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Tell (2000)

by Frances Itani(Favorite Author)

3.6 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

0802123368 (ISBN13: 9780802123367)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

review 1: 4 1/2 - This is a novel of strong characters, a remarkably rich and complex plot and lyrical and spare prose. The story is set in a small Ontario town on the shores of Lake Ontario near the end of 1919. The book centers around young Kenan who has recently returned from hospital in Europe where he was sent to recover from catastrophic wounds he received in the Great War. Kenan's adjustment to his life after the horrors he experienced at the front and while trying to come to grips with his new reality is so very typical of what soldiers very often experience after the terrible things they've endured and witnessed in war. He is damaged and disfigured from the wounds he received, and he realizes with terrible clarity that life will never be the same for him. Kenan tries ... moreto adjust to life back in his hometown with his new wife whom he barely had time to know before he went off to war. With the help of Tress, his wife, and his uncle and aunt Am and Maggie who have lost their own way because of their own secrets, he manages to slowly reestablish himself in his small community. We see how long buried secrets and the consequences of keeping these secrets from the light of day, unacknowledged and unresolved, can destroy our lives. Ms. Itani's lyrical prose and total understanding of human nature is nothing short of remarkable. Her prose is spare and devastatingly descriptive. The story unfolds through Kenan's memories of the war as a constant backdrop. This is another worthy contender as a shortlisted novel for the Giller Prize.
review 2: Shortlisted for the 2014 Giller Prize, this novel is an absorbing read. The setting is a small town in Ontario in 1919, just months after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. It is amazing to Kenan, who returned from the war disfigured, how well the small town keeps its secrets, including why he was raised as an orphan by his Uncle Oak. Unable to speak about his wartime experiences, Kenan begins to understand how secrets can become toxic when he learns about the painful secrets those close to him have never divulged. How long can one hide from grief and pain by not speaking of it? less

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