Joan Clark – författare

Joan Clark’s An Audience of Chairs opens with Moranna MacKenzie living alone in her ancestral Cape Breton farmhouse, waging a war with the symptoms of bipolar disorder and grieving the loss of her two daughters, taken from her over thirty years previously. There are few people remaining in her life, as Moranna cannot help but tax the patience of nearly everyone she encounters. Her long-suffering brother Murdoch has her best interests at heart, though he is fatigued by her enormous needs and pressured by his ambitious wife to invest less time in her. Pastor Andy politely sloughs off the peculiarly intelligent yet unpalatable sermons Moranna pens for him. Her neighbour Lottie knows what it is to be an eccentric and can be counted on to come through in a pinch. The local RCMP constabulary smooths over her legal scrapes. And her lover Bun, who lives with her when not working on the ferries between Cape Breton and Newfoundland, knows how to give her a wide berth on her “foul weather” days. Thanks to the assistance of these sometimes reluctant guardian angels, as well as to the carefully planned inheritance left by her father (not to mention her own sheer ingenuity), Moranna has managed to get by all these years despite small-town gossips and tormenting youths.Through a series of flashbacks, we learn more about the devastating effects of Moranna’ s mental illness on her life and that of her family. But An Audience of Chairs also gives us a glimpse into the mind of a true iconoclast and wild spirit, who has managed despite overwhelming odds to keep hope alive.Of An Audience of Chairs, Quill and Quire said: “Elegantly written and deeply grounded in place, this moving, compassionate novel is far more than a story of mental illness. Moranna’s quest is for peace, joy, and connection–the same yearnings that drive us all.”

Set in the 19thcentury and inspired by Edith Whartons women who were not passive victims oftheir lives, Fredericks Heir isthe story of two girls who defy the conventions of convent school and parties,the social system of Paris. Fredrica Navarreau, known as Rica, tries tolive up to her grandfathers expectations.Preparing to inherit his shipping company she tries to learn about theships and cargo ledgers, activities far outside the constrictions of her Frenchfamilys position. Unable to understandher desire to use her mind her grandfather diverts her attention with thecelebration of the opening of the Suez Canal and a tripto the Far East.

Celine Rabut, inchanted by thetheatre and theatre people, begins studying acting in Paris. She lives in the Navarreau home while Rica isaway and tries to help the family during the Prussian War. On her return Rica is dispatched to Londonto marry the son of family friends. The young women fee to New York whereCelines career slowly grows as her parts become more important. Rica, fearing she has alienated her family,returns to Paris to find hergrandfather has died and someone has snatched her inheritance.