The Worldshapers, Episode 180: Erna Buffie - Let Us Be True

A chat with author Erna Buffie about the new edition of her critically acclaimed debut novel Let Us Be True.

Website
ernabuffie.com

About the book

Finalist for the Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction and Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book, 2016 Manitoba Book Awards

From the killing fields of Europe to the merciless beauty of the Canadian prairies, Let Us Be True tells the story of three women whose lives have been shaped and damaged by secrets—their own and those that stretch back through time, casting their shadow from one generation to the next.

Pearl Calder, a woman in her seventies, has thrown away her past and kept it a secret from her daughters. But as Pearl confronts her own mortality, she begins to understand what her dead husband, Henry, always knew: Secrets are like dark and angry ghosts. And they don’t just haunt you. They haunt everyone you love.

With a life that spans the Great Depression, the Second World War, and the deep conservatism of the postwar boom, Pearl’s secrets are rooted in events over which she had no control: the death of her mother; a father destroyed by war; a brother who adores her but who dies on the beaches of Dieppe, and a sister who abandons Pearl to save herself.

Alternating between the past and present, and between Pearl’s voice and those of her family members, both living and dead, Let Us Be True explores how all of our lives, to a greater or lesser degree, are shaped by secrets: our own as well as ancestral secrets we may know nothing about, but which affect who we are and who we become

Praise for Let Us Be True

“Let Us Be True is an engaging story with a cast of complex characters about how the secrets we keep can have repercussions for years to come . . . A wonderful book that deserves more readers.” - Consumed by Ink

“. . . Let Us Be True remains vital, present and taut throughout. A story as starkly beautiful as a prairie landscape.” - The Globe and Mail

“. . . deliciously vivid prose . . .” - CBC Books

“Buffie has crafted a stunning addition to the Canadian literary canon . . .” - The Calgary Journal

About Erna Buffie

Short stories by Erna Buffie have appeared in Room, Prairie Fire, Pottersfield Portfolio, and The Vagrant Review of New Fiction. Let Us Be True, her first novel, originally published by Coteau Books in 2015, was nominated for the Margaret Laurence Fiction Prize.

Erna is also an awarding-winning documentary filmmaker who has worked for CBC’s The Nature of Things and a variety of other national and international broadcasters. Her film Smarty Plants won “Best Direction” at the Canadian Screen Awards and aired on PBS’s Natureunder the title What Plants Talk About.