ISSUE 190.4 | ARTS & CULTURE
THEONTARION.COM
Pandemic book list: Three books exploring the significance of home As we attempt to consolidate the changing face of home life, the journeys of three novels’ main characters become quite familiar AMILIA OWEN OLIVER
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t's been more than a year since COVID-19 appeared, changing our world. As we have moved in and out of lockdowns and stay-at-home orders, the conventional associations of home — comfort, safety, family life, and emotional significance — have become all the more apparent. The following novels resonate with our changing conceptions of what it means to be ‘home’ as we adapt to life during a pandemic.
...the pandemic has forced us to adapt to multiple societal and domestic changes; how we react will define us, and our conceptions of home and family will be forever changed.
WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING (2018) BY DELIA OWENS
BROOKLYN (2009) BY COLM TÓIBÍN
Where the Crawdads Sing transports the reader to the atmospheric American South of 1952. Kya, abandoned by her family and derogatorily referred to as ‘Marsh Girl’ by most members of her small North Carolina town, lives in isolation in her selfmade home in the marshlands by the sea. The novel follows the shifting winds of Kya’s life, and focuses on how it is dramatically affected when she is falsely accused of murdering the town’s golden boy, Chase Andrews. The murder creates dramatic tension, but it is Kya’s isolation, literal and figurative, that speaks to the reader. As she becomes estranged from her last remaining family, and her contacts with others are few and far between, the reader sympathizes with Kya as she adjusts to the solitude of her home environment and finds beauty in her natural surroundings. Her newfound self-sufficiency helps shape her identity even as she faces constant discrimination from most of her community. Kya’s story has romance, courtroom intrigue, poetry, lessons on biology, and impeccable descriptions of the natural environment. Her experiences reflect how we have had to adapt to and embrace a more simplistic lifestyle, one that is centred around the home and how we function in isolation.
Brooklyn, which was the source material for the 2015 Oscar-nominated film of the same name, depicts the coming-of-age journey of Eilis, a young woman from a small town in Ireland in the 1950s, who becomes sponsored by a priest to live and work in Brooklyn, NY. Eilis has to grapple with the constant and often debilitating separation from her family as she aims to make something of herself by working at a department store, taking nightly bookkeeping classes, and making a new home for herself. In the wake of tragedy, the climax of Eilis’ story centres on her having to choose between two homes: her childhood home and her new home in Brooklyn, where she falls in love with Italian-American Tony. The struggle to consolidate alliances between different spaces is relatable for many readers, especially those who have made new homes out of necessity while still trying to maintain old ones. Brooklyn is a gentle read, but it manages to reflect the pain of separating from former circumstances and the simultaneous need to insert ourselves into the new world.
Brooklyn is a coming-of-age story centred around Eilis, a young Irish woman in the 1950s who is sent to live and work in Brooklyn, NY. Eventually, she must choose between her childhood home and her new home in Brooklyn — a struggle many of us are likely familiar with, especially those who have been forced to make new homes during the pandemic. CREDIT: PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE CANADA
Icons by Iconfinder
THE DUTCH HOUSE (2019) BY ANN PATCHETT It’s easy to be stuck in the nostalgia of pre-pandemic days and yearn for the things we might’ve taken for granted in the past, which is a central theme in The Dutch House. The story follows siblings Danny and Maeve who live in the ‘Dutch House’ estate with their parents, until their mother leaves and their father remarries. He dies years later, leaving the house to their stepmother who kicks them out, thrusting them into an unfamiliar life of poverty. The characters adapt to abrupt change; Danny and Maeve must come to terms with what their home environment represents to them. They lose their physical house, but find ‘home’ again through their strong and consistent bond with each other. Their reactions to change come to define who they are and what they value. Similarly, the pandemic has forced us to adapt to multiple societal and domestic changes; how we react will define us, and our conceptions of home and family will be forever changed.
The Dutch House follows two siblings thrown from a life full of family, wealth, and comfort into one of isolated poverty after the death of their father. The pair must adapt to change while finding ‘home’ again through their bond with each other. CREDIT: PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE CANADA
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