A brilliant novel reimagining the life of internationally renowned folk artist Maud Lewis by an award-winning author.
But I had known since forever that it's colours that keep the world turning, that keep a person going.
One glimpse of the tiny painted house that folk art legend Maud Lewis shared with her husband, Everett, in Marshalltown, Nova Scotia, during the mid-twentieth century and the startling contrast between her joyful artwork and her life's deprivations is evident.
One glimpse at her photo and you realize, for all her smile's shyness, she must've been one tough cookie.
But, beneath her iconic resilience, who was Maud, really? How did she manage, holed up in that one-room house with no running water, married to a miserly man known for his drinking? Was she happy, or was she miserable? Did painting save or make her Everett's meal ticket? And then there are the darker secrets that haunt her story: the loss of her parents, her child, her first love.
Against all odds, Maud Lewis rose above these constraints--and this is where you'll find the Maud of Brighten the Corner Where You Are speaking her mind from beyond the grave, freed of the stigmas of gender, poverty, and disability that marked her life and shaped her art.
Unfettered and feisty as can be, she tells her story her way, illuminating the darkest corners of her life.
In possession of a voice all her own, Maud demonstrates the agency that hovers within us all.
About author(s): I've Been Everywhere The first thing you need to remember is that I'm no longer down where you are, haven't been down your way in years, in what you people call the land of the living.
You could say I'm in the wind, a song riding the airwaves and the frost in the air that paints leaves orange.
As the rain and the sunshine do, I go where I want.
The wind's whistling carries me, takes me back, oh yes, to when the radio filled the house with Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys singing My Life's Been A Pleasure.
Though I'm not sure I would go that far.
Freed of life's woes, these days I see joys that, in life, I just guessed up.
If you know anything about me, you might be thinking, oh my, that one's better off out of her misery.
Which might be true, but, then again, might not.
But I dare say, without the body I dwelt in and the hands that came with it, I wouldn't have gotten up to half of what I did in your world, I'd have spent my days doing what you do.
Where'd be the fun in that? The best thing about up here is the view.
Now, I'm not so high up that folks look like dirt specks and cars like hard candies travelling the roads.
Nor am I so low down that you can reach up and grab a draught of me in your fist.
Up here, no one gets to grab on to anybody, or be the boss.
No shortage of bossy boots down your way, folks only too certain they know best.
So it was when I lived below, in a piece of paradise some called the arse-end of nowhere.
I wouldn't make that kind of judgment myself.
Mostly I kept to myself; for a long time doing just that was easy.
Out in the sticks there are lots of holes to hide down, until someone gets it in their head to haul you out of yours.
Next, the whole world is sniffing at your door, which isn't always a bad thing.
Like living in the arse-end of nowhere isn't a bad thing, pardon this habit of speech I learned down your way.
Habits die hard, even here.
Except, here I get away with whatever I want, which is a comfort and a blessing.
Comforts and blessings mightn't be so plentiful where you are.
Here, for example, a gal can cuss to her heart's content and who is gonna say boo? And that view! Now I can see backwards, forwards, straight up and down instead of sideways or tilted, I can look at things face on the way, before, I just guessed things up and painted them in pictures.
When it suits me, I hover at gull-level where hungry birds cruise the shore for snacks, or at crow-level, where the peckish seek treats spilled by roadsides.
Food aside, it's grand up here.
I see the fog tug itself like a dress over Digby Neck and the road travelling south to north, pretty much tracing the route that took me from birth to this spot up here.
Apart from the coastline's jigs and jags, as the crow flies north to south is a fairly straight line from the ridge where my bones lie to where I grew up.
Those who don't know better call this otherworld glory.
But, looking down at the green of Digby County stretching into Yarmouth County, a patchwork of woods and fields set against the blue of St.
Mary's Bay, I'd call this part of your world glory.
If I were the churchy type, which I am not and never was.
Though I did enjoy a good gospel song if it was the Carter Family singing it.
Some days a good old country song was my lifeline to the world.
Each melody crackling over the airwaves got to be a chapter of my life, its sweet notes looped in with the sour ones.
| Story | The loss of her parents her child her first love |
|---|---|
| About author(s) | Ive |
Vagrant Press Brighten the corner where you are: a novel inspired by the life of maud lewis, paperback/carol bruneau
