working-class Putney is leftist, and the various schoolgirl literary ghosts that recurrently haunt Isla’s unconscious surface and portray her, at times, as a drama queen. Wheatley’s referencing of Rene Levesque and the Marxist surge that morphed into the infamous and violent FLQ indicate Isla’s political convictions. Is the lowly Isla symbolic of the worker capturing the citadel of the swanky Miss Vera Annesley? Once captured, what next? The conqueror and conquered are not as straightforward as they may seem. And the politics become increasingly binding as the story evolves to its stark ending. But we can’t dismiss the psychological forces that impact Isla from within.

 

So, a lot is happening inside Isla’s psyche—with a struggle between her id, ego, and superego. The winner in this dynamic (and future ones) is the id when, on p. 136, Vera instructs Isla to remove her skimpy black panties and bra. “Take them off…slowly,” she urges while in the confines of her candlelit boudoir.  The conflux of libido and impropriety (it is a girls’ school, after all) manages to appease the reader’s urge to peek at the erotic scenes for voyeuristic pleasure. Wheatley’s subtle and suggestive artistic depictions put the likes of Henry Miller to shame.

 

However, Isla’s desire extends beyond Miss Annesley. This union is in the making throughout the early pages as Wheatley cleverly sprinkles bread crumbs, leading to the inevitable climax. On p.108, Isla nearly succumbs to Vera’s charming advances inside her tiny, unkempt room. This contrast between the women grips the reader and confirms the truism that opposites do attract. Despite the mutual attraction, Isla’s superego (conscience) pushes her away from the snuggled warmth of her breasts. Vera wisely departs, climbs the stairs to her quarters, and awaits another day. At least she has laid the groundwork for the inevitable seduction on p. 123 and 136. Patience and restraint seem to be Annesley’s hallmark traits, but that wears thin later in the book. So what’s the issue? What causes the shift in both the narrative and within Isla?

 

Frankly, Miss Owen finds men as alluring as the older grand dame, the sophisticated administrator—full of grace and cunning. Perhaps Isla’s infatuation is wearing thin. Miss Annesley does not share the same appetite; men neither interest nor intrigue her. A nearby boys’ school, Braemar, supplied the unattached Priory teachers with available male teachers that proved hit or miss. Isla’s first date with Martin Dove (ironic name) ended with Isla using her working-class smarts to dig “her nails into the back of his neck” when he overrode her unconditional “no.” Dove’s an obvious miss, but the encounter shows Isla’s power to refuse and to affirm her authentic self as the source of her strength. To refuse, to say no, is fundamental to all human freedom in the true existential sense. But this inability to refuse, to say no, dissipates and entraps her in the end. Knowing one is attractive to both sexes might imbue anyone with a heightened narcissism and hubris, something rare but not uncommon. Maybe Isla’s hubris seals her fate, but the reader can become frustrated trying to unravel the psychical, political, sociological, literary and philosophical undercurrents. I did say this was not your ordinary sitcom nor a romance paperback available at the airport confectionary store.

 

The book’s artistic strength lies in Wheatley’s unflinching description of pretty well everything. The countryside, the old biddies’ activities, Montreal, the grimy handyman Dirk, and the girls’ rooms are both mundane and vibrant-—and explode in technicolour. And, as I’ve posed, the intimate goings-on are equally masterful. But I must reiterate. The reader feels the tenderness filling these encounters between the two women. And the fetishes of bras and panties and restitching of torn nighties “ sheer and delicate” remind us of those delights inside Vera’s inner sanctum, that top-floor apartment. Does the torn nightie suggest the lovemaking was both passionate and tender? Women aside, Wheatley’s male portrayals are as convincing and accurate as those of writers Norman Mailer and Philip Roth. At times, these portrayals equal and possibly surpass Wheatley’s characterizations of fringe players, such as her chum Esme  with her stereotypical girlish series of “ugh-h-h.” The men, Ives, Andre—even Dove and the “horrid” Dirk—breathe masculinity. They are real.

 

At the book’s midpoint, things change with the introduction of Ives, a young pig farmer who whisks Isla off and sweeps her away on his motorcycle. This harmless but realistic escapade ends in a kiss that Isla savoured afterwards and— for whatever reason— related to Annesley. Did Isla know this would invoke jealousy in Vera? Here is the first glimpse of a fracture and insight into Vera’s vulnerability or fear of losing her source of joy, as she said, “my sweetest little thing.”

 

On p. 157, Wheatley paints a different picture of Vera, who is aging with “withered lips” and has bouts of indigestion that most oldsters experience. Vera is becoming less appealing but may also be tired of her ingenue when she brings another student to her “lovely big house in Boston.” Why not invite Isla, alone at Priory, over Christmas vacation? Good question.

 

Esme persuades her to see Montreal, where they enjoy the city and the nightlife. There, Isla meets the attractive, natural and sensitive Andre. The tryst differs markedly from the sweet tenderness in Vera’s arms and the battle with Mr. Dove. Despite the contrast, Isla accepts the flip side of hetero sex: the bulging penis, the condom, and the aftermath of the dreaded douche which Esme insisted she take.

 

All does not end well because Isla later spots Andre with a tall, well-dressed blonde who sneers at her and chastizes Andre for fraternizing with the enemy—Les Anglais. It’s clear Andre had used Isla as a one-nighter despite his attempt to defend her as not your typical Anglo because she supports the Quebecois and their fight for liberation from the dominant English culture. Was Andre a good choice or a wrong choice?

 

On returning to Priory in January, Isla discovers that a maid, Nellie, whom she had befriended, had hurt her hand and was no longer employable, so the school fired her. When Isla addressed this with Annesley, asking about a pension for Nellie, Vera found her concern for the underdog tedious and Isla’s attitude a breach of protocol. For Annesley, worrying about your inferiors is inconsequential. Besides, Isla had shown her rebellious side earlier in her defence of spunky Bunty McIver, who had won the first girl election “fair and square.” The biddies tried to overturn the result with a rigged vote in favour of a more “appropriate” and mature woman. Still, Isla refuses to conform to the pressure of the establishment and casts the decisive vote in Bunty’s favour. The class consciousness ingrained in Isla and the British social welfare system parallels the liberation pursuit of the working-class French Canadians of the 1960s.

 

So, with the decreasing attraction between the two heroines and their disparate personalities and political leanings, the inevitable breakup surfaces. It was time for Isla to escape “the grip of her singular passion with Miss Annesley.”

 

Nurturing a friendship with the maid Suzette—frowned upon by the old biddies and Vera—she agrees to go dancing at LaLumiere hall, close to the US border, with American men frequenting the place in search of the fun-loving French Canadian women. By chance, Ives, the pig farmer, shows up, and Isla learns that the rural inhabitants do not support the leftist policies but harbour the traditional conservative values of church and family. Isla knows Quebec is less homogenous than she thought; perhaps worker solidarity is less intense than in urban Putney. The political ideologies of the metropolitan left and rural right vie for power globally. And some who rise from humble beginnings are the first to distance themselves from their comrades.

 

The Girls of Priory Hall is a novella, not a short story nor novel, but an exploration into the leading actor’s character and psyche. Wheatley’s book reminds one of Meursault in Camus’ novella, The Outsider. Isla’s ability to say no, to question or refuse, dissolves, and she winds up—not facing the gallows as Meursault—but with an unwanted pregnancy. Unsure of the father, Ives or Andre, but it doesn’t matter, Isla bitterly departs the school and heads into the uncertainty of her vast adopted country. She also leaves behind her jilted lover, Vera Annesley, who is still stylish with her “dark brocade material” shoes. Vera ignores Isla’s apologetic hand for a final touch of warmth—the same hand that had caressed Isla-—with tenderness and affection. The reader now understands the impact of the opening scene where another girl, another Isla perhaps, mutters the word “sorry” while acridly departing Priory Hall. Indeed, history might reverse itself—first as farce-—then as tragedy.

 

“Sorry won’t cut it,” Vera said to Isla and “stepped briskly inside.” No longer lovers, no longer friends, nor two ships passing in the night where the respective captains sound out blasts of acknowledgement and respect.

 

Is life tragic or absurd, or both? We all stumble to the final curtain in our dramas, clutching our bundle of choices. The ending is neither sad nor final because we are, as some say, the totality of those choices and nothing more. And life goes on. In a sense, we are all Islas, which raises this book into the world of universal human emotions. The Girls of Priory Hall is not a woman’s book or melodrama but one for everyone, regardless of gender. Isla is every woman or man facing the unknown, and we should embrace her humanity; we did it for Huck Finn and Holden Caulfield.

 

Smitten will leave you in tears!

A review by Ben Antao

The word smitten at once brought to mind the adolescent idea of love that tends to fade away as the adolescents get over it after becoming young adults. However, in Jake Hogeterp’s novel titled Smitten, the idea doesn’t weaken but lingers on, forcing the reader to look at teenage love and friendship in a new light.

The story centres round a Canadian family, adherents of Dutch Reformed Church.  The novel begins with a tragic accident in which Paul van Hoop is badly hurt during a canoe trip over white water rapids in Ontario, with his friend Tom Zondervan, the first person protagonist. The opening is gripping and draws the reader into the narrative.

Through flashbacks, the author fills in the backstory of the other characters, especially that of Revered Arendt van Hoop, who immigrated to Canada from Holland, after serving as a chaplain to the nursing wards in a hospital soon after the Second World War in 1945. Both Paul and Tom are bosom friends, although Tom is a lapsed Christian of the faith.

It is after the accident when Paul is in hospital that the main action begins to develop at an engaging pace, with the author weaving in twists in the plot to inject melodrama and surprises.

The writing is fluent and captures the lifestyle of the Dutch Reformed faithful in Canada.

Here is a sample:

Reverend: “So, Thomas, tell me why want to become a member of the church.”

Tom: I wasn’t expecting anything quite so direct, and wasn’t sure whether the formal “Thomas” was meant to intimidate or be interpreted as a signal that I had somehow slinked through the initiation. All year long and two or three years prior, we had been catechized on the salient points of church doctrine. …And now here was van Hoop hurling the whole basket of goods in my face and asking me for some kind of personal statement.

My answer popped out before I had a chance to give it a thought.  “I don’t.”

If I found something missing, it is the setting that could have been better identified through street names as happening in Toronto or Hamilton.

The theme of the story appears to be a brooding angst over wrong doing as Tom blames himself for the accident.

I recommend this novel if you are a sucker for emotion and tears; but more than that, you’ll get a front row view of the hanky-panky going on inside so-called Christian families. The author writes whereof he knows.

     Ben Antao is a journalist and novelist living inToronto.

—–

  

Perparim Kapllani’s novel “The Thin Line” has the readers walking on a thin line of emotions.

The drama unfolds when Ermal Bllaca’s family flees and hides in a basement to escape from the Serbian Police and Yugoslav Army who are taking revenge by killing Albanians for the NATO bombing of former Yugoslavia. But they had nothing to do with the Kosovo Liberation Army.

Hundreds die including his mother , Marigona and three sisters Tana, Trendelina, and Dodona.

We witness Ermal’s grief and his recovery from his surgery of his bleeding arm. Throughout the novel intense action and suspense is created until Ermal is finally reunited with his father, Adem.

The struggles that Ermal and Adem experience are palpable. They have to adjust to a new homeland while being tormented and haunted by the memories of the war atrocities they witnessed.

They get some type of closure once their family is located and a proper burial is provided and they are present to witness the event.

The novel is compelling and heart-wrenching.

 

Maria Pia Marchelletta

President, WEN

 

Alan Joe has just released his first book titled Of Ox and Unicorn. It is presently being sold on Amazon in paperback and kindle format. You can also pick up a copy from Alan Joe directly at WEN breakfast meetings. Here is the description from Amazon.

“Alan Joe has crafted a gripping and heart-wrenching page-turner about his perilous childhood in China, a teenager’s angst as a newcomer in Toronto’s postwar Chinatown, and fulfillment as a professional and family man. Recommended for anyone whose roots are from afar – and that would be most of us.”
~ Arlene Chan, librarian and author

“Alan Joe tells the deeply moving and inspirational story of how, after surviving extreme poverty and the ravages of war in his boyhood years of the 1940s, he emigrated to Canada, and eventually found peace, hope, reconciliation, self-fulfillment, and opportunity. In the process, he helps us better understand the history of the Chinese community in Canada, and how significantly it has contributed to our culture and way of life. We need many more such stories.”
~ Philip Warren, PhD, former Professor at Memorial University,
who has written extensively about Newfoundland education

“Of Ox and Unicorn is a contribution, not only to the Canadian Chinese community, but also to immigrants in other countries and of different faiths, and to the general reader. It is with great pleasure that I invite you to read this excellent autobiography.”
~ excerpt the Foreword by Muriel Gold, CM, PhD,
Author, Tell Me Why Nights are Lonesome (a family history) and six additional books.

Born in Canton, China, in 1937, Alan Joe experienced some of the worst of the Japanese occupation of his homeland and the uncertainly caused by advancing Communist forces after World War II. Settling in Toronto in 1950, he faced many of the challenges that immigrants must overcome, finally graduating as a dentist, with a specialty in orthodontics. Now retired, Alan lives with his wife in Toronto and St. Petersburg, Florida.

 

The Secret Life of Roberta Greaves

by Ann Birch

 A Review

With delicious wit and irony, Ann Birch tells the story of Roberta Greaves, a professor of classic literature at Trinity College. Roberta compromises her moral principles and her professional integrity in order to raise money to cover her dead husband’s debts.

No, she doesn’t deal drugs or sleep with the Dean. She writes a sleazy, steamy novel—a work of pure crap. She gets the idea from a story of lust and incest told in classical literature by Ovid, the Roman poet.  Myrrha of Ovid’s tale becomes Mira, the heroine of Roberta’s pulp. It sells, big time.

Her success has serious negative repercussions, and Roberta deeply regrets what she has done, even though the project achieves its purpose.  She must hide her connection to Mira from her family and colleagues. She is in danger of losing everything she loves if she is found out and if she isn’t.

Supported by those who love her, Roberta makes her way through the mess of deceit and loss to a place where she sees a way to redeem herself.  The book has a spectacularly happy ending. Enjoy.

by Isobel Raven

 

A Writer’s Journey

From Mind to Keyboard: A Review

Iris C F Gomes
Being a writer is a hard work and anybody who has dabbled in writing, albeit occasionally, will bear testimony to the fact. Imagine having the gumption to carry on with it alongside your primary source of income, or even adopting it as your only means of livelihood. Only the madness and passion that fuels the tenacity of writers presents us with a plausible answer to why there are people who have chosen to enter into writing professionally.

From Mind to Keyboard, edited by Sheela Jaywant and published by Goa, 1556, is a book of stories from different writers living in Goa about their journeys as writers: what set off the spark and what kept them going despite any odds that presented themselves against their choice. The contributors are not all of Goan origin, and so they provide us with an insight into a writing world and its struggles that goes beyond the narrow confines of our State. It is, nevertheless, heartening to acknowledge the number of prominent writers Goa has produced.

The book has journalist Ben Antao transporting us to a pre-liberation Goa, documenting his balancing act of working for the Bombay Port Trust, writing for the Indian Express and the Goan Tribune, and commencing his MA studies, before finally coming to work for the Navhind Times in Goa under Lambert Mascarenhas. Antao talks about the requirements of being a journalist, namely the possession of knowledge that covers many areas as well as the knowledge of the specific details of a particular sphere or discipline: something that makes journalism an incredibly challenging field. He is candid about the very human limitations of journalism in presenting the absolute truth.

Award winning writer and food historian Odette Mascarenhas talks about publishing woes with regard to the first book she wrote, which was about her father-in-law Miguel Arcanjo Mascarenhas, a noted Goan chef. She describes how she learnt to handle praise and criticism, moving on to write children’s books and a Goan recipe book among others in the story titled Rocky Roads Bring Out the Best in Me.

An ardent lover of books since childhood, internationally and nationally acclaimed Konkani writer Damodar Mauzo confides that he once believed that Konkani could not be used as a medium for expressing prose. This fallacy was destroyed when he absorbed the writing of Shenoy Goem-Bab, eventually leading Mauzo along a path of fame.

Goa Streets’ Steve Gutkin leads us through an interesting journalistic career with not a dull moment. In one of the livelier reads in the book, he recounts being stranded with the Yanomami tribesmen of the Amazon jungle, covering drug cartels in Columbia, travelling with Hugo Chavez, writing about suicide bombings and the death of Yasser Arafat in Israel and so on. The man could write a book on his own experiences as a journalist.

Author Anita Pinto’s verses are a fun and refreshing way of telling her story, I Write, In Verse, as she departs from the monotony of prose.

The rest of the writers come from varied backgrounds including soldiers, teachers and engineers, but the commonalities in their histories are their ravenous appetite for reading, their determined focus on writing, no matter the financial repercussions, and their insatiable thirst for learning.

Apart from the obvious prowess of the writers involved, Bina Nayak’s illustrations, which capture the essence of every tale told, must be commended. The book offers its readers a closer look at personalities they know only through their writing. From Mind to Keyboard makes an excellent read for young people starting out in the business of writing as it advises on pitfalls to avoid and enthuses with tales of dogged dedication to the craft. It can be recommended as a necessary addition to the reading list of students of literature and journalism.

There is something singularly attractive about Isobel Raven’s short stories. I have just reread A Flower for Allie after a two-year gap, and lost none of my enthusiasm.

Ten of the stories are set in rural southwestern Ontario, 1930-50, and six in Toronto, 1990-2000. The author draws us quickly into her chosen times and places. Each story moves fast but without haste. Every word contributes to plot, character, or atmosphere; there is no waste. The seemingly effortless style is direct and clear, fresh, invigorating, good-natured, and insightful (one senses decades of careful observation).

Isobel Raven reminds us how ordinary stories about ordinary people become extraordinary in the hands of extraordinary writers. While providing discreet details that build a vivid and convincing picture, she does not tell too much – leaving us to imagine how matters might develop in the rest of the story, and beyond.

Though her voice is her own, Isobel Raven reminds me pleasingly of Alice Munro, Robertson Davies, and Stephen Leacock. Indeed, Munro, the book’s dedicatee, wrote to her, “I am delighted with the stories, which seem to me to have a unique tone and a special, keen vision.” I share that delight.

This book stands firmly, fittingly, right up there in my Canadiana shelves.

Barry Clegg

Barry Clegg’s Poems: A Rare Spectacle and The Beginning of Time

I always take a look on the authors’ table at the WEN breakfast meeting. After leafing through Barry Clegg’s first volume of poems, A Rare Spectacle, I trotted over to him and said,” I want to buy your book. I just read one of your poems and I know exactly what you mean.”

This was a rare experience for me. Not a habitual reader of poetry, I usually find myself more puzzled than enlightened if I venture into that genre. “What are you getting at?” I would like to ask the author. But if a poem needs explanation, either the reader or the poet has failed. Feeling that the failure must be mine, I tend to avoid poetry.

Barry Clegg offers welcome success. All the poems in his two collections tell me something on first reading. He uses familiar experience—encounters with sparrows or city noise or old friends or his own right hand. He has a long memory for the experience of childhood, and an acute sense of the experience of aging; these I know well.

But second and third readings reward even more than the first. It is in these that I enjoy Clegg’s playfulness and humour, appreciate the depth of his love for humankind, for music, and for the life of the mind. The ordinary is lifted up, turned over, illuminated. He takes sly pokes at us writers too. Try reading “Overbosity” or “Typso” in A Rare Spectacle without seeing something of yourself.

Writing poetry is often called an exercise in distillation, in concentrating the essence of experience is just a few telling words. In both A Rare Spectacle and The Beginning of Time Barry Clegg has produced a fine vintage, to mix the metaphor. A hearty brew. A quality libation.

Isobel Raven

February, 2015

 

 

Love Triangle : a novel in terza rima and 160 sonnets
by Ben Antao
Cinnamon Teal Publishing, Goa , India, 2014
“Lust between a lesbian and a heterosexual married man leads to untold grief in this modern story of a love triangle” – from the back cover.
Love Triangle
Ben Antao set himself a formidable challenge. Who writes terza rime these days? My last encounter came years ago with Dante’s The Divine Comedy. Ben maintains the form (aba bcb cdc) through 19 Cantos (83 pages) of iambic pentameter.
The story itself is strongly told. A weekend of passion described in sufficient detail that I am wondering who among my friends I might re-gift with this book. What really gave me pause though was how he dealt with the aftermath of those events. The scope and the ramifications to the lives of the couple and their significant others after that weekend is written in disciplined rhyme with a startling depth of insight.
Of the 160 sonnets, I have only read 20 or so. I tried reading them in sequence but found that though they are listed by theme, they are not best read that way. I will randomly savour them all in time. For now though, I suggest that the book is well worth the purchase for the Love Triangle.
Read in January 2015,
Report by Gayle Dzis.