Vital Signs

Description

A moving and fiercely honest novel that explores marriage through the lens of a crisis of mortality. 'I think I have found the way to talk to her in the present. The past takes too much language.' So much is taken for granted in a long marriage, so much is relied upon, resented, and never spoken of. When Anna begins to mangle her sentences as a result of a brain aneurysm that could kill her at any moment, her husband Mike uses his talent as a graphic artist to draw his way closer to his wife. Trying to communicate with her, and himself too, through signs and symbols, he wants to show his wife that she has been his entire universe. But Mike is deeply flawed, hovering on the knife-edge of a confession, he selfishly looks to the woman he loves for absolution. Not knowing how much time they have left together and incoherent with guilt, will he finally confess all the ways in which he rebelled against her power over him, the way he betrayed her?

Tessa McWatt was born in Guyana, and moved to Canada with her family when she was three. She is the author of five earlier novels; her second, Dragons Cry, was a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction and the City of Toronto Book Award. She developed and leads the MA in Writing- Imaginative Practice programme at the University of East London. She divides her time between London and Toronto.

A gripping story focusing on a complex marriage as it reaches crisis point. * Easy Living * Depicts the power struggles and compromises of a long marriage with bracing honesty. * Financial Times * Part love story, part forensic examination of the psyche, Tessa McWatt digs deep into what makes us human in this disturbing portrait of family life. -- Camilla Gibb Packed with fascinating insight ... It's a gripping read -- Cynthia MacDonald * Globe & Mail * A mesmerizing read. . . . [A] beautiful book. . . . A story of such enigma and economy . . . She depicts the undulating landscape of an enduring marriage with poignancy and power . . . Vital Signs is a work of literature, criticism and philosophy all at once: A formidable intellectual hat trick. At the same time McWatt tells a sincere and simple tale, that like children, we wish would never end. -- Donna Bailey Nurse * National Post *