Children Of The Day

Saras husband, Oliver, heads to the town hotel and bar in Union Plains, Manitoba, where he has been the manager for the past twenty years-a position he suspects hell no longer have by the end of the day. In an attempt to avoid the unavoidable, Oliver decides instead to pay a visit to Alice Bouchard, his childhood sweetheart across the river.

Throughout the day, both Oliver and Sara reflect on how their lives collided - a car accident that brought them together and tore them from the futures their families expected of them. Sara (from Sandra Birdsells previous novel, The Russländer) recalls her life in the big city of Winnipeg in the 1930s - a young Russian Mennonite woman lucky enough to escape the shackles of her overbearing culture. Oliver remembers his wedding day photograph-his the only Métis face in a crowd of Mennonites-and the precise moment when he suddenly grasped the enormity of his decision to “do the right thing.”

The Vandal children, too, must deal with this unusual disruption of their daily routine. Alvina, the oldest, secretly handles the stress of her family, her plan to escape them all, and her discovery of the worlds evil in the only way she knows how. Emilie worries about losing her happy-go-lucky father while facing the towns heretofore hidden racism head-on. The boys live up to their family name by recklessly taking chances and literally playing with fire. And since her mother wont come out of her bedroom, Ruby, just a little girl herself, must take charge of the babies with danger lurking in every corner.

By nightfall the extended Vandal family will be thrown together to work out the problems of the past and exorcise the ghosts that haunt them, which have all, in their own way, set this June days events in motion.

From the Hardcover edition.

Birdsell began writing when she was a girl, but it wasnt until after she had three children (and a variety of jobs, including seamstress, cocktail waitress and Avon lady) that she started to earn a living as a writer. Since then she has written eight books - short story collections and novels - to critical acclaim, and has received numerous literary prizes and nominations, including a Giller Prize nomination in 2001 for The Russländer and Governor Generals Award nominations for The Two-Headed Calf (1997) and The Chrome Suite (1992). In 1993 Sandra Birdsell was awarded the Marion Engel Award, one of Canadas most prestigious literary prizes, given to a woman writer in mid-career.

In 1996, Birdsell moved from Winnipeg to Saskatchewan, where she is at work on her next book and her garden, which in Saskatchewan proves to be, as she says, “an exercise in faith and infernal optimism.”

From the Hardcover edition.

2. Sara seems to suffer from post-traumatic stress, particularly paranoia - keeping a knife in the door when she first moves in with Oliver, ensuring doors are locked in a town where no one else locks their doors. How does this depiction of Sara differ from the woman we first meet? What other symptoms of post-traumatic stress do we see in Saras actions throughout her life?

3. The clock at the house where Sara worked unnerved her: “That far off counting of the hour would awake her, pitch her down a well of despondency and leave her flailing to right herself by morning.” Later in the book she thinks it is “unsettling to witness … a trees season ending so soon.” Why is time so significant to this story - one that takes place over the course of a single day - and particularly significant to Sara? How is the passing of time acknowledged by others in the book?

4. A younger Sara thinks of Oliver as her “financier, meaning fiancé.” How deep did you read into this innocent misuse of English? Was Oliver in fact Saras financier? How else do language and cultural differences between Sara and Oliver, between the Mennonites and the Métis, between the Métis and the French, and between the Vandal children and their classmates play out in the book?

5. “Sara once kissed me …” revealed one of the older Mennonite women gathered at Katys house. “I felt these little arms go around my neck … it was as though she knew what I was thinking. She knew what I needed.” Did this story surprise you about the Sara you had come to know? Did it soften you toward her? Why do you think the author offered this anecdote just prior to the scene in which Sara laughs in the face of her suitor, Henry?

6. How did the chapters from the points of view of Alvina, Emilie and Ruby change your perceptions of the family as a whole? With which of the three did you most closely associate? Why do you think none of the Vandal sons had chapters of their own?

7. If youve read Sandra Birdsells previous novel, The Russländer (in which both Katy Vogt and Sara are introduced) how do you think your interpretation of Children of the Day might be different from those who havent read the previous book?

8. One reviewer hoped that there might be a third book about the Vogt/Vandals as told by another family member. Speculate about which of the Vandal boys might narrate a possible third book. Who else might be the narrator?

9. Both Ruby and Oliver notice that ladybugs are starting to swarm. What does this reveal about them, and what does it signify? The hardcover edition of Children of the Day has a ladybug motif on its cover and throughout; perhaps referring to the nursery rhyme, suggesting that the Vandal house was figuratively “on fire” and its “children all gone.” Discuss the authors skill at creating suspense around the unsupervised children. Why do you think the author allowed the Vandal children to avert disasters?

10. Discuss how the “lesser characters” in the story - Florence Dressler, Ulysse, Annie, Katy and Kornelius, Alice Bouchard - are fully drawn by the author. Each provides the Vandals with help throughout the book; how does each of their actions reflect their character?

11. Uncle Ulysse is an interesting character, playing the ferryman to his nephews lost soul. How does Oliver use the crossings of the river to “find himself”? What is it that Oliver is seeking? What role does his uncle play in Olivers life?

12. Oliver reckons that Alice has had plenty of men in her parents shed. Do you believe this to be true? Do you think Oliver really does? Why would he convince himself of this? How do you think life would have been for Oliver and Alice had they chosen to be together earlier in their lives?

13. The working title of Children of the Day was Sara and Oliver. A reviewer in the National Post points out that Sara and Oliver take centre stage in the novel and argues that “the children remain largely unknown … which … leaves the reader wanting.” Do you agree with this comment - or do you see the Vandals as an accurate portrayal of a large family?

14. At the beginning of the novel, Sara Vandal decides not to get out of bed, which, we soon learn, is completely out of character. We are told that Sara never cries-not once during the births of her ten children, not when her husband left to serve in the war, and not as a child in Soviet Russia, though everyone cried around her. With this in mind, discuss the significance of Saras emergence from her bedroom at the end of the book.

15. A Toronto Star reviewer said of the book, “at the end of the day, the Vandal family - all of its members children, really - has a chance to begin again.” Do you agree with this statement, particularly the notion that they are all Children of the Day?

2. Sara seems to suffer from post-traumatic stress, particularly paranoia – keeping a knife in the door when she first moves in with Oliver, ensuring doors are locked in a town where no one else locks their doors. How does this depiction of Sara differ from the woman we first meet? What other symptoms of post-traumatic stress do we see in Saras actions throughout her life?

3. The clock at the house where Sara worked unnerved her: “That far off counting of the hour would awake her, pitch her down a well of despondency and leave her flailing to right herself by morning.” Later in the book she thinks it is “unsettling to witness … a trees season ending so soon.” Why is time so significant to this story – one that takes place over the course of a single day – and particularly significant to Sara? How is the passing of time acknowledged by others in the book?

4. A younger Sara thinks of Oliver as her “financier, meaning fiancé.” How deep did you read into this innocent misuse of English? Was Oliver in fact Saras financier? How else do language and cultural differences between Sara and Oliver, between the Mennonites and the Métis, between the Métis and the French, and between the Vandal children and their classmates play out in the book?

5. “Sara once kissed me …” revealed one of the older Mennonite women gathered at Katys house. “I felt these little arms go around my neck … it was as though she knew what I was thinking. She knew what I needed.” Did this story surprise you about the Sara you had come to know? Did it soften you toward her? Why do you think the author offered this anecdote just prior to the scene in which Sara laughs in the face of her suitor, Henry?

6. How did the chapters from the points of view of Alvina, Emilie and Ruby change your perceptions of the family as a whole? With which of the three did you most closely associate? Why do you think none of the Vandal sons had chapters of their own?

7. If youve read Sandra Birdsells previous novel, The Russländer (in which both Katy Vogt and Sara are introduced) how do you think your interpretation of Children of the Day might be different from those who havent read the previous book?

8. One reviewer hoped that there might be a third book about the Vogt/Vandals as told by another family member. Speculate about which of the Vandal boys might narrate a possible third book. Who else might be the narrator?

9. Both Ruby and Oliver notice that ladybugs are starting to swarm. What does this reveal about them, and what does it signify? The hardcover edition of Children of the Day has a ladybug motif on its cover and throughout; perhaps referring to the nursery rhyme, suggesting that the Vandal house was figuratively “on fire” and its “children all gone.” Discuss the authors skill at creating suspense around the unsupervised children. Why do you think the author allowed the Vandal children to avert disasters?

10. Discuss how the “lesser characters” in the story – Florence Dressler, Ulysse, Annie, Katy and Kornelius, Alice Bouchard – are fully drawn by the author. Each provides the Vandals with help throughout the book; how does each of their actions reflect their character?

11. Uncle Ulysse is an interesting character, playing the ferryman to his nephews lost soul. How does Oliver use the crossings of the river to “find himself”? What is it that Oliver is seeking? What role does his uncle play in Olivers life?

12. Oliver reckons that Alice has had plenty of men in her parents shed. Do you believe this to be true? Do you think Oliver really does? Why would he convince himself of this? How do you think life would have been for Oliver and Alice had they chosen to be together earlier in their lives?

13. The working title of Children of the Day was Sara and Oliver. A reviewer in the National Post points out that Sara and Oliver take centre stage in the novel and argues that “the children remain largely unknown … which … leaves the reader wanting.” Do you agree with this comment – or do you see the Vandals as an accurate portrayal of a large family?

14. At the beginning of the novel, Sara Vandal decides not to get out of bed, which, we soon learn, is completely out of character. We are told that Sara never cries–not once during the births of her ten children, not when her husband left to serve in the war, and not as a child in Soviet Russia, though everyone cried around her. With this in mind, discuss the significance of Saras emergence from her bedroom at the end of the book.

15. A Toronto Star reviewer said of the book, “at the end of the day, the Vandal family – all of its members children, really – has a chance to begin again.” Do you agree with this statement, particularly the notion that they are all Children of the Day?

I was a writer at the age of twelve. That is not to say that I thought, I will be a writer when I grow up, rather, I thought I would become a nurse if only I would prove to be intelligent enough. I was a writer at twelve years old because I was writing. It seemed a perfectly natural thing to do although there wasn’t any writing going on around me at the time, nor did I connect “writer” to the stories I read. I was twelve when I tried to write a story about a family but found the process too unwieldy. I wanted to tell a story about a large family (mine) but I didn’t know how to get the characters out of bed and dressed and down to the breakfast table without describing the entire process, including each button they undid on their pajamas. It seemed to me even then that the place to begin a novel would be at the start of the day. As soon as I began to imagine the story the entire world presented itself, all its sounds, smells and textures and therefore all had to be recorded. Pages and pages later, my character’s feet still hadn’t touched the floor . . .

As a teenager I wrote lyrics and put them to music and dreamed of performing but, alas, I suffered from stage fright. I was unsuccessful at every audition for my high school’s theatrical productions. I wrote some pretty awful poetry during that time as well, but still managed to win a contest sponsored by the student council of my high school. I won in the “most serious” poem category. The prize was a five dollar coupon for dry cleaning.

As a young mother I wrote letters to pen pals all over the world and kept journals in which I recorded the day-to-day activities of my children. When my father died at the age of sixty-nine, I suspected that I wasn’t going to be here forever either. I was in my mid-thirties and all three of my children were more or less on their way out the door. I entered a non-fiction writing contest sponsored by The Writer’s Digest magazine. Once again I won. This time the prize was a Smith Corona portable typewriter.

What inspired you to write this particular book? Is there a story about the writing of this novel that begs to be told?

This is the novel that I tried to write when I was twelve years old. A census taker had come to count us and had declared that on the basis of my father’s ancestry we, the eleven Bartlette children, were French. My father was a French-Cree mix and my Russian-born Mennonite mother was Dutch. Her first language was German. I knew we weren’t French, although for a time I did affect an irritating and silly French accent and cultivated friendships with the French kids from the neighbouring town of St. Jean Baptiste. I sometimes vacationed at my Grandmère Berthelet’s (my father anglicized Berthelet to Bartlette, although not legally) home in St. Boniface and was put to bed beneath a phosphorescent crucifix hanging above the sofa where I slept. I had been baptized Roman Catholic and raised Protestant. On Sundays I would visit my Mennonite grandparents who spoke little English. My Opa tried and failed to teach me to speak German. Religion was a day-to-day practice in the lives of both sides of my family and I felt the tension over the differences. I was thinking about that when I wrote Children of the Day.

I also knew that a character, Sara, from my previous novel, The Russländer, would marry out of her culture and religion in Canada as a means to escape her violent past, and the place and time of Children of the Day seemed to fit.

What is it that you’re exploring in this book?

The love between a man and woman who have been driven to one another by their passion and the various ghosts that haunt them. What will keep them together? Acceptance of one another, I would like to think, rather than resignation to the state they find themselves in. As I wrote I thought, surely to god Oliver isn’t contemplating running away from his wife and ten children! What can he be thinking? He doesn’t see himself as we do, as his children see him, as being out of fashion and over the hill. And yet Oliver remains the child he once was, as does Sara. He has secret desires, regrets, and dreams that may still be possible to fulfill. All the characters in the book are children of their time and place.

And then what to do about Sara? What kind of wife and mother will a woman whose life has been rearranged by violence and tragedy prove to be? Especially one who chooses to marry outside of her culture and religion and therefore is without all that is recognizable – the props that might have assisted her along the way. She’s daring, I think. She likes to leap from the top step of the stairs for that brief moment of feeling herself suspended in the air. She’s petulant, troubled, jealous – and for reasons that are completely understandable.

I am also looking at the inherent clear-eyed hopefulness of children, their resilience and fearlessness in the face of all things.

Who is your favourite character in this book, and why?

Oliver, because of his optimism, good humour, insensitivity … his humanness.

Are there any tips you would give a book club to better navigate their discussion of your book?

I was thinking during the writing of the book about post-traumatic stress syndrome and how it might be manifest in Sara. I gave her a strong need for, desire for, sexual gratification, for moments where she might lose herself in herself and in another person.

The present-day story unfolds within a single day. A day that begins with the information that in all the almost twenty years the Vandal children have known their mother, she has never cried. Of course, by the end of that day, she will cry. Throughout that day I take a circuitous route to tell the stories of Oliver and Sara, how they came to be who they are and what has brought this unlikely couple together. You will meet up with the individual Vandal children and the present-day Sara and Oliver throughout the course of that single day, and in the end all the players will come together in the house and duke it out. The connections are all there.

Children of the Day is like a long prose poem. I hesitate to say that because of the fear some readers may have of poetry. The writing resonates, I hope, and while the story carries the reader along, I had planned for the “poem,” the essence of the story, to linger. 

Do you have a favourite story to tell about being interviewed about your book?

Not a favourite interview, but a reader who presented me with a photograph he’d taken years ago of a hotel burning to the ground. He was dead certain this was the hotel in my novel. Of course I said that it was, and we were both happier for it. There was also a woman who travelled by car from the country to a reading in Winnipeg thinking that she was going to meet one of her relatives – a Vandal. She was in a wheelchair and had rallied the assistance of relatives for the journey. I was sorry to have to say that Vandal was a fictitious name, but she wasn’t convinced. She definitely had recognized the family in my novel as being distant relatives.

Has a review or profile ever changed your perspective on your work?

Not changed my perspective as much as added a dimension to it, another aspect that hadn’t occurred to me, which is what readers tend to do.

If you weren’t writing, what would you want to be doing for a living? What are some of your other passions in life?

If I weren’t writing, I might have been a dancer as I had the body for it, and a passionate inclination. Dancing was also a natural form of expression for me throughout my young years. I sewed, sketched and painted when I was in my late twenties and worked as an office manager in my first husband’s business. Neither dancing nor visual arts would have provided a very secure living, and office managing was beyond my capabilities. I am passionate about poverty and its effect, and the effect of war on the lives of children. For a time – seven years – I was active in a downtown church in Winnipeg and its outreach program to children. That experience taught me that teaching is immensely satisfying. If I weren’t writing I’d want to teach young people for a living. I can’t think of another profession that would demand so many different skills.

If you could have written one book in history, what book would that be?

Anna Karenina

From the Hardcover edition.