Let Us Be True
CBC Books | CBC | Posted: March 20, 2017 4:14 PM | Last Updated: April 5, 2017
Erna Buffie
From the killing fields of Europe to the merciless beauty of the Canadian prairies, Let Us Be True tells the story of three women whose lives have been shaped and damaged by secrets — their own and those that stretch back through time, casting their shadow from one generation to the next. At the heart of the novel is 74-year-old Pearl Calder, a woman who has thrown away her past and kept it a secret from her daughters. But as Pearl confronts her own mortality, she begins to understand what her dead husband, Henry, has always known. Secrets are like dark and angry ghosts. And they don't just haunt you. They haunt everyone you love.
Alternating between the past and present, and between Pearl's voice and the voices of her family members, both living and dead, the story explores how all of our lives, to a greater or lesser degree, are shaped by secrets: our own as well as ancestral secrets we may know nothing about, but which affect who we are and who we become. (From Coteau Books)
From the book
He can hear the rumble and grind of the carriers, the lowflying thunder of planes. Trees burst into flame, and the night sky rains shells. Khaki ghosts are running into the grim woods at Moyland.
Hansel and Gretel, but this time they're hunting the witch.
The column surges forward at fifty metres a minute. Henry looks to his left. A German flak gun explodes, and Billy Allen is blown out of his carrier. He hits the ground; miraculously, staggers to his feet. His jaw is gone, his neck and shoulders chewed bloody by shrapnel. Henry starts running, but Walter gets there first. He wraps a bundled coat around the gaping wound, and Billy turns, staggering toward the dressing station, down the deep, rutted path left by the armoured column.
From Let Us Be True by Erna Buffie ©2015. Published by Coteau Books.