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By Deborah Schnitzer ISBN: 9780888013453format: Paperback pages: 192 publisher: Turnstone Press pub. date: 2009-09-15 |
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an unexpected break in the weather is the winner of the 2010 Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction.
“A Rose on Corydon” is a bridal shop like no other. With a staircase spiraling around a pillar that is a floor-to-ceiling aquarium stocked with tropical fish, and an unrivalled eclectic selection, “A Rose on Corydon” has been the city’s “go-to” bridal salon for three decades. At the center of the novel are seven women: Milly and Gertrude, A Rose’s owners, Jeannette, their assistant, Perfume, who is heading to the altar for the fourth time, and her bridal party—Agnes, Dorien, Wordy—and Arlie, a thirteen-year-old cancer survivor with insight beyond her years. As they enter their seventies, Milly and Gertrude have decided it’s time to close the business. Millie is laid-up with a broken leg and there’s no-one to pass the store to, (except their very estranged daughter, Isadore). They decide to host Perfume’s wedding and make it their closing-out party and have everyone, even the men, don taffeta wedding wear. But when Wordy is diagnosed with cancer, the event begins to look less like a wedding and more like an outrageous living wake. This poetic and graceful novel grapples with the meaning of friendship, family estrangement, and how we care for the ill and the elderly.
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