“The Organist: Fugues, Fatherhood, and
a Fragile Mind”
by Mark Abley
Published by University of Regina Press
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$21.95 (softcover) ISBN 9-780889-777613
Does anyone ever really know
anyone else? In multi-genre writer Mark Abley’s absorbing memoir, The Organist:
Fugues, Fatherhood, and a Fragile Mind, the Pointe Claire, QC writer contemplates
the life of his perplexing father, Harry Abley - virtuoso organist, composer,
and music teacher with a complex “range of identities” – and in doing so the
author attempts to reconcile why this accomplished and restless man, more than twenty
years gone, never seemed enough to his only child.
Abley has a dozen critically-acclaimed books
behind him and I heartily recommend this title because the writing’s exceptional:
I was hooked by the end of the short prologue. The work is also honest. Abley admits
that “any picture I draw of [his father] becomes an exercise in self-portraiture.”
I commend that clear-eyed confession: it helps me to trust the writer, and know
there’ll be no subterfuge. I also applaud the book’s interesting structure, conversational
tone, and the gentle pacing of its ending … despite their often tempestuous
relationship, Abley seems in no hurry to kill his father off quickly on the
page.
As Abley sets out the details of his father’s
life - from a stuttering child in Knighton (on the English/Welsh border) to organist,
choirmaster, and composer at Saskatoon’s St. John’s Cathedral (and other churches)
to celebrated concert organist in Germany, we learn about the musician’s “artistic
temperament,” his social gaffes, and his passion for “the instrument of his
life,” the commanding pipe organ. “Music showed him a way to God,” Abley writes,
and he never doubts his father’s musical genius, but two pages later the author
wonders: “Have I ever met a person so profoundly alone?” The elder Abley seemed
“equally gifted at music and resentment.”
There’s much, too, about Abley’s mother
within these pages, a woman “of profound religious faith, and blessed by hope.”
While reading about her husband’s obstinacy and her patience and good cheer,
one can’t help but see this woman as a minor saint. The writer recalls his
mother telling him, as a boy of “nine or ten,” that he was “more of a man” then
than his father would ever be. Her son became “the heart of [her] emotional
life.”
Probably every human is a chameleon, some
just more obviously than others. Abley senior’s mood could “darken like a
thundercloud.” He was outspoken, “hideously inappropriate” at social gatherings
and “suffered from depression.” The depression “was like ivy, twisting and
curling around his mind, adding a perpetual weight, crowding out all other growth.”
All that, yet students found him “tremendously encouraging,” and his music was exquisite.
“It’s as if he poured a sweetness of spirit into his art, leaving the acid for
daily life.”
Among Harry Abley’s peccadilloes was
this: although he delivered “speeches,” “complaints,” and “rants,” he left his
son no stories. Mark Abley, then, has mined his own memory; spoken to his
father’s acquaintances, colleagues, and former students; and “advertise[d] [the
writer’s own] scars.” In doing so, he’s fashioned an interesting and “open-hearted”
story, impeccably told.
THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL
BOOKSTORE OR FROM WWW.SKBOOKS.COM
"I Know A Woman: A Song for
Mothers"
Written by Sharon Gudereit, Illustrated
by Miranda Pringle
Published by YNWP
Review by Shelley A. Leedahl
$14.95
ISBN 9-781988-783536
The colourfully-illustrated softcover, I
Know A Woman: A Song for Mothers, is a grand example of creative
collaboration, and a testament to the beauty of YNWP’s (Your Nickel’s Worth
Publishing) titles. SK’s Sharon Gudereit and BC’s Miranda Pringle are teachers
who exude artistic talent: Gudereit is a singer/songwriter and musician, and
Pringle is the artist who brought what was originally Gudereit’s song to life
on the page.
The book is “A heartfelt tribute to the
nurturing women in our lives,” and the story pictorially follows the lives of an
emotionally tightknit mother and daughter, from the latter’s birth to the
former’s possible death; yes, the words “angel,” “far away,” and the illustration
of the elder woman’s framed photo beside a glowing candle are open to interpretation,
but even children of a certain age will clue-in to the gentle suggestion here.
This feels like a personal story, but
anyone who’s had the gift of a loving mother will certainly connect to it. The
text – lyrics, really – contain some rhymes and off-rhymes, and the chorus is
repeated. What’s so endearing to this reader is the original details the
illustrator included … the “homey” images, like a succulent plant beside
crystals on a window shelf; and torn jeans; and a paint chip pinned to the
wall. Pringle’s done an exceptional job of aging both characters, particularly with
the use of changing hairstyles.
Cats and insects – children will have
fun locating the butterflies on each page – recur in the images, and one can
easily create opportunities for older children throughout this book, ie: have
them count all the sunflowers in the warm two-page spread, which shows the
mother riding a white horse bareback through a flower field: “It’s hard to
believe she was once a little girl, who used to dream of riding horses through
the field.” Each image is cornered with the black triangles used in old photo
albums to keep the photos in place; this gives the effect that one is indeed
leafing through an album of pleasant memories, and SK is represented in the prairie
lily and elevator images.
After the daughter becomes a mother
herself, we read “[The elder mother’s] got a shoulder that can handle any
tears. She’s the one you always call to spill out all your fears.” There’s sweet
visual repetition here: the new, ginger-haired baby is wrapped in the same
blanket we see her mother wrapped in on page one, but now it’s used as a sling,
the way contemporary mothers often support their wee ones.
I resisted checking online for the song
that inspired the text until after I’d read the book. It’s from Gudereit’s CD, Let
It Go, and it can be accessed at youtube.com/watch?v=zg3_TitrjSM . Kids
will enjoy the suggested art, interview, genealogy and writing activities at
the end of the book, and flipping through the pages while listening to the author
beautifully sing the text is an absolute bonus.
I Know A Woman: A Song for Mothers is
a delightfully touching package.
THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL
BOOKSTORE OR FROM WWW.SKBOOKS.COM
