Read this when
The Stone Angel
Too proud to cry, too proud to ask for help, and ninety years old. Hagar Shipley is the grandmother you never understood until now. 🪨
Who it's for
The novel sits entirely inside Hagar Shipley, ninety, furious, funny and failing, as she fights being moved into a nursing home while her memories replay the choices that hardened her.
Feelings it meets
What it is
Margaret Laurence's 1964 novel is narrated by Hagar Shipley, a 90-year-old woman resisting her son Marvin and his wife Doris's plans to move her into a nursing home. Told in vignettes, the present-day story in the early 1960s alternates with Hagar's memories of her life, from her upbringing in the fictional prairie town of Manawaka, Manitoba, onward.
Where to find it
In print (McClelland & Stewart; University of Chicago Press in the US), in libraries (Libby/Hoopla) and as an audiobook. Not public domain. A 2007 Canadian film adaptation exists.
Before you start
Heads up: Deaths of a son and a child.
Age: Ages 16+
Death belongs to life as birth does.Rabindranath Tagore, Stray Birds
