People cannot readily be categorized, nor some books. Second Rising is one of them. In her publishing debut, Canadian fiction writer Catherine Wiebe is as refreshing as she is startling with this fictional memoir of birthing and memory, a chronicle of food prepared, bread baked, and human skin bringing first experience of the world. Who knew that a grandmother kneaded sorrow into each loaf of bread she baked, or that her memories were preserved along with the pickles she and her granddaughter made?

Wiebe instinctively knows that preparing food for someone we love is the most intimate act of all, making something that will not only be taken into the mouth and be transformed into flesh, but will linger in memory as well.

Wiebe writes prose as if it were poetry, sharp and clear, touching the mind and stirring the heart while awakening long-forgotten truths. Second Rising is the afterlife of food, the memory of what was, once its reality has gone.

Catherine M.A. Wiebe, a recent graduate in arts and science from McMaster University, and her husband Tim live in Hamilton, Ontario. She has worked as an editor, graphic designer, construction site supervisor, teaching assistant, and bookkeeper.

Wiebe’s enthusiasm for wholesome food and new recipes parallels her freshness in creative writing - the mixture that is never the same, worked with artistic knowledge of how to combine ingredients in ways that startle freedom to life.

CATHERINE M.A. WIEBE was born in the town of Simcoe, Ontario, and now lives, writes, and tries to recreate her grandmothers' food in Hamilton. She is a recent graduate of the Arts and Science Program at McMaster University, and has been writing (with a few other jobs on the side) since before her graduation. She is married to Tim, and they live in a little brick cottage with a yellow door and a fledgling garden outside.

Catherine M.A. Wiebe's profile page

It is a pleasure to recommend a literary work that, while it may take much of its energy from food, is really near poetry in the new mode of Javier Marias and in James Joyce's opening about infancy in Portrait of an Artist. Welcome to a fine new writer.

Barbara Kafka