Swing Era-Canada

by Sarah Sheard

Sarah Sheard's award-winning first novel, Almost Japanese, was a mesmerizing tale of first love that received international acclaim.  Her new novel is a compelling story of a woman bound to her mother by all the familiar, complicated ties of love and obligation--and by a history of family madness that entrapped her lovely, willful mother and now haunts her own life.  As a child she learns--sometimes with comic results--to weave a web of protective secrecy around her chaotic and fragile household.  Grown up, she returns home to discover what the boundaries are that separate mothers from daughters--and in the process to define herself.

Wryly funny, compassionate, and deeply moving, The Swing Era is a novel about love and pain and the ties that bind, about casting off the past and find the future.

154 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Sarah Sheard is an award-winning novelist living and working in Toronto. Her novels have been reviewed in The New York Times, Newsday, The Globe and Mail and others. Her novels have been translated into Japanese, Dutch, German, French and Spanish.
Her previous novels: Almost Japanese, The Swing Era and The Hypnotist. Her new novel is Krank: Love in the New Dark Times.

Reviews

[Carla · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Swing Era is a beautifully written, poignant, often sad, sometimes funny, not laugh out loud funny but the kind that first made me wince, then made me think and finally brought a brief smile to my face. From Ontario to a remote monastery in Nepal and back again, it is a story that involves mother – daughter (and father – daughter) relationships. The main character is looking for order in a family life of madness and chaos, keeping both her family and her own secrets, while leading a mostly solitary life, not able to fit in and make friends. This is a multi layered novel that packs a lot into only 154 pages.