Home is where Buddie is
May 24th, 2022
It’s 1995, Whitehorse, Yukon and family counsellor Helen Cotillard is seeing her reluctant client, fifteen-year-old Gale who has been having anxiety attacks. In the northern town, unlike big southern cities such as Toronto or Montreal, seeing a therapist “meant you were failing in school, or you still wet the bed” writes Jill Frayne in her novel Why I’m Here (NeWest $21.95). Gale’s problems stem from being separated from the person she cares most about – her younger half sister, Buddie who lives with their violent, sadistic mother and stepfather in Ontario. When her stepfather made Gale go live with her father and his wife in Whitehorse (for Gale’s safety), Buddie told her, “Go, okay. And when I’m big, come back and get me.” All Gale can think about is getting back home to Buddie. Jill Frayne’s first book, the travel memoir Starting Out in the Afternoon (Vintage, 2003) was nominated for a Governor General’s Award. She divides her time between the mountains in Atlin and a maple woods in Ontario. 978-1-77439-049-8
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