Little of the village remained even then, but the story of a group of aristocrats trying to transplant English country life onto the Saskatchewan prairies captured our imaginations. They also introduced us to Cannington Manor. My parents, however, worked very hard, raised seven children on a Saskatchewan farm, and would not have hired nannies, hired men, or housemaids even if they had had the money. But is he pushing people’s limits or abusing his power? Is ‘The Work’ a cutting-edge artistic practice, a road to personal healing, or a cult?įlorence Southam in my historical novel Few and Far has a selfish and indolent mother. Maria Meindl is the author of The Work, a novel set in 1980’s Toronto that follows an aspiring stage-manager who falls for a married director with the status of a Guru in his theatre company. The older I get, the more I realize that our mothers are with us all our lives, even when it becomes time to carry on without them. I didn’t set out to do that, but I’m glad I did.

When The Work was published, a couple of readers pointed out that all the main characters’ mothers are present in the book, and keep reappearing all the way through. Rebecca, the protagonist of The Work, is a lot like my mother, who worked behind the scenes in the arts, nurturing the talents of others for her whole career. Fierce dissatisfaction, determination: these qualities are exactly what it took to write a novel. She took nothing at face value, and she had a way of getting something between her teeth and not letting it go. When I think of the word ‘iconoclast’, I think of her. My mother didn’t live to see me publish a book, but she’s there in every word, in my very way of working.

She was the most creative person I’ve ever met, from painting, to writing, to cooking, to singing-she did all these things and more, always with a special twist.

When I think of creativity, I think of Hetty knitting, the state of concentration that was palpable around her. They’re sitting on one of the many sweaters she knitted for me over the years, and which I still cherish. The next best thing is to show Hetty’s picture along with the set of books she brought with her from England when she immigrated in 1954. I wish I had a picture of my mother absorbed in a book, as she often was.

Kalyna by Pam Clark