Description
Fiction. Women's Studies. Two high school friends take very different paths during WWII. The traditional Angie falls in love—forever—with a sailor, whose life is suddenly ended by a German torpedo, while her friend Dorothy attempts something unheard of in the forties: going to law school. Newfoundland during the wartime forties was hardly Rosie the Riveter Country. So, when Angie loses her sailor lover and marries the boy next door—who turns out to be a sexual sadist—she fears there is no way out. She turns to her friend Dorothy, a woman lawyer at a time when such aspirations seemed impossible. But it's what happens after that, in a world where feminism did not exist, that's surprising—and unsettling. This novel is a tale of loss, female friendship, and of a time long past, when being a woman had few advantages, and many disadvantages. Filled with tragedy, magic realism, and humour, this novel paints a picture of women's lives in the forties, and of the prevailing and enduring power of female friendship.
Author Bio
Suzanne Hillier was born in St. John's, NF., before Confederation with Canada, and before the start of WWII. She graduated from McGill University with a BA in social sciences and attended graduate school in Columbia University in New York. She married and moved to Toronto, where she obtained a teaching certificate, an MA in literature from the University of Toronto, and where she also taught for several years. She started law school in 1968 and graduated in 1972, the year of her husband's death. She opened her own law practice in 1974, retired in 2005, and started writing. Her fiction has been published in various North American periodicals. Sonja & Carl was published by Brindle & Glass Publishing in 2017; MY BEST FRIEND WAS ANGELA BENNETT (Inanna Publications, 2021) is her second novel. She currently divides her time between Caledon, Ontario, and the Southern California Desert.
Author City: CALEDON, ON CAN