Captivity Tales: Canadians in New York

by Elizabeth Hay

This early non–fiction work by critically acclaimed novelist Elizabeth Hay displays the qualities that have resonated with readers ––– the pitch–perfect register of human psychology, the clear, unsentimental yet intimate sentences ––– in her bestselling novels A Student of Weather , Garbo Laughs , Late Nights on Air , and Alone In the Classroom .

Captivity Tales , stories of settlers kidnapped by Indians, are turned on their head in this book about captivity in the city. Stranded in New York with her family, Elizabeth Hay searches for company and finds it in the lives of other Canadians who have come to New Inuit visitors in th 19th century, artists like Michael Snow, Joyce Wieland, Glenn Gould and Teresa Stratas. In searching out their stories, she finds a new map, an underworld of memory and connection, which offers a way home. A fresh, engaging exploration of Canadian cultural identity, Captivity Tales evokes the desperate need to find yourself by losing yourself, and to return home by escaping from it.

Genres: Fiction

154 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1993

About the author

From Elizabeth Hay's web site:
"Elizabeth Hay was born in Owen Sound, Ontario, the daughter of a high school principal and a painter, and one of four children. When she was fifteen, a year in England opened up her world and set her on the path to becoming a writer. She attended the University of Toronto, then moved out west, and in 1974 went north to Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories. For the next ten years she worked as a CBC radio broadcaster in Yellowknife, Winnipeg, and Toronto, and eventually freelanced from Mexico. In 1986 she moved from Mexico to New York City, and in 1992, with her husband and two children, she returned to Canada, settling in Ottawa, where she has lived ever since.

In 2007 Elizabeth Hay's third novel, Late Nights on Air, won the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Her first novel was A Student of Weather (2000), a finalist for the Giller Prize, the Ottawa Book Award, and the Pearson Canada Reader's Choice Award at The Word on the Street, and winner of the CAA MOSAID Technologies Inc. Award for Fiction and the TORGI Award. Her second novel, Garbo Laughs (2003), won the Ottawa Book Award and was shortlisted for the Governor General's Award. Hay is also the author of Crossing the Snow Line (stories, 1989); The Only Snow in Havana (non-fiction, 1992), which was a co-winner of the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-fiction; Captivity Tales: Canadians in New York (non-fiction, 1993), and Small Change (stories, 1997), which was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award, the Trillium Book Award, and the Rogers Communications Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. Hay received the Marian Engel Award for her body of work in 2002."

Reviews

[B. Mantler · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is written in poetic prose, so if you aren't used to reading that kind of thing it takes a chapter to understand what is going on. Elizaneth Hay is good at connecting to the reader emotionally. When she is depressed the reader feels depressed, when she is happy the reader feels happy.

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a Canadian who spent 12 years in New York City, this book resonated with me.