The Lavender Child

<p><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Winner: Best First Book 1998 Saskatchewan Book Awards</strong></p><p><strong><em>A year in the lives dreams and awakenings of the Protheroe family . . .</em></strong></p><p>Like most families the Protheroes live together but dream in solitude: daydreams night dreams and the reveries of memory. Although much love connects them they are alone within themselves as are we all each orbiting a unique inner sun coalescing from the raw material of birth and circumstance.</p><p>The much-anticipated arrival of a new baby affectionally called the Bump affects them all in both their dreams and waking life but their expectations are upended when Dion is born brain-damaged. Despite that twist of fate the new addition soon becomes a powerful influence on his parents his five sisters and his grandparents.</p><p>As the year unfolds the reader travels through the minds of three generations: a group of wonderfully individual people who define family in a wholly original way.</p><p><strong><em></em>The Lavender Child<em> reminds me of the best of Anne Tyler and Barbara Kingsolver confident witty tender and smart . . . An auspicious debut sassy clear-eyed and beautifully told.</em> - Sandra Birdsell</strong></p>