Elizabeth Obermeyer

April was a lot of things for me this year, and yes, Eliot’s opening line from The Waste Land felt relevant as it was indeed cruel in different ways. Saying goodbye to our beloved dog, our sweet eleven year-old husky, was sudden and unexpected. That felt cruel. And then our son had to say goodbye to an apartment he’d lived in for over two years because the man he had rented it from needed it back. There was no cruelty in the intent, it was just circumstances, but it felt cruel because he had so enjoyed living on his own and because affordable apartments are few and far between in our city, and because all of these things combined to require him to move home for the time being and while I am excited by this, he is most definitely not. So yes, cruel.

There were glimmers of good things too, because life is like that. And so I went to gritLIT Festival and it was a wonderfully literary time, and I also managed to see Florence and the Machine in Toronto and she sang of witches and hunger and loss and regret and grief with a throughline of  hope and love and we all got to scream and the release was so, so powerful. And while she didn’t sing Perfume and Milk at the Toronto show, I have been listening to it on repeat and these lines resonated for the April that was:

April comes with its blossoms beaten by rain

Oh the hope and the horror singing daffodils again 

Hope and horror, grief and loss, regret and anxiety and, of course, love, all wrapped up together because these are the things that make up a life. 

And so against this backdrop of sadness and upheaval, I read Cordelia Strube’s forthcoming novel At Sea in a Sieve and while I didn’t realize it at the outset, it turned out to be an excellent read for a time of uncertainty and flux.

At the centre of the novel is Ray Seawright. Ray is a Superior Court Judge for the Province of Ontario and lives a well ordered and relatively insular life with her small daughter, Armada, and Armada’s nanny Vitoria (Vee.) Outwardly, Ray is controlled, she has her life together, and she is, as one would expect from a judge, objective and impartial in most things. On the inside she is much more jumbled than she appears. 

The recent death of a good friend and the sudden reappearance of Ray’s ex (aka Armada’s father) complicate her world and her emotions. Added to that mix is her younger brother, Forest, an addict recently released from prison who demands access to his sister and niece and who calls Ray in the middle of the night to bring up old wounds surrounding the estrangement of their father and the death of their mother years earlier which add to Ray’s inner turmoil. When Vee announces she needs to travel to Portugal for an extended period of time to take care of her ailing grandmother, Ray, without childcare, reluctantly allows Forest into their lives. His presence thrills Armada but it also works to slowly erode the walls Ray has built around her life. Soon there are cracks and fissures that allow the chaos of the outside world to work its way in. An ill-fated family Christmas at their father’s home in Calgary finally upends Ray’s world and she is forced to deal with the feelings and anxieties she has carried for so long, all at once understanding that the ship she had been steering so masterfully is actually a sieve.

Cordelia Strube is a master storyteller, there is no question about this of course, and with this novel she has created something remarkable. I was struck by how full and complete each character is. From Ray’s colleagues, the bumbling judges who can’t seem to work a coffee maker, to the inept or too slick for their own good lawyers who populate her courtroom and the eclectic and diverse group of neighbours on her street, everyone is real and individual and it is an absolutely wonderful cast of flawed and imperfect humans.

I loved being in Ray’s mind and being present for the pingponging she does from childhood memories to current events in her life and back again. Ray is a keen observer of the world around her and Strube lets us bear witness to the inner workings of her brain which makes for a frazzled and fragmented tapestry that contrasts so well with her ability to float serenely and untouched over the chaos of the world. She is shrewd and highly intelligent, in control of all things, and she is also completely and utterly human, a fact that seems to come almost as a surprise to her, but definitely does not surprise the reader.

This is a novel that is propulsive and tight and full of humanity and sharp wit. It is also a masterclass in dialogue and character, it is hilarious and serious in equal measure and it never loses sight of the human conditions of hope and regret, sadness and joy, anxiety and ease and all those things that, yes, make up a life. 
It was an absolute delight to inhabit this world for a time and I would like to give huge thanks to ECW Press and the ECW Insiders for sending me this ARC! At Sea in a Sieve is out June 16th and you can pre-order it now!