Abstract

This manuscript examines what it means for a child to find herself suspended between the desire for the truth about her origins and herself and the fear of autonomy that truth may bring. I portray this tension in the central character, Meryl Leare, as she learns the lessons of origin, truth, love and hate from her manipulative and unstable mother, Julia Leare, a summer tourist-cum-resident and also the pariah of Garvey, a fictional tourist town on New Brunswick's Fundy Coast. Meryl witnesses disturbing events from the windows and doorways in both her community and her home. As these settings fluctuate both emotionally (through the actions of her mother) and physically (as the logging industry wipes away the forested areas around Garvey and as the shores of the Bay of Fundy do what shores do--erode with each day's tide), Meryl seeks solace and comfort in what little control she can exercise on this environment. These secretive acts of control allow her to explore her station in the community and in her home and become the grounds for her eventual reflection on difference, responsibility and loyalty. As Meryl lives the events of a summer that changed her life, she comes to understand the actions she witnessed and how they affected her in the following years.