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Fiction Literary

Rose Addams

by (author) Margie Taylor

Publisher
NeWest Press
Initial publish date
Apr 2023
Category
Literary, Contemporary Women, Marriage & Divorce
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781774390696
    Publish Date
    Apr 2023
    List Price
    $24.95
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781774390702
    Publish Date
    Apr 2023
    List Price
    $11.99

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Description

Rose Addams is hitting her sixties, but these days it feels like they’re starting to hit back…

 

Her daughter, Morgan, has ditched her thesis program and moved back home to Vancouver, while her son Jason’s partner has never seen eye to eye with his mother. Her husband Charles has decided to take early retirement from the university to work on his long-gestating book, and his rakish best friend Garnet has a new mistress who is way too young for their social circle. When Rose encounters a young man panhandling outside of her library office though, a chain of events is set in motion whereby Rose will have to confront all the facets of her rapidly-complicating life…

Recalling the work of Caroline Adderson, Krista Foss, and Marie-Renée Lavoie, Margie Taylor’s Rose Addams is an insight into the life of a woman who is in the process of beginning her third act, an empathetic and incisive look at the problems of those just exiting middle age while attempting to keep up with a rapidly-changing world.

About the author

Margie Taylor was born and raised in Fort William (Thunder Bay), Ontario. Her mother passed away when she was young leaving her and her father to raise her two sisters. She learned to read at three and took up jogging at 27those remain her hobbies. Formerly the host of CBCsWild Rose Country, The Eyeopener and The Homestretch in Alberta, as well as the producer and host of numerous CBC radio shows in Vancouver, Taylor has been a freelancer and contributor to the Calgary Herald and The Globe and Mail and is the author of three books. Taylor now makes her home in Guelph, Ontario.

Margie Taylor's profile page

Excerpt: Rose Addams (by (author) Margie Taylor)

1.

 

The guy is still there, hunched on the sidewalk a few feet from the entrance to the store. Dark hoodie, torn jeans. Cardboard sign with Homeless Please Give written in crayon. Rose does give, when she has spare change. Which isn’t as often as it used to be because, really, who carries cash anymore? He never looks up, but he acknowledges contributions by nodding and pressing his hands together in thanks.

Namaste.”

She likes that. It’s what her yoga teacher always said at the end of a class; Rose assumed it meant “thanks” but it means more than that. According to Wikipedia, it means “I bow to the divine in you.” Which is nice.

She puts the car into reverse gear and wonders if she should give Charles a call before setting off, let him know she’s on her way. He likes to be kept in the loop. Charles is her husband of four decades—forty years exactly next May. He is her friend, her defender, and her support system, and, when she’s not wanting to strangle him, she admires his spirited approach to life and his sense of humour. She might have done so much worse; she’d never tell him that, of course, but she often thinks it.

Backing out of her parking space, she makes sure to check behind her for stray shopping carts. He’s still there, the homeless guy. The first time he said namaste she wanted to ask if he did yoga, but most likely he’d just picked it up somewhere and liked the sound of it. Homeless people don’t do yoga, do they? Where would they do it? And yoga lessons cost the earth. Morgan takes them three times a week at some studio in Toronto—twenty dollars a pop, if you can believe it. Still, if it helps her focus on her studies, it’s probably worth it. And Ian is paying for it, she says.

Ian. Now there’s a lovely man. And such a good family. Not rich or anything like that, just good, solid people who put their efforts into raising a good, solid son. It’s sad when you think of it, the difference good parenting makes. There’s Ian, Morgan’s fiancé, graduating with distinction from Brown, practically running a film company. And there’s that poor young man, standing outside a grocery store, relying on the kindness of strangers. A drug addict probably. A lifetime of poor choices learned from parents who made equally poor choices. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

He’d do better if he smiled, made eye contact. Even said good morning. It’s hard to ignore someone when they smile at you and say hello. Which is all they can do these days. They aren’t allowed to ask you directly for money. When did that change? Must have been a bylaw that came into effect when she wasn’t paying attention. This guy, anyway, isn’t the one who followed her home the other week. That one panhandles outside the liquor store in the village, a short walk from their house. He came right to her door and knocked and asked for a handout, if you can believe it. How did he even find her? She gave him ten dollars and a peanut-butter sandwich and he left. So far, he hasn’t come back.

The blast of a car horn directly behind her prompts her to slam down on the brake pedal. She checks her rear-view mirror, makes the nod-and-hands-together prayer gesture to the driver of an SUV backing up behind her. Sorry. My bad. The driver, a young guy in sunglasses and a beanie, doesn’t notice. He has his speakers on maximum volume; even with the window closed, the boom-boom-boom is deafening.

It’s a miracle there aren’t more accidents in these lots. People coming and going, no rules about whose turn it is. The polite ones wait till the coast is clear but nobody is polite any more. We’ve become a nation of pushy, entitled road hogs demanding the right-of-way.

And it’s all the fault of the internet—toot from yet another car, this one coming towards her and cutting into the space beside her. What the hell? When did the simple act of leaving a shopping mall turn into an exercise in military withdrawal? Half these drivers shouldn’t be on the road, of course. Too old, too preoccupied.

This time it’s the other driver, a woman, giving the apologetic smile. Okay, so it was her fault. And she’s sorry. There, you see, Rose? Not everybody’s an idiot.

Editorial Reviews

“This book is a close study of what it truly means to be family. It explores connection, changing priorities, hidden truths, and burgeoning self-discovery. There is much change in the works, but at the heart is the true love of one woman’s heart as she seeks out to help those closest in her life.” — Worn Pages and Ink

 

 

"Rose Addams is a Canadian everywoman: readily recognizeable, easy to engage with, sympathetic and empathetic." — The Walleye Magazine

"[f]unny, charming and entertaining." — Alison Manley, The Miramichi Reader

 

 

"[a] quiet masterpiece … It is both loud and quiet, funny and somber, solidly grounded and deeply moving.” — Michael Sobota, The Chronicle-Journal