Melba's Wash: Volume 166 (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781771834001)

Melba's Wash is a rich telling of the archetypal search. In this fractured familial story, Esther Prat wraps her fingers with her diamond necklace and reflects on the secrets, lies, and pain that haunt her life, and makes her choice. Born on Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick, as an infant she is unceremoniously taken to Montreal, Quebec, to spend the first ten years of her life brought up in an affluent Jewish family. At the age of ten, upon the death of her "daddy," she is without explanation not allowed to attend his funeral and is taken on a train destined for New Brunswick, back to the poverty-stricken environment of her family of origin. The culture shock results in emotional and spiritual torment, undermining her self-esteem and sense of identity. On into life, marriage, children, divorce, a devastating flood, geographical moves, and a battle with pharmaceutical drugs, she struggles to maintain equilibrium and balance of past and present.