Dropped Threads 2: More of What We Aren't Told
400
Dropped Threads 2: More of What We Aren't Told
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Overview
They asked thirty-four women to write about moments in life that had taken them by surprise or experiences that received too little discussion, and then they compiled these pieces into a book. It became an instant number one bestseller, a book clubs' favourite and a runaway success. Dropped Threads, says Anderson, "tapped into a powerful need to share personal stories about life's defining moments of surprise and silence." Readers recognized themselves in these honest and intimate stories; there was something universal in these deeply personal accounts. Other stories and suggestions poured in. Dropped Threads would clearly be an ongoing project.
Like the first volume, Dropped Threads 2 features stories by well-known novelists and journalists such as Jane Urquhart, Susan Swan and Shelagh Rogers, but also many excellent new writers including teachers, mothers, a civil servant, a therapist. This triumphant follow-up received a starred first review in Quill and Quire magazine, which called it “compassionate and unflinching.” The book deals with such difficult topics as loss, depression, disease, widowhood, violence, and coming to terms with death. Several stories address some of the darker sides of motherhood:
- A mother describes how, while sleep-deprived and in a miserable marriage, she is shocked to find infanticide crossing her mind.
- Another woman recounts a memory of her alcoholic mother demanding the children prove their loyalty in a terrifying way.
- A woman desperate for children refers to the bleak truth as: "Another Christmas of feeling barren." Narrating the fertility treatment she undergoes, the hopes dashed, she is amusing in retrospect and yet brutally honest.
While they deal with loss and trauma, the pieces show the path to some kind of acceptance, showing the authors’ determination to learn from pain and pass on the wisdom gained. The volume also covers the rewards of learning to be a parent, choosing to remain single, or fitting in as a lesbian parent. It explores how women feel when something is missing in a friendship, how they experience discrimination, relationship challenges, and other emotions less easily defined but just as close to the bone:
- Alison Wearing in “My Life as a Shadow” subtly describes allowing her personality to be subsumed by her boyfriend's.
- Pamela Mala Sinha tells how, after suffering a brutal attack, she felt self-hatred and a longing for retribution.
- Dana McNairn talks of her uncomfortable marriage to a man from a different social background: "I wanted to fit in with this strange, wondrous family who never raised their voices, never swore and never threw things at one another."
Humour, a confiding tone, and beautiful writing elevate and enliven even the darkest stories. Details bring scenes vividly to life, so we feel we are in the room with Barbara Defago when the doctor tells her she has breast cancer, coolly dividing her life into a 'before and after.' Lucid, reflective and poignant, Dropped Threads 2 is for anyone interested in women's true stories.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780307365880 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Random House of Canada, Limited |
| Publication date: | 05/28/2010 |
| Sold by: | Random House |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 400 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
She was born in a suburb of Chicago in 1935, third child of a candy factory manager and a teacher, and had a happy childhood. She met her Canadian husband on a college exchange program in England. After having five children and being what she calls a "typical" 1950s housewife, she "took a master's degree, got involved in left-wing politics, learned French and gradually woke up." As she turned 40, her graduate thesis was accepted for publication along with her first novel, Small Ceremonies.
Her work gained international recognition with her fifth novel, Swann. She won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for her 1993 novel The Stone Diaries (also short-listed for the Booker Prize), and the Orange Prize in 1996 for Larry's Party. Her latest novel Unless has stayed on the bestseller list since publication in spring 2002; it was nominated for the Booker Prize, the Giller Prize, the Governor General's Literary Award and the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book (Canada and Caribbean). She is the author of over twenty books, including poetry, essays and a recent biography of Jane Austen. Her work has been translated into twenty-two languages around the world.
Shields learned she has Stage-3 breast cancer in 1998. An experimental treatment gave her an unexpected lease of life, during which she wrote the novel Unless. She worked her own pain into the fictional story of a woman who watches her daughter abandon her university studies to beg on the street. Carol Shields passed away in July 2003.
Marjorie Anderson met Carol Shields in the 1980s when both were teaching at the University of Manitoba. She is the seventh of eight children born to Asdis and Thorsteinn Anderson, Icelandic-Canadian fishers, farmers and storytellers from the hamlet of Libau on the edges of Lake Winnipeg.
She has a PhD in literature and taught for seven years in the English department at the University of Manitoba before moving to the School of Business, where she became director of the communications programs for commerce and MBA students. She was awarded the university’s Achievement Award for Excellence in Teaching, and has taught in international programs. She recently gave up full-time teaching to spend more time on literary projects and continues to run a communication consultancy for academic and corporate clients.
She and her husband live in Winnipeg and enjoy spending time with their four daughters and several grandchildren. Anderson's lifelong interest in writing and storytelling, and her involvement in editing and teaching over two decades, made the task of editing Dropped Threads and Dropped Threads 2 a comfortable one. She describes her collaboration with her friend Carol Shields as a great pleasure.
Hometown:
Victoria, British Columbia, CanadaDate of Birth:
June 2, 1935Date of Death:
July 16, 2003Place of Birth:
Oak Park, IllinoisPlace of Death:
Toronto, CanadaEducation:
B.A., Hanover College, Indiana; M.A. (English), Ottawa University, 1975Website:
http://www.carolshields.comRead an Excerpt
In My Mother’s Arms by Mary Jane Copps
The “ordinary” family is capable of inflicting much pain upon its children. Pain which, by necessity, moves inward, creating adults who must either unravel their secrets or perpetuate a legacy of betrayal.
-- Jan Austin, psychotherapist
I am startled awake by the quick, cold hands that hoist me to her shoulder. She impatiently pats away my instinctive cry of distress.
At three, sleep was a place I went to, like going to the playground with my sister, or running in the backyard with Prince, our cocker spaniel. Sleep was even a favoured outing, always surprising me with who, or what, would show up to play.
I loved surprises. I believed in them, saw them as a necessary part of life. My days were filled with looking for them. Head down, I would walk along sidewalks, intent on finding a shiny coin or sparkling jewel. Whenever possible, I would turn over rocks and dig in the earth beneath, sure a treasure was awaiting me. And always, I pulled at the pockets of adults, convinced that the clinking I heard was something they were carrying as a gift, just for me.
So on this night, as the sliver of light slashes across my tumbled crib, and her fragile hands wake me to darkness, I can ignore my siblings’ sudden silence and fill my sleepy head with thoughts of Santa Claus.
In my house, midnight Mass distorted the reality of Christmas morning. My parents and brothers and sister would return home hungry, ready to get on with the opening of gifts, and I would be wakened to join them. I suspect that my mother, faced with the day’s prospects of too many in-laws and the endless details of the holiday meal, simply wanted to get something out of the way and pushed to establish this Christmas-in-the-dark tradition.
But it isn’t snowing. Perhaps the Easter bunny, then, or maybe my birthday. I snuggle deeper into her neck, closing my eyes tightly, for it is bad luck to ruin a surprise.
I’ve inherited my reverence for gift giving from my mother, a devout orchestrator of holidays and celebrations. These hallowed events were staged in one of two places, depending on the occasion. The living room couch, a much-protected piece of furniture, elaborately displayed the wares of Easter, St. Patrick’s Day, Valentine’s and birthdays. Always, I would build up the moment of surprise by walking down the stairs facing the wall, averting my eyes until the last possible second from the splendours that awaited me.
Sweaty from slumber, I cling to her coolness as she carries me down the stairs. Once in the living room, I push myself away from her shelter and look toward the couch in eager anticipation. It is empty. Unsettled, but not deterred, I close my eyes and once again set my drowsy hopes on Santa Claus.
Christmas was truly fantastic. The den, a large addition at the back of the house, became a holiday shrine. In one corner stood the magnificent tree (Scotch pine was her favourite) with lights, fragile decorations, aged tinsel, a golden angel and, of course, a circle of brightly wrapped gifts. Stockings hung from the top of a built-in bookcase, bulging with candy and the unwanted but necessary tangerine. And beneath them, the unwrapped deliveries from the North Pole. All this was held from view by heavy, brown brocade drapes that shut the den off from the dining room. Opening these drapes required her permission.
I feel the presence of my siblings as we reach the dining room and pop my eyes open in delight. All significantly older than I am, my two brothers and my sister are my playmates, my caregivers, and I love them fiercely. They stand huddled together near the kitchen door, looking not at me but at my mother. They do not make a sound. Behind them I see the open drapes and know for certain this is not about Christmas.
I must have seen their terror. I must have sensed her anger. But I had already chosen my role in this house, to remain hopeful long after it was prudent. My desire for a gift would not be quelled. Perhaps it was what saved us.
Once we are in sight of the other children, her voice rings high and loud above my head. This is her never-ending-flurry-of-words, all racing out of her mouth, bumping into one another, falling together and never making any sense -- at least not to me. But the others seem to understand. They turn in unison and enter the kitchen. From behind, she shoves each of them toward the stove.
If I had not been struggling against the mist of sleep, I might have seen her eyes, wide with panic and veiled with the glaze of prescription drugs. If I had been a little older, I might have smelled a day’s alcohol on her skin and heard the madness of her demand.
She is asking her children for proof of their loyalty, their unshakeable love. She gathers us around the stove, my brothers on her left, my sister on the right and me still in her arms. She turns the large front element on high, the electricity crackling to life and slowly changing the colour of the black coil.
“If you love me,” she says, “you will move your hand toward this element until I say stop.”
Her voice booms and bounces in the quiet kitchen. My siblings squirm. I remain mesmerized by the brilliant spiral below me.
“You first,” she says, nudging my sister with her elbow.
The shaking hand of my eleven-year-old sister begins a descent from its highest height toward the glowing orange element.
I am annoyed. I know about going first -- about opening the first present, being served the first plate, getting the first piece of cake. As the youngest, and very much the baby, going first is my place, my territory in a crowded household. Besides, I have been looking for a surprise and this sun-like object must be it.
With the agility and speed of a three-year-old, I wiggle and lunge, diving toward the burning element.
My sister’s hands catch mine. She pushes me back, toward our mother. My oldest brother moves quickly, stepping between us and the stove, clicking off this evening’s source of pain.
I giggle and laugh. I think we have invented a new game to play together, a type of dance, perhaps. My sister takes me from my mother’s trembling embrace. The speed words have stopped. Tears slide down her face, and she mumbles apologies without pause. My brothers cautiously walk her up the stairs, their footsteps creaking toward her bedroom. I sit with my sister in the kitchen. Held within her tight embrace, I listen to the wild rhythms of her heart.
Table of Contents
ContentsAdrienne Clarkson, Foreword
Marjorie Anderson, Introduction
End Notes
Jane Urquhart — Losing Paul: A Memoir
Alison Wearing — My Life as a Shadow
Mary Jane Copps — In My Mother's Arms
Lisa Majeau Gordon — An Exercise in Fertility
Billie Livingston — Cat Bag
Shirley Serviss — One Step Forward
Pamela Mala Sinha — Hiding
Dana McNairn — A Marriage in Seven Parts
Lisa Gregoire — Northern Lights and Darkness
Variations
Maggie Dwyer — Like Mother, Like Daughter
Sandra Martin — Snapshots
Barbara Defago — Inside Talking
Linda Harlos — The Fall, and After
Hildegard Martens — By Choice
Marianne Brandis — Virgin Crone
Faith Johnston — Debonding
Sarah Harvey — Mother Interrupted
C.J. Papoutsis — They Didn't Come with Instructions
Glimpses
Ingeborg Boyens — On the Water's Edge
Mary J. Breen — Nobody Needs to Know
Jennifer L. Schulz — Toe-Ring
Debbie Culbertson — A Place on the Pavement
Wanda Wuttunee — We Are More Than Our Problems
Linda Rogers — Bettina's Hat
Michele Landsberg — Don't Say Anything
Susan Swan — My Secret Life as a Mother
Nourishment
Karen Houle — Double Arc
Elizabeth Hay — Ten Beauty Tips You Never Asked For
Carole Sabiston — Conjuring Up a New Life
Flora MacDonald — New Voices
Sandra Beardsall — Life with an Overeager Conscience
Sandra Birdsell — One of a Bunch
Maude Barlow — The Coat I Left Behind
Ann Dowsett Johnston — The Boy Can't Sleep
Shelagh Rogers — Speaking of Dying
Carol Shields, Afterword
Reading Group Guide
1. Is there a balance between joy and sadness in Dropped Threads 2?
2. The following is a quotation from Carol Shields' novel Unless: "Unless you're lucky, unless you're healthy, fertile, unless you're loved and fed, unless you're offered what others are offered, you go down in the darkness, down to despair." Do the stories in Dropped Threads 2 confirm or contradict this statement?
3. Can you compare and contrast two stories from the collection on similar themes?
4. Carol Shields has often spoken of redeeming the lives of ordinary people by recording them in her works; "especially that group of women who came between the two great women's movements." Can you compare the experiences of women who grew up in the fifties or before, and those of women who grew up later?
5. Dropped Threads 2 endeavours to look beyond the experiences of middle-class women to a broad cross-section of women with fewer privileges or less freedom in other cultures. What do you think this adds to the collection?
6. Ann Dowsett Johnston in "The Boy Can't Sleep" says she would like to pass on advice to her son about "the mating dance of men and women." What would you tell him?
7. How does this volume compare with the first book? While it is on the same theme, there are some differences. What stands out for you, the reader?
8. What does Adrienne Clarkson's Foreword add to the book? What is her main message to women readers?
9. Do the four divisions help "organize" the book for readers? Can you see how the stories fit under the individual banners of End Notes, Variations, Glimpses, and Nourishment?
10. What are some aspects of the surprises and silences in women's lives that haven't been touched on in either volume of Dropped Threads? What topic would you suggest in reply to the question, "What do women generally not talk about or pass on to others"?
Interviews
The first Dropped Threads book has been a Canadian national bestseller for over 85 weeks now. What are some of your favourite stories regarding the public's reaction to the book?
Overall, I have been delighted by the passion and depth of the reactions to this book. Both Carol and I have had women readers contact us with a whole variety of heartening responses including the declarations that the book had changed their lives -- for the better, we assumed!
One of the most dramatic responses happened during the Winnipeg launch of the original anthology. The event was one of a sizzling energy from nine contributors, one editor (me) and over 300 book enthusiasts. After the readings and Q&A period, the contributors and I were signing books and happily conversing with the readers. One woman stood over us with tears streaming down her face and told us that she had never, until that evening, thought she even "had a right to have a story" let alone tell it and have others interested in reading it. She talked of being a caregiver to children and parents and not knowing how to focus on -- or even be by -- herself. Her experience that evening convinced her that she should buy a journal and start writing in it, even if no one else ever read it other than herself. I was moved to a new understanding of the power and importance of telling "our stories" to each other.
Over the past two years I’ve been invited to well over twenty book clubs to discussDropped Threads with groups of women who have read it. Most often the discussion includes their stating which stories stood out for them and then telling what "dropped threads" are missingin this volume and might, or should, have been included. The latter topic allows women to speak about the areas of surprise and silences in their own lives, and many do, revealing experiences that are every bit as fascinating as those in the book. One woman’s response during this type of discussion was "I didn’t like a single thing about that book!" The response at first caused me a zing of thankfulness that there was license in the room for the readers to express honest reactions. I asked what, in particular, had been missing for her. She replied with some force that the book hadn’t had one single story on ____, then named a topic that I can’t now remember but was obviously central to her life. The exchange provided a refreshing variety in response but also emphasized one fundamental impulse for the reading experience, which is to discover facets of ourselves. When a woman reader can’t identify with that which is presented as representative of her tribe, the sense of exclusion can be strong. I’ve kept that insight humming inside me ever since.
At what point did you realize that a sequel to Dropped Threads needed to be created?
Perhaps it was at gatherings such as the ones I’ve described above where I realized that the stories we had collected in the first book were just a few of thousands that were out there waiting -- and needing -- to be told. Also, the idea for a second anthology grew as more and more women either sent us their stories or asked if they could. At the launch in Edmonton, I had a discussion with an extremely pleasant woman the fact that there wasn’t a story about lesbian experience in our first book. Her story about the joys and challenges of being a lesbian and a mother is inDropped Threads 2. She had reminded me of one of the gaps in the book and then had the creativity and experience that enabled her to fill in that blank space for us.
The Dropped Threads events in bookstores were huge successes, with contributors and fans gathering in intimate spaces to talk about the book. Can you tell us what those events were like?
There was electricity in the air at all of theDropped Threads events, which reinforced the sense that the book had tapped into a powerful current of women’s need and creativity. I feel that the book didn’t so much create the passionate enthusiasm as provide a forum for its expression. Along with the serious side of these occasions, there was great fun. At the Winnipeg launch where over 300 hundred people were in attendance we all beamed and laughed and hugged like old friends at a reunion. The contributors and I have talked about that event frequently since then and have come to the conclusion that we were part of a "phenomenon" that we can’t quite explain. Contributors attending launches in other cities echoed our views and Carol had the same experience in Victoria. What started at the launches has continued in book club gatherings I have attended–there is an atmosphere of celebration. I don’t try to analyze the experience any more; I just join in and feel honoured.
Are there any major differences in theme between the first Dropped Threads book and the new sequel?
The theme of the new book is the same as the last: we asked women to write on areas of surprise and silence in their lives. There are, though, strong differences between the two anthologies. There are, of course, different contributors, but also a different emphasis. In the last book the emphasis was on common experiences; in this one there is more emphasis on the individualistic, on experiences of loss and trauma that many of us may never experience. However, while there is more pain in many of the stories inDT 2, the writers aren’t stuck there. They show how to get through pain to some form of acceptance and growth. Jane Urquhart’s piece, which starts off the book, is an example of this type of writing. Although her story is of loss, initially, it ends on a note of celebration. In the pre-publication review of the new book in the Quill and Quire, the reviewer stated that Jane’s piece was worth the price of the whole collection and I agree. Actually, there are a number of pieces for which that could be said.
Adrienne Clarkson wrote the Foreword to Dropped Threads 2. How did she come to be involved in the project?
In our discussion about whom we would invite to be contributors, Carol and I included Adrienne Clarkson as someone whose views would be valuable on the topic. Carol knows and admires her as a woman and both of us have tremendous respect for her as Governor General. We wrote to her and invited her to be part of the book and she agreed. She was most gracious in all our dealings with her and extremely prompt in reading the manuscript and crafting her Foreword. We especially appreciate that she wrote from the perspective of a woman and not from her official position. We also admire the honesty and candour of her views
And finally, how does it feel to be the co-editor of such a runaway national bestseller??
I feel amazed, pleased, and privileged -- amazed that the book struck as much of a chord as it has; pleased to have collaborated with my friend Carol; and privileged to be part of a community of voices telling the stories that shape, sustain, and enlighten us as women. To me this type of storytelling is not just entertainment but also an essential act that carves out validity and forges connections for us in this world. Personal stories are pieces of ourselves that we hold out for others to touch with their minds and emotions. TheDropped Threads anthologies have provided safe places for that activity. So while I know we can use the term “bestseller” in relation to the first book -- and I’m pleased about what that indicates regarding reader response -- I think in terms of it being a vehicle for connections -- and hope so much that the new one is experienced in the same way.
Foreword
1) Is there a balance between joy and sadness in Dropped Threads 2?
2) The following is a quotation from Carol Shields' novel Unless: "Unless you're lucky, unless you're healthy, fertile, unless you're loved and fed, unless you're offered what others are offered, you go down in the darkness, down to despair." Do the stories in Dropped Threads 2 confirm or contradict this statement?
3) Can you compare and contrast two stories from the collection on similar themes?
4) Carol Shields has often spoken of redeeming the lives of ordinary people by recording them in her works; "especially that group of women who came between the two great women's movements." Can you compare the experiences of women who grew up in the fifties or before, and those of women who grew up later?
5) Dropped Threads 2 endeavours to look beyond the experiences of middle-class women to a broad cross-section of women with fewer privileges or less freedom in other cultures. What do you think this adds to the collection?
6) Ann Dowsett Johnston in "The Boy Can't Sleep" says she would like to pass on advice to her son about "the mating dance of men and women." What would you tell him?
7) How does this volume compare with the first book? While it is on the same theme, there are some differences. What stands out for you, the reader?
8) What does Adrienne Clarkson's Foreword add to the book? What is her main message to women readers?
9) Do the four divisions help "organize" the book for readers? Can you see how the stories fit under the individual banners of End Notes, Variations,Glimpses, and Nourishment?
10) What are some aspects of the surprises and silences in women's lives that haven't been touched on in either volume of Dropped Threads? What topic would you suggest in reply to the question, "What do women generally not talk about or pass on to others"?