| Summary: |
"Getting old is no fun. And caring for aging parents is no fun either. In All Things Consoled, Scotiabank Giller Prize–winning novelist Elizabeth Hay lays bare the last few years of her parents’ lives, while moving back and forth in time in an effort to better understand her mother and father and her relationships with them. Hay’s honesty verges on the brutal at times. The physical struggles involved with caring for aged, infirm relatives – though considerable – are not the sum of things. Part of Hay’s memoir is taken up with the author’s impulse to understand her parents, and the often difficult relationships she maintained with them. Jean had a pathological need to conserve food, taking frugality far beyond the limits of normalcy. Gordon had a temper that manifested in bodily harm. The anxieties and sorrow of childhood exist firmly in Hay’s present as she tries to take care of her parents, whose assisted living apartment is a six-minute walk away. And reaching any kind of understanding is complicated by Jean’s slide into dementia. Regardless of the challenges of past and present, Hay continues to love her parents. She does not neglect their positive qualities: her mother’s sense of humour and love of painting; her father’s dedication to his profession as a history teacher, then principal, then professor of education. Both parents loved language and encouraged their children to pursue education. They also loved the outdoors and kept a family cabin in the Ottawa Valley, which was the setting for much familial joy and heartache. What comes across most in Hay’s memoir, however, is the complexity of emotions in the context of familial relations." |
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