Dropped Threads 2

Continuing in the tradition of the beloved first volume, Dropped Threads 2: More of What We Aren’t Told taps into women’s compelling need to share their personal reflections on life’s defining moments of surprise and silence. These stories celebrate the female experience with an honesty and intimacy that will take your breath away. Readers will explore what may be unfamiliar terrain, and will come away with the powerful knowledge of what it must be like to step into another woman’s shoes. “The fact is,” writes Adrienne Clarkson in the foreword, “none of us knows anything, and it is what happens to us in life that teaches us everything.” Carol Shields and Marjorie Anderson, with the assistance of Carol’s daughter Catherine, have gathered an astounding collection of fresh, beautifully crafted and original pieces by well-known Canadians, including Jane Urquhart, Susan Swan, Shelagh Rogers, Michele Landsberg, Elizabeth Hay, Billie Livingston, Sandra Martin and Flora MacDonald. As with the first book, this volume also includes contributions from new writers, women whose names you may not recognize but whose stories will resonate, move and inspire. - A woman desperate for children refers to the bleak truth as: "Another Christmas of feeling barren." Narrating the fertility treatment she undergoes, the hopes dashed, she is amusing in retrospect and yet brutally honest. While they deal with loss and trauma, the pieces show the path to some kind of acceptance, showing the authors’ determination to learn from pain and pass on the wisdom gained. The volume also covers the rewards of learning to be a parent, choosing to remain single, or fitting in as a lesbian parent. It explores how women feel when something is missing in a friendship, how they experience discrimination, relationship challenges, and other emotions less easily defined but just as close to the bone: - Alison Wearing in “My Life as a Shadow” subtly describes allowing her personality to be subsumed by her boyfriend's. - Pamela Mala Sinha tells how, after suffering a brutal attack, she felt self-hatred and a longing for retribution. - Dana McNairn talks of her uncomfortable marriage to a man from a different social background: "I wanted to fit in with this strange, wondrous family who never raised their voices, never swore and never threw things at one another." Humour, a confiding tone, and beautiful writing elevate and enliven even the darkest stories. Details bring scenes vividly to life, so we feel we are in the room with Barbara Defago when the doctor tells her she has breast cancer, coolly dividing her life into a 'before and after.' Lucid, reflective and poignant, Dropped Threads 2 is for anyone interested in women's true stories.