Description
Fiction. ...AND THIS IS THE CURE follows Allison Winter, public radio pop-culture journalist and former riot grrrrrl as she regains custody of her adolescent daughter, Hanna, following the murder of her ex-husband. She is unprepared to deal with either the demands of parenting or the fury of her ex-husband's religiously conservative, grieving family, so she pulls up roots and moves Hanna from Winnipeg to Toronto. Allison's sweet-natured partner, Eden, struggles to take on the day-to-day parenting while Allison resumes her career and avoids the chaos building at home. Despite all efforts, tensions swell and Hanna's rage over her disrupted life eventually erupts in episodes of violence.
Allison's past histories—as a frontwoman for a riot grrrrrl band and her earlier history as a runaway from a conservative Christian family—return to haunt her present life. Her former bandmates want to reunite for a tour of Japan, and her sister demands help in caring for their difficult and aging mother. Allison decides it would be best for them all to return to Winnipeg, but this only sparks a whole new chapter of familial conflict, and precipitates a disastrous event that forces Allison to confront her estranged relationship with her mother and come to terms with her own troubled past.
...AND THIS IS THE CURE is a novel about the weight of unresolved baggage—its pain and trauma—and working through the process of healing and moving on.
Author Bio
Annette Lapointe was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan on the coldest day of 1978, which might explain her ongoing affinity for the prairies. She lived in rural Saskatchewan, Quebec City, St John's, Winnipeg, Seoul and Jinju in South Korea, before migrating to Grande Prairie, AB, where it's cold most of the time but the wildlife comes right up to the door and asks to come in. Her first novel, STOLEN (Anvil Press, 2006), was nominated for a Giller Prize and was the Winner of two Saskatchewan Book Awards (First Book Award and Saskatoon Book Award). A Finalist for the Books in Canada First Novel Award, as well as being cited as a Globe & Mail Top 5 First Fiction choice, STOLEN also garnered Lapointe a Canadian Authors Association-BookTV Emerging Writer award. Her second novel, WHITETAIL SHOOTING GALLERY (Anvil Press, 2012), was a finalist for the McNally Robinson Book of the Year. She is also the author of ...AND THIS IS THE CURE (Anvil Press, 2021) and YOU ARE NOT NEEDED NOW (Anvil Press, 2017). Lapointe completed her PhD in Contemporary Literature in 2010. She currently teaches at Grande Prairie Regional College.
Author City: Grande Prairie, AB CAN