Motherwild
Motherwild is an unvarnished journey, a celebration and depiction of struggles to survive on a sometimes violent, sometimes loving, always alive, Montreal working-class street. Set over the course of a year beginning in December 1959, Joey Cantell is trying to figure out his relationship with his mother. Joey’s personal confusion with her has continued to grow from infancy to adolescence. The rest of the family occasionally present their own challenges, but it was Joey’s “Ma” who exasperated him with her quick wit, strong will, and her drinking.
Then there was Celine Lesage, a girl living downstairs in the apartment block who reminded him of his mother as Celine too was a puzzle that drove him mad but attracted him like no one else.
Most of Joey’s relationships flow from his connection to Celine and his mother, and most of his experience comes from studying their ways. But a pervasive melancholy overrides certain days as Joey struggles with thoughts of what his mother might do to herself or what he might do to her. He even contemplates using the gun he found on slippery Dion Street during a winter bank robbery to silence this mother confusion. Tension builds. Can Joey trust himself not to carry out his violent plan? What can he do to intervene and break the craziness his mother feels? Will his fantasies of Celine ever become reality? What will then become of him? Then an incredible event occurs that will change him for the rest of his life.
Motherwild is a tense drama about the growth to maturity and a teen son’s desperate relationship with his mother, but it is also the story of a working-class family and the social conditions of working-class life in the 1960s.
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Motherwild
Motherwild is an unvarnished journey, a celebration and depiction of struggles to survive on a sometimes violent, sometimes loving, always alive, Montreal working-class street. Set over the course of a year beginning in December 1959, Joey Cantell is trying to figure out his relationship with his mother. Joey’s personal confusion with her has continued to grow from infancy to adolescence. The rest of the family occasionally present their own challenges, but it was Joey’s “Ma” who exasperated him with her quick wit, strong will, and her drinking.
Then there was Celine Lesage, a girl living downstairs in the apartment block who reminded him of his mother as Celine too was a puzzle that drove him mad but attracted him like no one else.
Most of Joey’s relationships flow from his connection to Celine and his mother, and most of his experience comes from studying their ways. But a pervasive melancholy overrides certain days as Joey struggles with thoughts of what his mother might do to herself or what he might do to her. He even contemplates using the gun he found on slippery Dion Street during a winter bank robbery to silence this mother confusion. Tension builds. Can Joey trust himself not to carry out his violent plan? What can he do to intervene and break the craziness his mother feels? Will his fantasies of Celine ever become reality? What will then become of him? Then an incredible event occurs that will change him for the rest of his life.
Motherwild is a tense drama about the growth to maturity and a teen son’s desperate relationship with his mother, but it is also the story of a working-class family and the social conditions of working-class life in the 1960s.
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Motherwild

Motherwild

by Ken Rivard
Motherwild

Motherwild

by Ken Rivard

eBook

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Overview

Motherwild is an unvarnished journey, a celebration and depiction of struggles to survive on a sometimes violent, sometimes loving, always alive, Montreal working-class street. Set over the course of a year beginning in December 1959, Joey Cantell is trying to figure out his relationship with his mother. Joey’s personal confusion with her has continued to grow from infancy to adolescence. The rest of the family occasionally present their own challenges, but it was Joey’s “Ma” who exasperated him with her quick wit, strong will, and her drinking.
Then there was Celine Lesage, a girl living downstairs in the apartment block who reminded him of his mother as Celine too was a puzzle that drove him mad but attracted him like no one else.
Most of Joey’s relationships flow from his connection to Celine and his mother, and most of his experience comes from studying their ways. But a pervasive melancholy overrides certain days as Joey struggles with thoughts of what his mother might do to herself or what he might do to her. He even contemplates using the gun he found on slippery Dion Street during a winter bank robbery to silence this mother confusion. Tension builds. Can Joey trust himself not to carry out his violent plan? What can he do to intervene and break the craziness his mother feels? Will his fantasies of Celine ever become reality? What will then become of him? Then an incredible event occurs that will change him for the rest of his life.
Motherwild is a tense drama about the growth to maturity and a teen son’s desperate relationship with his mother, but it is also the story of a working-class family and the social conditions of working-class life in the 1960s.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781771870061
Publisher: Thistledown Press, Limited
Publication date: 10/01/2014
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 392
File size: 1 MB

About the Author

Ken Rivard was born and raised in Montreal where he obtained a Master’s degree from McGill University. Ken is the author of ten published books of poetry, fiction, and children’s literature. His writing has appeared in numerous anthologies, in many regional and national publications, and on the CBC. Ken’s books have been finalists for the Writers Guild of Alberta Book Awards and the City Of Calgary, W.O. Mitchell Book Prize. In 2005, he was nominated for the inaugural Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Arts Awards. Ken has presented many successful readings and writing workshops across Canada and has helped in the editing of other writers’ manuscripts. He has worked as a juror for both the Alberta and Saskatchewan book awards and has been the Writer-in-Residence for The Calgary Public Library and the Writers Guild of Alberta. He lives in Calgary.

Read an Excerpt

It happened so fast that I forgot about the gun.

Today, I saw some more beauty of my ma when she realized that the family was short of cash again. She moved Nila into her and Pa's room to sleep on a borrowed cot. Then, she rented out Nila's room to the sister of an employee who worked with Ma part-time at The United Cigar Store. That would bring in some extra money. Ma always found a way to make things work. Pa's traffic clerk salary was not enough.

"Everything. Now, look carefully. Look up and down. Look behind your eyes. Look into your brain. Look into your heart. What . . . do you see?"

Then, I watched Ma gently take the boarder by her upper arms, and pull back on her shoulders. After, my ma cupped the boarder's elbows with her own hands. Lifting the boarder's elbows, my ma made her stand on her tiptoes while looking in the mirror.

"You're amazing, Mrs. Cantell, but . . . "

The boarder moved out two weeks later because she got a good raise at work and was in love with a taller man. Ma hugged her by the shoulders and wished her well like a woman in a movie might do.

When I turned away from the window, the sun and the fan stopped humming for a moment just in time for me to realize how lovingly tough my ma really was and how her hands were made for me too.

And it happened so fast that I forgot about the gun.

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