When I Was Young & In My Prime

by Alayna Munce

2006 TRILLIUM BOOK AWARD NOMINEE NATIONAL BESTSELLER

"A deeply humane, deeply human book."
- Michael Crummey

"Moving, funny, full of hard truths."
- Jim Bartley, The Globe and Mail

What's left of us when we're gone? In When I Was Young and In My Prime, a young woman watches her grandparents begin to decline. As she sorts through the couple's belongings, she reflects on the untold stories and unsung bonds that make up our lives. Meanwhile, modern urban life places strains on her own marriage and on her sense of what, ultimately, we owe each other.

Weaving together voices, diary entries, poems, conversations and lists, When I Was Young and In My Prime cuts to the heart of our search for intimacy and family, for what makes life meaningful and love real. The result is a smart, moving novel about personal and cultural decline, dignity and work, the urban and the rural, the old and the new, and the search for something ageless.

Genres: Fiction, Canada

256 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2005

Reviews

[George Ilsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

The literary device of sorting through an aging relative's possessions and encountering mysteries and unexpected revelations, is rather commonly used, but rarely is it as effective and as beautifully evocative as in this novel from Alayna Munce.

A combination of eldercare, personal reflection, found poetry, and discovering all the valuable things you need to let go of, this book manages to resonate in many directions at once while remaining harmonious and coherent. Rich with details and relatable themes.

Heartfelt and beautiful. A novel, but with its true quirkiness and intimacy, reads like memoir.

[Will Ansbacher · Rating 5 out of 5]

A young woman watches and experiences her grandparents' slow disintegration - mental in the case of her grandmother, her grandfather’s is physical. As well, she describes and analyzes her own life and relationship with her partner. But the story is equally her grandparents’ own. I liked the way the multiple voices interleaved, each one told in the first person, so it was sometimes not immediately apparent who was talking. The monologues – most only a page or two at a time – are very powerful and dramatic, full of self-awareness without being sentimental at all. They are interspersed with other material like a list of birds, excerpts from a reference or an information sheet about Alzheimers’, fragments of verse or quotations and so on. Munce is a poet so that style is understandable but after a while it started to resemble a collage and I thought it disturbed the flow of the monologues. Overall though I liked the book very much except - or maybe because - it was uncomfortably familiar territory, an experience we’ll all have to face sooner or later.

[Kay · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm going to be reading with Alayna in five days time, so it's a good thing I really enjoyed her book. It's a highly poetic and thought-provoking account of how history gets lost when the people who've lived it can no longer continue - the dismantling of a house, the decisions around nursing, the failure of memory or limbs, but it's also a rhapsodical love story to the family that made the author what she is, and an evocation of a time which has gone, but will never be forgotten as long as it is made tangible in memory, family history, or literature.

I'm really looking forward to hearing her read from this work, as I think it will add resonance to narrative which is already laden with intimate personal history.

Addendum - the reading was SUPERB! Alayna reads with tremendous restraint, sharing the narrative rather than projecting or performing it, and this gives the audience the sense that it has become part of the transformative experience of watching a family change as old age takes its toll. If you have the chance to hear Alayna read, grab it - you won't be disappointed.

[Lorraine · Rating 5 out of 5]

For something that mixes the past with the present, shares the narration with different characters, combines poetry and prose, deals with tragedy of tomorrow and difficulties of today, volleys between country and city life, is reflective and thought-provoking, and could potentially cause tears, I recommend When I Was Young & In My Prime by Alayna Munce. It's a Canadian book, published in 2005, and potentially difficult to find because it's not from a major publisher, but it's really good. So well written (but that might be because the writing style is similar to some of my own, except much better) ;)

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the flow of her words, the poetry interspersed throughout, and the fact that the story touches on locations where I grew up- I didn't like how bummed out it made me feel. Perhaps if I were still young, strong, and far away from the decline of my parents (my grandparents being long gone)- I might have found it thought provoking. Instead it was a reminder of things to come all too soon to my life. It was also a little too ambiguous in spots-

[Deborah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning, beautifully written. A treasure to have stumbled across.

[Ml Lalonde · Rating 4 out of 5]

After Canadian author Zoe Whitall started a thread on Twitter asking people to name the best Canadian novels that deserve to be famous, I ordered this book when so many people named it. This is poet Alayna Munce’s only novel and is the story of a young woman living through her grandparent’s decline. It moves through time and space with grace and confidence and there are moments of almost painful beauty and pathos. I found out while reading it that the author hails from Huntsville, Ontario and went to school with a friend of mine. Small, poetic world we live in.

[litost · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wise

unconventional

poetic

[Gina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good and bittersweet.

[Malica · Rating 3 out of 5]

The mundane, the beauty in decomposition and decay.

[Alison Gibson · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I read this book 2 weeks ago, I gave it a 5 star rating. Since then, when I've passed the hall table where books wait to be passed on, I've thought, I must have been out of my mind to rate it thus; I rarely rate a book 5 stars! So, yesterday I took it up again & re-read it in one sitting (something I've never done!) and yep, 5 stars. It's beautifully written; lyrical, poetic & poignant without being maudlin.

[Melissa Sawatsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is like entering a stranger's attic and sifting through the old, dusty treasure chests found within. The author takes on several different voices and they speak together in a melodious and harmonic manner. There are numerous moments of grace and beauty in the language throughout the book and it is one to be savoured and returned to. I applaud Alayna Munce's precision, bravery, humanity.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

A stunning mix of poetry and prose--this book explores the way memory works and the way we build our knowledge about ourselves and our history. It's about death, decay, love, and what we hold on to even as our bodies and minds fall to pieces.

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful, thought-provoking story about lives at their 'prime' and lives near the end. The format is untraditional which took me a while to get used to, but once I did I found it made the novel that much more wonderful.

[Cheryl Andrews · Rating 1 out of 5]

As young woman watches the personal and cultural decline of her grandparents, she sorts through their belongings and weaves together "... voices, diary entries, poems, conversations and lists ..."

[Crystal Allen]

Recommended by Kelly

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully poetic story of a young woman who is watching her grandparents at the end of their lives.

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really sad and really beautiful.

[Mickey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful story of a young woman watching the decline of her grandparents, and also of the grandparents telling of their own lives. Poetic writing, lovely to read.

[Peace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Touching.

[Geoff Macdonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful read. Beautiful.