Gladys Pratt was in control, the mistress of her own domain. In the sixties she and her husband were running a lodge in a remote area of the Yukon. Communication to the outside world was by mail, if it got out. Gladys was a tyrant. Deeply unhappy in her own life, she made life miserable for everyone aruond her - her housekeeper, her cooks and the young women who worked as her waitresses during the summer months. Kendy and Elke were two of them - fresh out of high school and heading to university, they anticipated earning enough money to pay their first semester's tuition. Elke was shy andtimid, new at waitressing and often the butt of Gladys's wrath. But Kendy was more confident and found the courage to stand up to Gladys, and for that Gladys's punishment was devastating. Hating Gladys is a story of conflicting emotions told from both Elke's and Gladys's points of view. Their disparate voices weave a story of wit and irony, humour and anguish. Gom explores the damaged lives of younger and older women learning to deal with bitterness and betrayal, the destructive impulses of a dangerous hatred, and the tracherous but remedial ways of understanding and forgiveness.
close this panelLeona Gom has published six books of poetry and seven novels and has won both the CAA Award for poetry and the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. She has taught for many years at Douglas/Kwantlen College, where she edited the award-winning magazine Event, and also at University of Alberta and U.B.C. She has held major writer-in-residencies at U of A, University of Lethbridge, and University of Winnipeg. Her work has been included in over fifty anthologies, and five of her books have been translated into other languages.She is the only Sumach author we know of who has been used as a clue in a National Post crossword puzzle!
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