Description
Fiction. Women's Studies. MINA's CHILD imagines a second generation springing from the "heroes" in Bram Stoker's Dracula. In 1921, Mina and Jonathan Harker's daughter, Abree, a student at King's College, London, starts to question the extraordinary adventures her parents claim to have experienced in England and the Carpathians. Middle-aged Jonathan Harker is haunted by nightmares that Abree assumes to be about her brother, Quincey, killed in the Great War. As the Harkers follow the thread of their unease back to its source, they are haunted by memories of Lucy Westenra, fiancee to Arthur Holmwood, and the manner of Lucy's death. Having lost her brother, Quincey, in the Great War, Abree refuses to believe in a clear dividing line between good and evil. Abree suspects her parents' tales of glory hide a profound sense of guilt, particularly about the unexplained death of their friend, Lucy Westenra. The Harkers' maid, Jenny, it transpires, has reasons of her own to worry about the chaos in her employer's household. She is carrying Jonathan's child, but Harker plans to evade all such responsibilities. Jenny, suddenly unleashed as a destructive force against the household, decides to make the Harkers face their hypocrisy.
Author Bio
Paul Butler is the author of ten novels, most recently MINA'S CHILD (Inanna Publications, 2020) and THE WIDOW'S FIRE (Inanna Publications, 2017). Butler's work has appeared on the judges' lists of Canada Reads, the Newfoundland and Labrador Book Awards shortlists, and he was on the Relit Longlist for three consecutive years. Between 2003 and 2008, he won in the annual Government of Newfoundland and Labrador Arts and Letters Awards four times and was subsequently invited to be first literary representative and then chair on the Arts and Letters committee. He lives in Lethbridge, Alberta.
Author City: LETHBRIDGE, AB CAN