- Paperback: 1 pages
- Publisher: Cormorant Books (May 4 1996)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0920953913
- ISBN-13: 978-0920953914
- Product Dimensions: 21.2 x 14 x 1 cm
- Shipping Weight: 159 g
- Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #2,056,658 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
The dust jacket well describes After the Angel Mill, by Carol Bruneau: "This linked collection chronicles four generations of women.who represent the unsung multitude who have struggled through the years to make homes and keep families clothed and fed, while the men went down into the mines."
And praise to Bruneau: she certainly does that. It is a small book, but dense with the monotony of working-class rigour. All twelve stories are told in the first person, and not one person sounds different from the rest.
Hettie meets Thomas at a country dance, in the mid-twenties, in Blackett on Cape Breton. In another story, their daughter Grace meets John Alec at a country dance forty years later. At the end of the nights both men ask their future brides, "Wanna go out sometime?" Both women reply, "I s'pose."
Most of the stories end in much the same way; for example: "Not a cloud to be seen, but the sun too weak to do any good." Or "Nothing left but a pale, pale scum." Or "But nothing comes, nothing but the sharp click of the wheels stopping." Or "Till finally I give up, and let them suck me under."
Four generations of women describe their men and their bedrooms. It's a game after a while, to see if anybody will ever like the look of the bed they're about to lie in.
This is Hettie's wedding night: "Thomas took my hand and led me upstairs, the place all musty and half-furnished from the last people who'd lived there. The bedroom was pink painted-over wallpaper, with a big yellow spool bed, just the bare mattress with feathers sticking out of the blue-striped ticking."
This is her daughter's first time: "Inside the cabin it was dim and musty, smelling vaguely of old food.Off to one side hung a tattered plastic curtain strung up with clothespegs, behind it a rusty cot with a grey camp blanket tossed over it."
This is Hettie's son: "The room was no bigger than a closet, with a rusty cot and a sink in the corner with somebody's dinner puked in it. Half a plastic curtain sagged at the window.."
This is the despair of economically deprived lives. The mustiness, the rusty cot, the plastic curtain. It may not make for great stories, but it certainly gives a sincere chronicle. Andrew Faiz(Books in Canada) -- Books in Canada
Book Description
This linked collection chronicles four generations of women in a Cape Breton family, women who represent the unsung multitude who have struggled through the years to make homes and keep families clothed and fed, while the men went down into the mines. The stories lay bare the grief and disappointments — as well as the stoical sense of humour — of working-class women living in an economically-deprived but fiercely cohesive community. Always these characters long for something better, their hopes and dreams tempered with grim acceptance, and a bred-in-the-bone will to survive.
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Most helpful customer reviews
0 of 2 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
more hands,
By Robert Fader (seoul, korea) - See all my reviews
This review is from: After the Angel Mill (Paperback)
I wish I had more hands so I could give this book four thumbs down.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
5.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review)
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fine reading from Nova Scotia,
By Mary Holmes Dague - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: After the Angel Mill (Paperback)
After the Angel Mill is a collection of overlapping stories that weave a fascinating tapestry of men and women who endure and try to rise above poverty in early 20th Century Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. The writing is lean and clear, and while the courage the characters reveal is often heartwarming and humerous, the author foregoes sentimentality in favor of an appealing dark edge. It's hard to believe this is a first novel; one looks forward to the next!
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