Price: $44.95
Page Count: 376
Publication Date: January 2023
ISBN: 978-1-77258-424-0
Don’t Tell not only spills the tea about family secrets; it also delves into the conditions of their endurance in old letters and faded photos, and their revelations via DNA testing, slips of the tongue, and uncomfortable silences. This collection reminds us of the lengths families go to maintain silence, safety, or respectability, and of the courage of those who reach into that dark rain barrel of the past and draw up the truth, dripping and wriggling, into the present day. If you’ve ever discovered – or been – the family secret, Don’t Tell is the book for you.
-Tanis MacDonald, Professor, Department of English and Film Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University, and author of seven books, including Straggle: Adventures in Walking While Female
A secret becomes an ugly starved thing...writes one of the authors in this compelling anthology. Co-edited by sisters Arleen Pare and Donna McCart Sharkey, tales of sadness, loss, murder, grief—even humour—emerge through poetry and story. This brave collection redefines what secrets we believe should be disclosed. With each quest, the revelation of a once toxic family secret creates a path to closure and understanding, or to continued searching. Readers may feel uneasy about the skeletons cloistered in their own lives; but, not telling is no longer an option.
-Barbara Herringer, Ph.D. Dean, School of Health and Human Services (ret’d), Camosun College
Family secrets breed silence and shame, for which language alone is the antidote. The stories and poems in this volume transmute shame into understanding and empathy. They will offer insight, comfort, confidence, and purpose to anyone whose family history has been scarred by mental illness, adoption, suicide, abandonment, crises of identity, or intergenerational trauma.
— Susan Olding, author of Big Reader and Pathologies: A Life in Essays.
Click here to read a review from The British Columbia Review
Introduction Donna McCart Sharkey
Movies: The Secret Sin Ralph Friesen
Man with Cucumbers Myrna Kostash
The Front Door Jane Munro
What You Didn’t Tell Elizabeth Templeman
My Mother’s Madness JoAnn McCaig
We Had One, Too Maureen Hynes
The Lost Epistles of Margie John Barton
Understanding My Face Michelle Brown
Grief Frances Rooney
Paired Secrets Ann Davis
May Her Memory Nancy Issenman
Roses Jessie Carson
We Should Talk About This Later Sharon Cook
I Should Have Known (A Found Correspondence) Blaine Marchand
Frozen Air Linda Briskin
Sabbath Wendy Donowa
Drawing Out Shadows Caroline Purchase
Umbilical Noose David Pimm
Fireflies Soriya Turner
Just a Story Debby Yaffe
Mysterious Death on the Family Homestead Renee Duddridge
Spectral Stories Lenore Maybaum
Uncle Fred’s Secret Ruby Swanson
The Road Leads to Crosby Beach Amanda Hale
Pistal Packing Momma Phyllis Schull
Cover Story Betsy Warland
Twelve Red Letters Jean Crozier
I found a Picture of my Great Aunt Heather Ramsay
Bingo and Black Ice George Ilsley
Shattered Helen Gowans
In the Adaptation Judy LeBlanc
Would you Trade This Family? Kae Solomon
Stiff Upper Lip Kate Eckland
Secrets Breed Questions Carole Harmon
The Boyfriend Liana Cusmano
A Real Doozie Pat Buckna
The Real Truth Susan Braley
The Doll Laurel M. Ross
Fractal Adrienne Gruber
The Ribbon Tree Shelley A. Leedahl
Life Examined Through Frames Joan Conway
My Three Fathers Pat Preston
What’s New, Wild Child? Joy Thierry Lewellyn
Deda Claire Sicherman
Little Bird Cornelia Hoogland
A True Story Anonymous
Family Still Life Kathleen Vance
Insomnia Chris Smart
If it Weren’t for You Kids Leslie Silverman
A Risk Worth Concealing Christine K. Anzur
The State of Our Father Ingrid Rose
Family Secrets Susan Scruton
Eulogy Jim Nason
Shame Barbara Barry
Knothole Laura Sproule
Bottle Dump Yaana Dancer
Went West Cynthia Woodman Kirkham
Kingdom Hall Leesa Hanna
The Curse of Sin City Sarah Williams
Donna McCart Sharkey grew up in Montreal and now lives in Ottawa. Her most recent books are Falling Together: A Family’s Memoir of Mental Illness and Grief and Always With Me: Parents Talk About the Death of a Child. She is a former professor at the State University of New York and her research has been published in numerous academic journals.
Arleen Paré is a Victoria writer with nine collections of poetry, including a recent chapbook. She has been short-listed for the BC Dorothy Livesay BC Award for Poetry and has won the American Golden Crown Award for Poetry, the Victoria Butler Book Prize, a CBC Bookie Award, and a Governor Generals’ Award for Poetry.
