We're Already Home
- Publisher
- Wild Sage Press
- Initial publish date
- Nov 2014
- Category
- Canadian
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9780988122970
- Publish Date
- Nov 2014
- List Price
- $18.00
Add it to your shelf
Where to buy it
Recommended Age, Grade, and Reading Levels
- Age: 14 to 18
- Grade: 9 to 12
Description
We're Already Home both entertains and touches us as we experience the complexities of life when people from different cultural backgrounds live in close proximity to each other. From a starting point of tension and misunderstanding, the play takes us, with a dash of humour and a strong dose of the unexpected, to a place of friendship and empathy for others who are more similar to ourselves than we realize. The characters are delightfully engaging, including the curmudgeonly MS sufferer Roy who surveys the neighbourhood from his eyrie on the second floor of his house, newcomer Ali who collects jars of air from around the world, and Violet, the Okanagan elder/trickster who sees the beauty and the folly in all human endeavour.
About the authors
Terry Jordan is an award-winning writer and dramatist whose It's a Hard Cow won the Saskatchewan Book Award in 1994 and was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize. He was the first Margaret Laurence Fellow at Trent University in 1996. His stories have been widely published and featured on CBC Radio, and his award-winning plays, Reunion, Movie Dust and Close Your Eyes, have been produced across the country. Terry Jordan lives in Allan, Saskatchewan.Beneath That Starry Place is Jordan's most recent novel.
Excerpt: We're Already Home (by (author) Terry Jordan, Lorna Tureski & Arnie Hayashi)
AISHA: Sometimes the fear is first and the anger follows.
RUTH: I thought Roy was going to explode. Ali, too. I'm not sure how we avoided an all-out nuclear melt down.
AISHA: I think a Geiger counter would show some radiation has leaked into the atmosphere, though.
RUTH: To hell with the Geiger counter, what we need here is a giggle counter. There's been too much seriousness! You should really meet my friend at work, Annie. Now there's a lady who knows how to have a good time!
AISHA: Did you just say "to halal" with the Geiger counter? That's the funniest...
RUTH: Did I? I'm the mother of a teenager and the wife of an unhappy, retired postal worker. Anything is possible!
Editorial Reviews
"It takes so little time to read We’re Already Home, a two-act play that draws attention to both cultural differences and universal semblance between two neighbouring families—one Christian, one Muslim—but the play packs a lasting emotional punch...This play works on several levels. On the one hand it is a realistic representation of two Canadian families, each with a 17-year-old teenager, and how seemingly small matters—like a leaf and shoot-spreading chestnut tree—can irk one person and provide joy for another, but numerous well-placed metaphors and a sprightly 'Senklip/Coyote trickster spirit' character, Violet, lift the story beyond realism and give it a multi-textured dynamic."
- Shelley A. Leedahl, SPG Book Review
"We're Already Home is a beautiful story of two families - one Muslim and one Christian - who discover that their differences are not a barrier to friendship. I have been involved with the Interfaith Bridging Project in Vernon since the beginning and the play perfectly illustrates the project's mandate: to develop in-depth friendships and dialogue between inter-faith groups as well as rediscover ways that our different faiths can unite us and help us to overcome stereotypes."
- Katherine Mortimer, Vernon Morning Star
