Susan Wadds’ debut novel, What the Living Do, published by Regal Publishing, is about a young woman Brett who is trying to move forward while dealing with past trauma, illness, and loss.
Wadds says that she was inspired by a situation she found herself in and what she calls a “sacred image.”
“I wrote several pages of the story in a week-long flurry only to realize that I’d written the entire arc of the book,” says Wadds. “The sacred image that appeared to me was a 30-something woman holding a STOP/SLOW sign for a road crew, which made me wonder: What if a nice-looking woman worked with men doing the so-called dirty work? Why had she chosen that job?”
Brett is a maintenance worker in a small Ontario city, the only woman in a crew of 12 who drives a truck, does road upkeep, buries roadkill, and plows snow. Her co-worker Mel is Indigenous and says a prayer over every dead deer, skunk or bear they encounter. Brett asks him to teach her to pray in Ojibwe.
“Mel is named after my son’s uncle, who is from Rama First Nations, as are both my ex-husband and my son,” continues Wadds. “I’m a settler. Almost all of what Mel says to Brett are things I'd heard from my ex-husband or from those in his family. The story about how skunk scent was used to treat the Spanish Flu is true, inspired by tea made by my son’s great-great-great grandmother.”
While reading, I found myself chastising Brett for her choices, but Wadds has done an excellent job of writing from the perspective of an unreliable narrator, one who is vulnerable and who the reader roots for.
Animals, in particular, Brett’s dog Beckett, are featured prominently. Beckett seems to be there in almost every gut-wrenching scene between Brett and her boyfriend Cole, and becomes almost like a therapy animal.
In the book, Wadds addresses the notion that illness is often seen as the fault of the one afflicted, something with which she says she is familiar.
“Brett thinks of her cancer as ‘payback’ for events that she blames herself for,” says Wadds. “There’s a notion in our society that we deserve the ills that befall us. I encountered this when I was diagnosed with the same kind of cancer that Brett has.”
The plot is skillfully crafted and paced, slowly revealing information, while building up to a surprising ending.
About the Author
Winner of the 2024 Canadian Book Club Award and 2024 Indies finalist for her novel and the 2016 Writer’s Union of Canada’s Prose Contest, Susan Wadds’ work has appeared in various publications, including carteblanche, The Blood Pudding, Room, and Waterwheel Review. A graduate of the Humber School for Writers and a member of The Writers Union of Canada and The Canadian Authors Association, Wadds is a certified Amherst Writers and Artists (AWA) workshop facilitator.
About the Reviewer
Joanne Culley is an award-winning writer and documentary producer whose previous books are Love in the Air: Second World War Letters and Claudette on the Keys. Her work has appeared in The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Peterborough Examiner, Legion Magazine, Canada’s History, and Our Canada, as well as on CBC and Bravo Network. She has an MA in English from the University of Toronto and a Certificate in Creative Writing from Humber College. She grew up in Toronto and now lives in Peterborough, Ontario. Visit her at joanneculley.com..
Book Details
Publisher Regal House Publishing
Publication date March 19 2024
Language English
Print length 236 pages
ISBN-10 1646034090
ISBN-13 978-1646034093