In Crow's Field
- Publisher
- Cormorant Books
- Initial publish date
- Aug 2025
- Category
- Coming of Age, Literary, Post-World War II
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781770867925
- Publish Date
- Aug 2025
- List Price
- $24.95
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Description
A seventeen-year-old girl, Ana, is lying contentedly in an abandoned farmer’s field outside of Kingston, Ontario, revelling in the August sunset, when her mind is transported to another time and place.
Like a dream, but real: She and her friend Frances are eight years old, crawling in the grasses of Crow’s Field in Middletown, Connecticut, collecting wildflowers, when two crackly male voices ask them what they are doing. So begins the reliving of a forgotten attack with the only witness having been her secret best friend Patty, who stumbles on the scene and then, fleeing the attackers, tries to swim across the turbulent Connecticut River and drowns. Ana finds she cannot speak to save her friend, and is therefore abandoned by the Virgin Mary, who no longer appears to her before her grand mal seizures.
When Ana’s family moves to Canada, she is overjoyed as she is sure she has escaped. Her teenage years are a time of new friends, of being haunted by her secret best friend’s ghost, of discovering her sexuality, of bullying so severe it caused a seizure that would have killed her had she not screamed herself back into life. When she meets the charismatic Satan’s Choice member Matthieu at the local fairgrounds, and they fall in love in the Haunted House ride, she feels more alive than she ever has. Slowly but surely, Ana becomes a woman who is willing to act and to speak, no matter what the cost.
About the author
Ali Joy Richardson is a playwright, director, and producer. Originally from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, she has been Artistic Producer of Toronto’s Paprika Festival for young artists, was a director in residence with Canadian Stage’s RBC Emerging Artists Program, and a playwright in Nightwood Theatre’s Write from the Hip unit. She is a book writer and director with Education Arts Canada (creating touring musicals about mental health for preteens) and directed In Real Life (Nick Green & Kevin Wong) for Sheridan College’s Canadian Music Theatre Project. Ali has created multiple hit fringe shows including her solo show Roxy about an unorthodox motivational speaker/self-defence coach. She lives, bikes, and works in Toronto.
