Orla's Canvas

Narrated by eleven-year-old Orla Gwen Gleason Orlas Canvas opens on Easter Sunday in St. Suplice Louisiana a misspelled town north of New Orleans and traces Orlas dawning realization that all is not as it seems in her personal life or in the life of her community. The death of St. Suplices doyenne Mrs. Bellefleur Dubois Castleberry for whom Orlas mother keeps house reveals Orlas true paternity shatters her trust in her beloved mother and exposes her to the harsh realities of class and race in the Civil Rights-era South. When the Klan learns of Mrs. Castleberrys collaboration with the local Negro minister and Archbishop Rummel to integrate the parochial school violence fractures St. Suplices vulnerable stability. The brutality Orla witnesses at summers end awakens her to lifes tenuous fragility. Like the South in which she lives she suffers the turbulence of changing times. Smart resilient and fiercely determined to make sense of her pain Orla paints chaos into beauty documenting both horror and grace discovering herself at last through her art. Taking as her canvas the Civil Rights era in Louisiana Mary Donnarumma Sharnick tells the affecting story of Orla a remarkable young heroine with the soul of an artist. The novel is both a gripping look into a historic moment in American culture and a poignant coming-of-age story readers wont forget. - Chantel Acevedo author of The Distant Marvels