Synopses & Reviews
A lonely 70-year-old woman takes in an abandoned girl in this heart-wrenching tale of love and loss set in the black communities of southwestern Ontario.
Rush Home Road, a dramatic début novel by an adept storyteller, was compared to John Steinbeck and Alice Munro and is poised to become beloved by readers around the world. While exploring the rich history of the Underground Railroad, whereby fugitive slaves from the United States found freedom in Canada, it also speaks broadly of motherhood, understanding, the importance of goodness and the power of love.
Rusholme, Ontario, is an all-black town born of the Underground Railroad. Its inhabitants farm land cleared by their ancestors who escaped slavery, and are grateful for modest comforts and richness of life; but for the taint of the bootleggers, it is a strong and peaceful community. At fifteen, Addy Shadd has learned to bake a pie crust better than her mothers, and is happy to pick vegetables in the fields in summer so she can show off her strong, smooth calves to Chester Monk, the young man she hopes to marry one day.
At the annual Strawberry Supper, her dreams go horribly awry. A series of terrible misunderstandings lead to the tragic death of her brother, and blame falls on Addy. Shunned by her family, exiled from the community, she leaves home to find a new life. One refrain fills her head: Rush Home. But she is no longer welcome in Rusholme. Her courageous journey takes her to less-sheltered places, first to Detroit, then Chatham, where she finds a home for a while — until tragedy strikes again. Addy has learned to accept the tribulations life deals her as merely “what is.”
Many years later, in 1978, we meet Addy at 70, living in a trailer park near Lake Erie. She grows flowers and keeps a tidy house, her only company the voice of her little brother Leam, which has stayed with her through the years. Her quiet existence is ruptured suddenly when a neighbour offers to pay Addy to look after her young daughter for the summer. Before Addy can act on her second thoughts, the girls mother has disappeared, and odd, mixed-race Sharla Cody is Addys responsibility.
It is not the first time Addy has had a five-year-old to care for, and although long-neglected Sharla has much to learn about how to behave, her warm, grateful presence brings back a deluge of memories for Addy, who carries an unwarranted burden of guilt. As we watch a relationship unfold between the aging Addy and the little girl she chooses to care for, we are transported through flashbacks into the harsh life of a strong woman who endured more disasters than triumphs, suffered through racism and prejudice, but still has faith in the redemptive power of love.
With its depictions of human nature at its most despicable and most admirable, Rush Home Road is heartbreaking but optimistic, passionate but funny, intimate and readable, with skillfully drawn characters and compelling plot twists. Although Knopf Canada was the first publisher to buy the manuscript, a U.S. publisher quickly paid a large advance for the remaining rights to this first novel by a Canadian author, and within two months of acquiring the manuscript had sold it in eleven countries. Shortly after the books publication, film rights were bought by Whoopi Goldberg, who plans to play the lead role.
Synopsis
Lori Lansens became one of Canada’s most sought after writers more than a year before her internationally heralded first book,
Rush Home Road, would see publication in April 2002. So immediately and passionately was her novel embraced that it was already front-page arts news back in April 2001. Knopf Canada was the first publisher to buy this extraordinary debut novel, but just before the 2001 London Book Fair, Little, Brown US bought the rest of the world rights for a major six-figure sum (for
Rush Home Road and the author's yet-to-be-written second novel), and rights have now been sold in numerous countries.
The Globe and Mail reported the record-breaking news with full, front-page coverage, and Little, Brown International Rights Director Linda Biagi found herself talking of nothing else in London; she sold Rush Home Road to a further 9 territories with the manuscript still unedited. Biagi likened the book to some of the most important literary achievements of our time, saying, “It’s as if John Irving had written The Color Purple.” Louise Dennys, the Executive Publisher of Knopf Canada, describes it as “a novel of startling beauty and great heart that will immediately find a place within that small, special tribe of books beloved by readers the world over.”
The untold story of the descendants of the Underground Railroad
Heartbreaking and wise, Rush Home Road tells the life story of Adelaide Shadd, who finds redemption in old age, and Sharla, a five-year-old mixed race girl abandoned to Addy’s care by her white mother. Born in the first decade of the 20th century in Rusholme (inspired by the real town of Buxton), in southwestern Ontario, an all-black community settled by fugitive slaves, Addy Shadd is raped as a teenager and forced to flee the family home. She makes her way on foot to Detroit, where she becomes the housekeeper for an elderly man and his grown son, both of whom develop a crush on her. When misfortune strikes again, she sets off to make a new life for herself in Canada. Thrown off the train at Keating, not far from her birthplace, she meets and eventually marries the train porter, the wonderful Mose, with whom she has a daughter. But when tragedy strikes, Addy is left alone.
Now an old woman, she lives a quiet existence in a trailer park near Chatham. Her whole world changes when a young mother asks her to babysit her daughter, as it soon becomes clear that the mother is never coming back. Addy is glad of the company, but not sure if she’s up to the job of mothering this sweet, awkward five-year-old. Nor is she sure how much longer she’ll be around to do so. How she manages is part of the story of this brilliantly captivating novel.
Written with verve, grace and unflinching emotional acuity, Rush Home Road is an epic story that explodes our notions of identity, justice, and heroism, penetrating one of our darkest periods with profound insight and humanity. Addy Shadd is a protagonist like no other -- full of quiet, steely bravery and tenderness of heart. This spellbinding novel will leave no reader untouched.
About the Author
Lori Lansens is the author of two bestselling novels,
Rush Home Road and
The Girls, which was a Richard & Judy Best Read of the Year in 2006 (and sold over 300,000 copies in the UK) and a finalist for the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction. Born and raised in Chatham, Ontario, Lori Lansens now makes her home in California.
From the Hardcover edition.
Reading Group Guide
A lonely 70-year-old woman takes in an abandoned girl in this heart-wrenching tale of love and loss set in the black communities of southwestern Ontario.
Rush Home Road, a dramatic début novel by an adept storyteller, was compared to John Steinbeck and Alice Munro and is poised to become beloved by readers around the world. While exploring the rich history of the Underground Railroad, whereby fugitive slaves from the United States found freedom in Canada, it also speaks broadly of motherhood, understanding, the importance of goodness and the power of love.
Rusholme, Ontario, is an all-black town born of the Underground Railroad. Its inhabitants farm land cleared by their ancestors who escaped slavery, and are grateful for modest comforts and richness of life; but for the taint of the bootleggers, it is a strong and peaceful community. At fifteen, Addy Shadd has learned to bake a pie crust better than her mother’s, and is happy to pick vegetables in the fields in summer so she can show off her strong, smooth calves to Chester Monk, the young man she hopes to marry one day.
At the annual Strawberry Supper, her dreams go horribly awry. A series of terrible misunderstandings lead to the tragic death of her brother, and blame falls on Addy. Shunned by her family, exiled from the community, she leaves home to find a new life. One refrain fills her head: Rush Home. But she is no longer welcome in Rusholme. Her courageous journey takes her to less-sheltered places, first to Detroit, then Chatham, where she finds a home for a while — until tragedy strikes again. Addy has learned to accept the tribulations life deals her as merely “what is.”
Many years later, in 1978, we meet Addy at 70, living in a trailer park near Lake Erie. She grows flowers and keeps a tidy house, her only company the voice of her little brother Leam, which has stayed with her through the years. Her quiet existence is ruptured suddenly when a neighbour offers to pay Addy to look after her young daughter for the summer. Before Addy can act on her second thoughts, the girl’s mother has disappeared, and odd, mixed-race Sharla Cody is Addy’s responsibility.
It is not the first time Addy has had a five-year-old to care for, and although long-neglected Sharla has much to learn about how to behave, her warm, grateful presence brings back a deluge of memories for Addy, who carries an unwarranted burden of guilt. As we watch a relationship unfold between the aging Addy and the little girl she chooses to care for, we are transported through flashbacks into the harsh life of a strong woman who endured more disasters than triumphs, suffered through racism and prejudice, but still has faith in the redemptive power of love.
With its depictions of human nature at its most despicable and most admirable, Rush Home Road is heartbreaking but optimistic, passionate but funny, intimate and readable, with skillfully drawn characters and compelling plot twists. Although Knopf Canada was the first publisher to buy the manuscript, a U.S. publisher quickly paid a large advance for the remaining rights to this first novel by a Canadian author, and within two months of acquiring the manuscript had sold it in eleven countries. Shortly after the book’s publication, film rights were bought by Whoopi Goldberg, who plans to play the lead role.
1. The American publisher described Rush Home Road as reading “as if John Irving has written The Color Purple.” In his review, George Elliott Clarke said the novel reminded him of Alice Munro’s Lives of Girls and Women, coupled with Margaret Laurence’s The Stone Angel, but as if both novels had been penned by Toni Morrison. Can you comment on these comparisons?
2. Jacquelyn Mitchard commented on the novel’s portrait of “how much has changed, and how little, over nearly a century, in the realms of race, love, hate and loss.” How does Addy’s early life compare to Sharla’s?
3. Is Addy’s determined acceptance of “what is” — her endurance that might be an inheritance from her enslaved ancestors — always a blessing or sometimes a curse?
4. How much did the historical background of the novel contribute to your interest in the narrative?
5. Addy teaches Sharla how to value herself by valuing other people; she shows her simple ways of living and gives her a set of morals. Can you compare this to any other fictional mother-child relationships?
6. While the central characters of the novel are clearly Addy and Sharla, the novel is filled with convincing male characters. Which did you find most interesting?
1. The American publisher described
Rush Home Road as reading “as if John Irving has written
The Color Purple.” In his review, George Elliott Clarke said the novel reminded him of Alice Munros
Lives of Girls and Women, coupled with Margaret Laurences
The Stone Angel, but as if both novels had been penned by Toni Morrison. Can you comment on these comparisons?
2. Jacquelyn Mitchard commented on the novels portrait of “how much has changed, and how little, over nearly a century, in the realms of race, love, hate and loss.” How does Addys early life compare to Sharlas?
3. Is Addys determined acceptance of “what is” — her endurance that might be an inheritance from her enslaved ancestors — always a blessing or sometimes a curse?
4. How much did the historical background of the novel contribute to your interest in the narrative?
5. Addy teaches Sharla how to value herself by valuing other people; she shows her simple ways of living and gives her a set of morals. Can you compare this to any other fictional mother-child relationships?
6. While the central characters of the novel are clearly Addy and Sharla, the novel is filled with convincing male characters. Which did you find most interesting?
Author Q&A
Can you tell us how you became a writer?I come from a small, rural town called Chatham (where Rush Home Road is set) in southwestern Ontario. Growing up, the town wasn’t exactly a cultural hotbed. My family is working class, and not remotely artistic. I can remember, even as a small child, wanting to be a writer. In the third grade I wrote short stories which my wonderfully indulgent teacher, Miss Gay, would let me read to the class. I have a note from her, one my mother kept throughout the years, calling me “the class story-teller.” One day I read a story to the class about being frightened by a bad dream, and how I’d gone to my mother and father’s bedroom seeking comfort, only to have my mother shriek, and my frustrated father march me back to bed (after he located his pajama bottoms in the tangle of sheets.) I understood some time later that I’d caught them in an intimate moment, but the unintentional subtext of my story must have clear, because I was sent home with a note from Miss Gay that day, and that night my mother, blushing, told me she’d like to read any future stories before I brought them to share with the class. Although I’d always wanted to be a writer, I didn’t know how to be a writer or if a girl from Chatham could be a writer. It was my husband who, nineteen years ago, said simply, “If you want to be a writer, write.” He encouraged me to quit my job — my first job out of college — a real job which paid the rent — and write. I waited on tables in a restaurant at night and I wrote short stories during the day. My husband was also the person who encouraged me to write my first novel, Rush Home Road. I could mention a dozen authors who made me want to be a writer. But it was my husband, Milan, who inspired me to become one.
What inspired you to write this particular book? Is there a story about the writing of this novel that begs to be told?
Rush Home Road is set in Chatham, Ontario — my hometown. The southern tip of southwestern Ontario is rich in African Canadian history. It was a terminus on the Underground Railroad — a destination for the fugitive slaves from the southern United States who were seeking freedom. Uncle Tom’s cabin, the home of one of the Railroad’s most famous “conductors” Rev. Josiah Henson is a few miles from Chatham. A few miles in the other direction is Buxton, Ontario, a community that was settled by fugitive slaves in 1849 and is the inspiration for the Rusholme of my novel. I was inspired by the history of my home region, but it’s the characters that came first. I really met Sharla and Addy many years ago. I don’t recall exactly how they came to me but I do recall they came as a pair — the old lonely old women seeking redemption, the lost little girl seeking a family. To me they were a perfect pair. Their conflict was obvious and the joining of the two, eventually healed by love, was exactly the story I wanted to tell. Addy Shadd’s life story, the weightier story in the book, came rushing, torrential, as I wrote. I knew her story in broad strokes and the research I did helped me fill in the blanks.
What is it that you’re exploring in this book?
I’m exploring the nature of love and forgiveness. What it means to have a family. The ways in which our past both haunts and inspires us.
Do you have a favourite story to tell about being interviewed about your book?
I was interviewed for Hot Type and enjoyed my discussion with Evan Solomon very much. He asked questioned I’d never been asked before, including questions about Addy Shadd’s sexuality. Addy Shadd is a 70-year-old woman recalling a dramatic and passionate life. She had several love affairs and found herself in sexual situations that might be considered outside the norm. Addy has a sexual encounter with one man while she is pregnant with another man’s child.
The worst interviews are the ones where the interviewer hasn’t read the book. I was interviewed on a live talk show last fall and the interviewer, who hadn’t read the book, had heard that there was a movie deal in the works. (The rights have since sold to Whoopi Goldberg.) The interviewer didn’t know what to talk about. He’d heard (where?!) that Danny DeVito was the Hollywood celeb who was going to make the movie and asked me how I thought he’d be as the lead.
Has a review or profile ever changed your perspective on your work?
I wrote a screenplay many years ago about a couple of girls trying to get to a Dan Hill concert. The film is called South of Wawa and was released in 1994. The first reviews I read — the first two professional reviews of my writing — were printed the same day. One reviewer compared my writing to Chekov. The second mused that my writing was so bad perhaps I’d been dropped on my head at birth. Hilarious — both. And what a gift to a young writer.
Which authors have been most influential to your own writing?
Margaret Atwood, Mordecai Richler, Alice Munro, Margaret Laurence, John Steinbeck and John Irving are among my favourite writers. They’re also writers to whom I was introduced in my teen years. Early on when I was writing short stories I read a book by John Steinbeck -- a journal about writing The Grapes of Wrath. He described the way he plotted the story, the way he set daily page goals for himself, gave himself a deadline. I read the book again before I started writing Rush Home Road. It influenced me hugely in terms of the mechanics of writing. At the end of each day I wrote a line describing the task for the next day. For example — Addy and Sharla go to Kmart. The fire at the bakery. I kept daily page counts and weekly goals in mind. Starting a novel is a daunting task but approaching it this way made it less so.
7) If you had another job before you became a writer, what was it?
I’ve had many jobs. I didn’t take what might be considered a traditional route to writing in that I didn’t study literature at university and have never taken a creative writing class. Before I started writing I worked as a clerk in drugstore, a waitress in a donut shop, a picker (strawberries, cherries, tomatoes) in the fields where I grew up and, following graduation, in the advertising department of Canada’s national newspaper, the Globe and Mail. After I started writing, and had spent a year or so writing short stories, I decided I wanted to write for the stage. I took an acting class so that I could better understand the actor’s process and I was bitten by the proverbial acting bug. I spent about a year and a half as an actor. I appeared in a few plays in Toronto, and shared the stage with my husband, Milan Cheylov, when he produced and starred in British playwright Jonathan Moore’s Treatment. My first professional job on a film set came when I was cast to play a scene with Al Pacino in Sea of Love. I played his blind date, described in the script as The Touching Woman, in a scene in a Manhattan restaurant. I touched Al Pacino’s hands, his arm, his hair, his face, as his weary cop character and my touchy character had dinner. I had all the dialogue in the scene, which is probably why, to my great disappointment, I was cut out of the movie. The same summer I did the Pacino film I found myself wearing a squirrel suit, doing a children’s show at a library in the suburbs. I knew then it was time to go back to my real job — writing. The stage does not miss me.