georgie

de y.y.couture

1945. The war is over. The bomb has dropped. On the other side of the pond, in Calgary, and the Canadian Rockies, Georgie Andrews's mother collapses from exhaustion on the floor of the family Grocery and Hardware Store. Georgie must now take charge. Tin can pyramids, aisles of boxed rice, shelved bags of flour, barrels of potatoes, crated fruit, vacuum bags to washing machines. Surrounded. She wonders why no one else sees the chaos? Angry, constantly planning an escape, packing, sorting, bundling.Leaving. Arriving, from England, on a war bride boat, is her grandfather, Andrew Andrews. Steadfast and organized. He gives her a camera, a precious, old A3 Kodak with a pullout bevel. Magnificent. The store closes. The family moves to a new house. Spacious. But Georgie's father, never around, always has something more important to do, so Georgie and her Kodak begin to follow him. Capturing, recording, sorting and filing, photographs of the people in her life hang in her covert darkroom in the basement. Friends, Schuler, with a coat made from a Hudson's Bay blanket, Will, a beady-eyed introvert, and Frank, a boy with nice blue eyes, sisters Haze and May, Mr. Hardy at the camera shop, Mrs. Pinkham the neighbour, Rosemary, the hired help, and Georgie's father Hamp Andrews. Truths and half-truths intertwine on clothes-pinned lines or hide in old biscuit tins. A debut novel, vibrant snapshot after snapshot of acceptance, forgiveness, and joy.