The Heart Does Break

A book in which some of our best writers address their own losses — and help us endure our own...

A heartbreaking, comforting and beautiful collection of true stories about grief and mourning from some of Canada's best known writers.

When Jean Baird's daughter, Bronwyn, died suddenly, Jean's deep instinct was to turn to books to help her in her time of sudden loss. Although she found that the thoughts of counselors, psychologists, Buddhists, and self-help gurus were perhaps some help, the works that truly reached to the heart of the matter were by literary writers, largely from the UK and the US. Scanning the Canadian landscape, Jean and her husband George Bowering found elegies and tributes, but little from our writers about the person who is left behind to mourn or what it takes to endure grieving. The Heart Does Break — an anthology of twenty original pieces — sets out to fill that gap.

Introduction
 
MAY I BRING YOU SOME TEA?
George Bowering
Bronwyn Jean Dixon
 
TASTING MY FATHER
Brian Brett
Leonard Francis Brett
 
THE EMBRACE
Catherine Bush
Raymond Sydney Bush
 
THERE IS NO GOOD IN A BLACK NIGHT
Austin Clarke
Gladys Irene Clarke Luke
 
THE BAGGAGE HANDLER
George Elliott Clarke
William Clarke
 
ON THE MATERIAL, or, GAIL'S BOOKS
Stephen Collis
Gail Victoria Tulloch
 
THIS GENTLEMAN, bpNichol
Frank Davey
bpNichol
 
WAITING TO GRIEVE
Endre Farkas
Margit Farkas
 
MY FATHER'S BLUE SKIES
Brian Fawcett
Duncan Hartley Fawcett
 
HER GREAT ART
Jill Frayne
June Callwood
 
ON PREPARING MY DAUGHTER'S FICTION FOR POSTHUMOUS PUBLICATION
Joan Givner
Emily Jane Givner
 
WITHOUT WORDS
Hiromi Goto
Naoe Kiyokawa and Tiger Goto
 
JUST CREMATION
Marni Jackson
Clyde Bruce Jackson
 
FURIOUS HUNGER
Linda McNutt
Dorothy James
 
A YEAR LATER, I AM IN LILAC NOW
Erín Moure
Mary Irene Moure
 
THE BLUESMAN
Paul Quarrington
Mary Ormiston Quarrington
 
THE ART OF DYING IN PRISON
Stephen Reid
Paddy Mitchell
 
GOOGLING THE BARDO
Renee Rodin
Chompoonut (Jeab) Kobram
 
WHAT WILL NOT BURY
Anne Stone
Rob Allen
 
GOOD GRIEF
William Whitehead
Timothy Findley
 
 
The Contributors
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