Astra
CBC Books | CBC News | Posted: June 4, 2021 4:46 PM | Last Updated: December 14, 2021
Cedar Bowers
Born and raised on a remote British Columbia commune, Astra Brine has long struggled to find her way in the world, her life becoming a study of the thin line between dependence and love, need and desire. Over the years, as her path intersects with others — sometimes briefly, but always intensely — she will encounter people who, by turns, want to rescue, control, become, and escape her, revealing difficult yet shining truths about who they are and what they yearn for.
There is the childhood playmate who comes to fear Astra's unpredictable ways. The stranger who rescues her from homelessness, and then has to wrestle with his own demons. The mother who hires Astra as a live-in nanny even as her own marriage goes off the rails.
The man who takes a leap of faith and marries her.
Even as Astra herself remains the elusive yet compelling axis around which these narratives turn, her story reminds us of the profound impact that a woman can have on those around her, and the power struggles at play in all our relationships, no matter how intimate. A beautifully constructed and revelatory novel, Astra explores what we're willing to give and receive from others, and how well we ever really know the people we love the most. (From McClelland & Stewart)
Astra was on the 2021 Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist.
Cedar Bowers' fiction has been published in Joyland and Taddle Creek. Astra is her first novel. Bower divides her time between Victoria and Galiano Island.
From the book
Raymond Brine doesn't want to think about the coming baby. He doesn't want to think about it, or about Gloria, or his role in it all. He doesn't want to think about a creature so mewling and helpless. Not about its cord, its first cry, or its delicate newborn skin. He doesn't want to think about shared blood, or familial lines, or humanity's relentless compulsion to overpopulate this weary planet either. What he wants to do is work. To toil away on Celestial Farm's lands with his comrades under this vast expanse of sky. To focus on soil, irrigation, crop yields, and building more housing for the commune—but this baby is coming as fast as a hurtling comet and already it's made a mess of everything. Gloria arrived with the influx of spring workers in March,and after a long winter alone in the one-room fir cabin that he'd built his first winter at the Farm, Raymond found himself drawn to her quick laugh and broad shoulders, so he let her spend a few nights in his bed. When it soon became clear she was interested in more, he requested she move into the yurt with the others, carefully explaining that he didn't believe in monogamous relationships, that he treasured his independence, that he never planned on being tied down. Gloria cited this as the reason she kept the pregnancy from him until June, and why she announced the news publicly during the morning breakfast meeting rather than talking to him one-on-one.
From Astra by Cedar Bowers ©2021. Published by McClelland & Stewart