The Day I Sat with Jesus on the Sundeck and a Wind Came Up and Blew My Kimono Open and He Saw My Breasts: A Short Story from A Song for Nettie Johnson

by Gloria Sawai

The Day I Sat On the Sun Deck is a funny, philosophical, sexy, sad and searching story that explores faith, the nature of belief, with the lightness of a meringue.

336 pages, ebook

First published November 19, 2002

About the author

Gloria Sawai, born Gloria Ruth Ostrem, was an American-born fiction author who lived in Canada from her early childhood on.

In 2002 she was awarded the Governor General's Award for her novel A Song for Nettie Johnson.

Reviews

[Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly · Rating 5 out of 5]

September 11. But not THAT September 11 in New York. This was September 11, 1972--a Monday-- in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. A young wife named Gloria (same name as the author) is alone in their house, her husband and five children having gone out to attend to their usual Monday concerns. She sees the big pile of laundry with varying degrees of dirt yet, when she opens the fridge to get some orange juice, she sees also a bottle of red wine and decides to pour that instead into her glass and she goes out to the deck, sits on a folding chair, and relaxes.

Their deck has a great view of the prairie. And while looking out, a little bump at first until it grew to the unmistakable figure of a human being, she saw Jesus Christ coming towards their house, towards her, until he's up there with her, talking to her, sipping red wine with her, and there's this naughty gust of prairie wind which exposed her breasts which Jesus stared at and which she made no effort to put back inside her kimono.

This story made the author Gloria Sawai famous. In what anthology it properly belongs--sex or religion--is a discussion which may go on forever.

[Billie Milholland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elegantly done. Poignant and wise.