Book Review: Wreck: A very Anxious Memoir in Prairie Flower Read

Just found this wonderful review by Kate O'Gorman. It was posted in August. I've never gotten the hang of August. Thanks to Kate for her kind and thoughtful words. 

"What is uniquely brilliant about Wreck is the structure Burke employs over three chapters entitled Asking 1, 2, and 3. As the author works through her complicated relationship with her grandfather—a difficult man she feels responsible for, a man she may or may not love, a man whose actions caused great pain and grief—Burke becomes the unreliable narrator of her own life. Here, the author’s approach to writing memoir is dazzlingly creative, and perhaps a bit cathartic."

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The Miramichi Reader’s Tips for An Autumn Road Trip by Kelley Jo Burke

A recent piece I wrote for all those who hit the road with anxiety in their luggage.....

The Miramichi Reader’s Tips for An Autumn Road Trip by Kelley Jo Burke

There’s still time for a road trip (I’ve got one coming up) before it gets cold and wintery and all the other conditions under which sane people (read, non-Canadians, especially non-Western Canadians) stay off the road. When planning for a road trip, author Kelley Jo Burke has the following suggestions for the anxious traveller:

THIS IS CRITICAL–Pick a point person who will commit to making you go on the trip. You will think, but I want to go, I have to go, I’ve been planning this for months. Still. You will want to bail at some point. Choose your point person and empower them to be VERY FIRM with you. (This can include slipping you medication but NO CATTLE PRODS. Cattle prods always sound like good fun until you’re the one getting prodded. And having to change your underpants immediately thereafter. Meds before prods, I always say)

Make a list. You are nothing without a list. List every step of the packing. Anticipate everything that can go wrong, and buy things to pre-empt all of them, early in the list-making process. Start laying in necessary extras. All your meds. Small bottles of shampoo that you kept from the last trip and will certainly not use because it makes your hair go all hairy troll doll fuzzy–but you may need it for emergencies. Bandaids. Batteries. Floss. More floss. Matches. Maps (yes of course you have GPS on your phone, but what if there’s a socio-economic collapse and the internet goes down? What then huh? )

Maybe pick up more medication. And luggage.

Wake up, heart-slamming, at 4 in the morning, right before you leave and realize that funnel clouds have been sighted within 500 miles of your planned course and that you are almost certainly going to die on this trip and no amount of dental floss is going to stop that. And that you can’t go. You absolutely can’t go. It would be suicide. And of course you know that’s insane,
but this is unquestionably the one time your crazy is also going to be RIGHT–and no one is going to believe you and they will all think that you have bats in the belfry nuts but that is better than being dashed to pieces like a Twister cow….

Deploy point person, who will deploy the medication that you wouldn’t even have if not for the LIST–so in a way, you’re saving the day almost as much as the point person who is now frog-marching your drugged form into the car.

Except not…..

Kelley Jo Burke is an award-winning Regina playwright, creative nonfiction writer and documentarian, and was for many years host of CBC Radio’s SoundXchange. ... Wreck: A Very Anxious Memoir is her latest book. 

Reading and Talk at Saskatoon Word on the Street with Martine Noël-Maw, hosted by Madeleine Blais-Dahlem

I read and chatted about Wreck on an authors' panel about identity for the Saskatoon Word on the Street. Here's the link, the broadcast starts at 2:30 and the interview at 6 minutes-ish.

Review for "Wreck" Winnipeg Free Press

I used to deliver the Winnipeg Free Press--so this is cool:

Playwright ponders impact of early unease

Reviewed by: Susan Huebert
Posted: 3:00 AM CDT Saturday, Aug. 28, 2021

"Wreck: A Very Anxious Memoir is an interesting, if somewhat odd, book. With elements of fiction and memoir intertwined, the author has written an engaging and thought-provoking story of class structure, family ties, and the nature of memory that readers will enjoy."

Try the audio book--Wreck: A very Anxious Memoir on Audible

My producer says it's the definitive edition.