Y: A Novel
Authors: Marjorie Celona
| Y: A Novel | |
| Marjorie Celona | |
| Free Press (2013) | |
| Rating: | **** |
“Y. That perfect letter. The wishbone, fork in the road, empty wineglass. The question we ask over and over. Why? . . . My life begins at the Y.”
So opens Marjorie Celona’s highly acclaimed and exquisitely rendered debut about a wise-beyond-her-years foster child abandoned as a newborn on the doorstep of the local YMCA. Swaddled in a dirty gray sweatshirt with nothing but a Swiss Army knife tucked between her feet, little Shannon is discovered by a man who catches only a glimpse of her troubled mother as she disappears from view. That morning, all three lives are forever changed.
Bounced between foster homes, Shannon endures abuse and neglect until she finally finds stability with Miranda, a kind but no-nonsense single mother with a free-spirited daughter of her own. Yet Shannon defines life on her own terms, refusing to settle down, and never stops longing to uncover her roots—especially the stubborn question of why her mother would abandon her on the day she was born.
Brilliantly and hauntingly interwoven with Shannon’s story is the tale of her mother, Yula, a girl herself who is facing a desperate fate in the hours and days leading up to Shannon’s birth. As past and present converge,
Y
tells an unforgettable story of identity, inheritance, and, ultimately, forgiveness. Celona’s ravishingly beautiful novel offers a deeply affecting look at the choices we make and what it means to be a family, and it marks the debut of a magnificent new voice in contemporary fiction.
"[A] heartfelt first novel . . . . Ms. Celona adroitly confounds many of our expectations . . . . It's refreshing to read a novel in which questions are not so much answered as extended, and Shannon is an appealing narrator... Celona is compassionate toward even her most wayward characters, figuring wisely that the consequences of their actions will be punishment enough." (
The New York Times
)
"[A] stunning debut novel . . . Celona creates a beautifully tangled web that is equal parts mystery (seriously, this one's a page-turner), poetry and deep rumination on the meaning of family." (
PureWow Books
)
“I love ambition in a novel. I love humour, audacity, perseverance, craft. And I am deeply grateful when it gets exquisitely blended in a brand-new voice. Marjorie Celona’s debut weaves the twin stories of a foster child’s search for home and the raw account of her mother’s decision to abandon her newborn.
Y
is an evocative look into what makes a family, and what makes a home, and how they are undeniably helixed together.” (Colum McCann, National Book Award-winning author of
Let the Great World Spin
)
“Compelling…This is at once a moving coming-of-age story full of fresh starts, a haunting family story full of heavy disappointments, and an extraordinarily quiet story full of hope.” (
Booklist
)
“
Y
is everything I’m hoping for when I open a book—suspenseful, compelling, psychologically deft, and beautifully written, with characters so alive they seem to be in the room. Marjorie Celona is a brilliant writer at the start of a brilliant career.” (Leah Stewart, author of
The Myth of You and Me
and
The History of Us
)
“A wee baby girl is left behind and even before she opens her eyes, she begins to describe her extraordinary world.
Y
is filled with heartbreaking loss and flawed heroes yet Celona’s writing is filled with grace and compassion.” (Heather O’Neill, author of
Lullabies for Little Criminals
)
“Marjorie Celona’s
Y
is the best novel I’ve read this year . . . [A]n unforgettable story about the nature of time itself, the way our past is always alive in the present, shaping us into who we are. With more honesty, compassion, and warmth than is sometimes fashionable in contemporary fiction, this novel will stay with you long after the last page is turned.” (Anthony Varallo, author of
Out Loud
)
“Marjorie Celona’s
Y
is moving and utterly beautiful. Dark and bright, fresh and original, this novel grabs you and doesn’t let go. What an extraordinary new voice!” (Amanda Boyden, author of
Pretty Little Dirty
)
“I was enraptured by Shannon’s fierce searching heart . . . With a child’s defiance, hurt and brittle vulnerability, she led me through a world littered with the abandoned, lost, and broken and brought back forgiveness.” (Shandi Mitchell, author of
Under this Unbroken Sky
)
“Marjorie Celona’s
Y
isn’t merely an extraordinary debut; it would be cause for celebration if it were the author’s second or fifth or twentieth novel. There’s so much to relish: the nimbly interbraided stories of a mother and daughter . . . ; the lovely, lucid, haunting prose; the subtle, precise command of tone. But above all I marvel at Celona’s clear-eyed and heartbreakingly complex depiction of . . . the fierce, flawed, lovable people at this terrific novel’s heart. These are indelible characters, and
Y
is a triumph.” (Michael Griffith, author of
Trophy
)
Marjorie Celona
received her MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow and recipient of the John C. Schupes fellowship. Her stories have appeared in
Best American Nonrequired Reading, Glimmer Train
, and
Harvard Review
. Born and raised on Vancouver Island, she lives in Cincinnati.
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For my mom
Y
That perfect letter. The wishbone, fork in the road, empty wineglass. The question
we ask over and over. Why? Me with my arms outstretched, feet in first position. The
chromosome half of us don’t have. Second to last in the alphabet: almost there. Coupled
with an L, let’s make an adverb. A modest X, legs closed. Y or N? Yes, of course.
Upside-down peace sign. Little bird tracks in the sand.
Y, a Greek letter, joined the Latin alphabet after the Romans conquered Greece in
the first century—a double agent: consonant and vowel. No one used adverbs before
then, and no one was happy.
Part One
I.
m
y life begins at the Y. I am born and left in front of the glass doors, and even though
the sign is flipped “Closed,” a man is waiting in the parking lot and he sees it all:
my mother, a woman in navy coveralls, emerges from behind Christ Church Cathedral
with a bundle wrapped in gray, her body bent in the cold wet wind of the summer morning.
Her mouth is open as if she is screaming, but there is no sound here, just the calls
of birds. The wind gusts and her coveralls blow back from her body, so that the man
can see the outline of her skinny legs and distended belly as she walks toward him,
the tops of her brown workman’s boots. Her coveralls are stained with motor oil, her
boots far too big. She is a small, fine-boned woman, with shoulders so broad that
at first the man thinks he is looking at a boy. She has deep brown hair tied back
in a bun and wild, moon-gray eyes.
There is a coarse, masculine look to her face, a meanness. Even in the chill, her
brow is beaded with sweat. The man watches her stop at the entrance to the parking
lot and wrench back her head to look at the sky. She is thinking. Her eyes are wide
with determination and fear. She takes a step forward and looks around her. The street
is full of pink and gold light from the sun, and the scream of a seaplane comes fast
overhead, and the wet of last night’s rain is still present on the street, on the
sidewalk, on
the buildings’ reflective glass. My mother listens to the plane, to the birds. If
anyone sees her, she will lose her nerve. She looks up again, and the morning sky
is as blue as a peacock feather.
The man searches her face. He has driven here from Langford this morning, left when
it was still so dark that he couldn’t see the trees. Where he lives, deep in the forest,
no sky is visible until he reaches the island highway. On his road, the fir trees
stretch for hundreds of feet above him and touch at the tips, like a barrel vault.
This road is like a nave,
he thinks every time he drives it, proud, too proud, of his metaphor, and he looks
at the arches, the clerestory, the transept, the choir, the trees. He rolls down his
window, feels the rush of wind against his face, in his hair, and pulls onto the highway:
finally, the sky, the speed. It opens up ahead of him, and the trees grow shorter
and shorter as he gets closer to town; the wide expanse of the highway narrows into
Douglas Street, and he passes the bus shelters, through the arc of streetlights, past
the car dealership where he used to work, the 7-Eleven, Thompson’s Foam Shop, White
Spot, Red Hot Video, and then he is downtown, no trees now, but he can finally smell
the ocean, and if he had more time he’d drive right to the tip of the island and watch
the sun come up over Dallas Road. It is so early but already the women have their
thumbs out, in tight, tight jeans, waiting for the men to arrive in their muddy pickups
and dented sedans, and he drives past the Dairy Queen, Traveller’s Inn, the bright
red brick of City Hall, the Eaton Centre. By noon, this street he knows so well will
be filled with pale-faced rich kids with dreadlocks down to their knees, drumming
and shrieking for change, and a man will blow into a trumpet, an orange toque on his
head. Later still, the McDonald’s on the corner will fill with teenage beggars, ripped
pant legs held together with safety pins, bandanas, patches, their huge backpacks
up against the building outside, skinny, brindle-coated pit bulls and pet rats darting
in and out of shirtsleeves, sleeping bags, Styrofoam cups, the elderly, so many elderly
navigating the mess of these streets, the blind, seagulls, Crystal Gardens, the Helm’s
Inn, the totem poles as the man drives past the park toward the YMCA, no other cars
but his, because it is, for most people, not morning yet but still the middle of the
night.
Now, in the parking lot, he is hidden behind the glare from the rising sun in the
passenger-side window of his van. He sees my mother kiss my cheek—a furtive peck like
a frightened bird—then walk quickly down the ramp to the entrance, put me in front
of the glass doors, and dart away. She doesn’t look back, not even once, and the man
watches her turn the corner onto Quadra Street, her strides fast and light now that
her arms are empty. She disappears into the cemetery beside the cathedral. It is August
28, at 5:15 a.m. My mother is dead to me, all at once.
