Persephone revisited: a unique mother-and-daughter story written by amother-and-daughterliterary team

Mere’s young life is confined to the wind and water, the boat that shelives on docking only long enough to stop at the grocery store orvisit the library, but never long enough to take out any books. Thatwould mean having a library card, and a library card would meanrevealing your name on a government form.

Mere, her mother, Faye, and Mark, the mysterious teenage runawaywho shares their boat, seem destined to sail around the Great Lakesforever, navigating the Persephone through the deep waters, stoppingin Toronto twice a year to pick up envelopes of cash left with thedockmaster. Faye is a fugitive, still pursued for her part in the violentone-year anniversary events marking Chicago’s 1968 “Days ofRage”?a seminal student protest against the Vietnam war. NowMerril, Mere’s father, has suddenly appeared on the boat after manyyears. The authorities are looking for him and Faye is his ticket tofreedom. But, in a desperate bid for her own adolescent freedom,Mere makes a choice that will change everything.

Mere is a wonderfully electric novel about the inexorable bondbetween mothers and daughters, written by two of Canada’s mosttalented writers?themselves mother and daughter. Rich in itsallegorical and sociological strands, it reaches into the Greek myth ofPersephone; it explores a woman’s primeval need to protect herchild; and it lays bare the explosive events of a touchstone period inour history. A novel of choices and consequences, betrayal andatonement, Mere builds lyrically to a shattering climax, an endingthat haunts long after the last page is turned.

Esta Spalding's first book, Carrying Place, was nominated for the Gerald R. Lampert Award and her second, Anchoress, was a finalist for the Canadian Booksellers Association Libris Award for Best Specialty Book of the Year. Her third book, Lost August, won the Pat Lowther Memorial Award, and her fourth, The Wife's Account, was shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award. Esta lives in Guelph, Ontario.

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Linda Spalding is the author of the bestselling The Follow. She is editor of Brick magazine and lives in Toronto with her husband, Michael Ondaatje.

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