There are many reasons to pick up a good memoir and experience the narrative of someone else’s life. The lure of adventures in far away lands, the need to connect with others who share a powerful emotion, a desire to walk briefly in someone else’s shoes, or to be introduced to a previously unknown world are all perfect reasons to dive into a riveting life story. Here are just a few of our favourite memoirs from fantastic BC authors and publishers.
Memoirs that Transport Us:
Travel has been hard the past couple years, but the wide world is still out there, full of interesting people and places to visit. And if we can’t quite get there ourselves yet, there are plenty of memoirs that will take us to exotic locations on their own.
In Under the Bright Sky: A Memoir of Travels through Asia (Caitlin Press & Dagger Editions) Andrew Scott shares his personal essays of exploring multiple countries in Asia, compiling the stories and histories of the people he met along the way. From China to India, Indonesia to Turkey, Scott blends travelogue with individual memoirs in this fascinating collection of essays.
Of course, not every adventure is the welcome or pleasant sort, as Edith Blais recounts in her memoir, The Weight of Sand: My 450 Days Held Hostage in the Sahara (Greystone Books). Taken captive by Islamic terrorists in Africa in 2019, Blais endured brutal conditions and coped by writing poetry in secret until she managed to escape in 2020. In this recounting of her harrowing journey, Blais takes readers to where few will ever tread.
Africa is a vast continent with a multitude of destinations and experiences to be had. Certainly, Angela deJong can vouch for the captivating beauty of the land and magnanimity of the people in her memoir, Be Free: Mountains, Mishaps, and Miracles in Africa (RMB | Rocky Mountain Books). What started as an ambitious mountaineering goal quickly became a travel detour from country to country as deJong relied on instinct more than planning to find the next incredible peak and the next exhilarating memory.
Memoirs that Help Us Grieve:
Everyone faces loss of some kind within their lifetime. During those moments of heartache and grief, it can be comforting to know that we are not alone in our feelings or in the ways that we process them. Reading stories of how other people have coped through similar trials can be incredibly useful tools for healing. Here are just a few memoirs dealing with grief and loss and finding a way through.
In How to Lose Everything: A Memoir (Douglas & McIntyre), Christa Couture explains how she really did lose it all. From losing a limb, to losing children, to losing her marriage, loss and grief have been cornerstones of Couture’s life. But with loss comes change and with change comes new beginnings. While the loss is undoubtedly hard, and the grief undeniably life-changing, Couture finds the lessons, the strength and the resolve that comes out of the pain fostering new connections and forging new milestones along the way.
Grief can cover a whole host of events, losses and experiences. This is abundantly true in The Wig-Maker by Janet Gallant and Sharon Thesen (New Star Books). The Wig-Maker tells the story of Janet Gallant and her search for identity, place and healing following sudden abandonment by her mother at a young age. Left to pick up the pieces with an abusive father, Gallant undertakes a journey of literal self-discovery as she uncovers her true genetic roots, grieving the loss of one identity while exploring a new one.
Afterlight: In Search of Poetry, History, and Home by Isa Milman (Heritage House Publishing) explores grief from a distance — the grief of the loss of a long-passed family member and the search to reconnect with what remains of that life. This haunting memoir takes readers along with Milman as she searches for what remains of her aunt’s poetry after her death in the Holocaust. Retracing her family’s history in Poland, Afterlight explores war, genocide, displacement, and a daughter’s search for the literary works of her mother’s murdered twin.
Memoirs from the Frontlines:
There has perhaps never been such a keen interest in the lives and work of medical professionals than there has been in these past 18 months. The pandemic has shed light on many of the hardships, long hours and underappreciation many in the field face on a day to day basis. These memoirs take readers deeper into the sometimes humorous, sometimes daunting lives of those who selflessly provide so much to keep the rest of us healthy.
Arguing that paramedics have an easy life is a tough sell, even for the most cynical out there. In A Paramedic’s Tale (Harbour Publishing), Graeme Taylor makes that much obvious. But there are good days as well as bad days in every profession, and for every horrific story, Taylor has one that is light-hearted, humourous or miraculous to balance the whole. Writing from over twenty years behind the wheel of an ambulance, Taylor shares the ins and outs of this nerve-wracking profession, and all the wild stories that came out of it.
Providing medical care to rural communities can be a challenge even in today’s world of technology and instant information. It’s hard to imagine what it was like back before the internet and smartphones and mostly reliable infrastructure. Fortunately, we don’t have to imagine it, as Marion McKinnon Crook takes readers along for the ride in her early career as a young nurse in 1960’s William’s Lake in Always Pack a Candle: A Nurse in the Cariboo-Chilcotin (Heritage House Publishing). With only her academic experience and a car-full of supplies, Crook learned to navigate the field of nursing on the ground more than from a book, providing much needed care to a wide, remote community.
Memoirs that Reconnect with Nature:
There is plenty of wilderness to explore in BC. The Woods by Amber McMillan (Nightwood Editions) shines light on just one tiny piece of it. Protection Island, one of BC’s smallest Gulf Islands is a spot of land defined more by the woods than the few people inhabiting it. Drawing on her year spent living on the island, McMillan details the people she calls her neighbours and the wilderness she calls her home in this eye-opening expose of small-island life.
Chad Sayers’s Overexposure: A Story About a Skier (RMB | Rocky Mountain Books) combines the breathtaking beauty of alpine sport, with the high-stakes life of a professional athlete, and a personal story of grief, hardship and resilience to create a brilliant memoir compiled from personal essays and gorgeous photography. Overexposure challenges the traditional presentation of a memoir to bring readers something fresh, beautiful and heart-pounding on each and every page.