I went on a bit of a Lori Lansens bender. But I just couldn’t help myself, her books are like a big pile of Halloween candy, super sharp, wickedly sweet, but have a sadness to them that breaks apart like Rockets in your mouth. Rush Home Road tells the story of Addy Shadd, an elderly woman who lives in a trailer park near Chatham, Ontario, who fosters a young girl named Sharla Cody when her mother up and leaves her for a boyfriend with better opportunities. Addy comes from Rush Home, a community built on the edge of the Underground Railway, and her life meets tragic circumstance after tragic circumstance before she finally finds her way back home.
In comparison, The Girls is a novel about conjoined twins who have existed for almost thirty years attached at the head. As the world’s longest surviving craniogapus twins, Ruby and Rose are now writing their autobiography. It’s a wonderful bittersweet tale, and like Sharla, Ruby and Rose are abandoned at birth by their mother, left to be taken care of by an older nurse, Lovey, and her Croatian husband, Stash, they live a remarkable life in Leaford. In fact, their tale is ever-more remarkable by how different and distinct they are from one another, and yet their relationship is both tender and careful at the same time.
Both books are ridiculously well written, ridiculously addictive and are wonderful examples of storytelling at its best. I almost missed my RRBF’s sister’s baby shower because I started reading Rush Home Road and didn’t want to stop. What good books to almost reach 50 with!