Saying Goodbye

Volume 1 Number 2
June 23, 1995

Holeman, Linda
Saying Goodbye
Toronto: Lester Publishing, 1995. 169pp, cloth, $16.95
ISBN 1-895555-47-7

excerpt:

I was in a particularly bad mood. Just before I left the house my mother had declared, brightly, that we could spend Saturday together reorganizing my closet and dresser drawers. Even new shelf paper. She said it the way I would imagine other mothers announcing a trip to an L.A. film studio to watch the taping of a movie staring Keanu Reeves.

I looked at Lauren, sitting there so smug and proud just because of her cousin. I wanted to make her feel as bad as I did. ``Well, that can't be true," I said, ``because Jessica Jann is my father's daughter from his first marriage and I happen to know that she's going to be in New York taping a special."

All three girls leaned forward and stared at me.

``Would you repeat that please?" Mara said, her eyes bulging out in an unattractive way.

I licked my lips. I couldn't believe I'd said that about Jessica Jann. I couldn't believe I'd said anything...

from ``Something Fishy"

Saying Goodbye is an arresting collection of short stories for young adults by an emerging Winnipeg author, Linda Holeman.

Each of the ten stories focuses on a critical time in the life a young woman -- or man, in one case. What makes the collection striking is the variety of experiences explored and the depth of understanding the author brings to the feeling of those involved.

Don't look for happy endings in these stories; these are realistic glimpses into contemporary adolescent life. The stories deal with separation, death, sexual abuse, loneliness, and rejection. But they also display qualities of survival, self-realisation, and maturing understanding.

For example, in ``Baba Lu," Natalie is forced to leave behind a beloved grandmother when her family moves to a more upscale neighbourhood to give their daughter ``more advantages." But Natalie chooses to spend every Saturday with her ``Baba" and learn the secrets of her delicious Ukrainian cooking.

In ``Sweet Bird of Youth," Blake has rejected the unwanted advances of an older male relative. When he realises that his young cousin is threatened with sexual abuse, he rescues both him and his pet canary by suggesting they stay at his home while his aunt is hospitalised. In the title story, ``Saying Goodbye," Liza, the daughter of a mixed marriage between an aboriginal man from rural Manitoba and an urban white woman, comes to a remote island to fulfil her father's last wish and scatter his ashes. She realises that she then faces the reality of a life without him, and in her mother's world.

This book of stories should ring true for the upper junior-high to high school age group. It would be useful for class discussion on boy-girl relationships, personal integrity, and sexual abuse.

Grades 8-12/ Ages 14-18

about the author:

Linda Holeman is a former teacher who lives in Winnipeg with her husband and three children. One of her stories from the collection Saying Goodbye, ``Sweet Bird of Youth," won the Canadian Living annual fiction contest and was published in that magazine. Her story ``How to Tell Renata" will be published this Fall in anthology from Thistledown Press called Notes Across the Aisle.

A first chapter book for beginning readers by Holeman, called Frankie on the Run, will be published by Boardwalk Books in the fall. She also has a collection of adult short stories to be released by Turnstone Press in the spring of 1996: Flying to Yellow.

Helen Norrie is a Winnipeg reviewer and free-lance writer.

Also in this issue

From the Editor

Book Reviews

Portfoolio 10: The Year's Best Canadian Editorial Cartoons: Review by Dave Jenkinson; Grades 7 and up/ Ages 12 and up
Saying Goodbye, Holeman, Linda: Review by Helen Norrie; Grades 8-12/ Ages 14-18

Video Review

Energy Choices. Part 2 of Energy: The Pulse of Life: Review by Lorrie Andersen; Grades 7-13/ Ages 12-18

Articles

Reviewers Wanted!

Published by
The Manitoba Library Association
ISSN 1201-9364

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