To the Forest
Anaïs Barbeau-LavaletteCBC BOOKS WORKS OF CANADIAN FICTION TO READ IN THE FIRST HALF OF 2023
49th SHELF EDITORS' PICK FOR JUNE 2023
When the pandemic forces a family to return to the mother's childhood home, she seeks meaning in her ancestral roots and the violent beauty of the natural world.
Fleeing the city at the beginning of the pandemic, two families are thrown together in a century-old country house. Winter seeps through the walls, the wallpaper is peeling, and the mice make their nest in the piano. Without phones and Internet, they turn to the outdoors, where a new language unfolds. Five children become tiny explorers, discovering nature and its treasures, while the adults reconnect with something greater than themselves.
In To the Forest, Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette considers existence and death in a celebration of small places and the natural world. A house built on a foundation of gravestones, the...