Review
Tessa McWatt's Out of My Skin chronicles the identity quest of Daphne Baird, who at the age of thirty decides to leave Toronto (and her adoptive parents) and move to Montreal in search of a fresh start. It is the summer of 1993, and the city is simmering in the heat of the Oka crisis. This is the backdrop against which Daphne's personal crisis unfolds.
When she contacts her aunt through the adoption agency, she learns that her mother committed suicide and that her Guyanese grandfather had been incarcerated in a psychiatric institution. Daphne's aunt gives her the journals he kept during that period—journals that contain unexpected information. In the end, Daphne's triumph is that she can confront her past, accept it, and then put it aside. She may not be able to unlearn what she learns, but nor does she have to condemn herself to a life predetermined by it.
Eva Tihanyi (Books in Canada) --
Books in Canada"A rich, complex, and evocative first novel, Out of My Skin is precisely researched and sensitively written." --
Quill & Quire"McWatt's narrative voice is steady, formally unadorned, yet rich in imagery..." --
The Globe and Mail
Book Description
The search for her biological parents leads Daphne Eyre to her grandfather's diaries written in 1960s British Guiana. A powerful tale of crisis, race and family secrets.
Out Of My Skin explores what binds us to places and people and in its layering of contemporary evetns and personal histories subtly explores the effects and aftershocks of colonialism in the New World.
