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Dressing for Hope
Lorna Jackson's characters earn every scrap of comfort they get, sexual and otherwise. In the title story of Dressing for Hope , a bar singer finds her "future is getting crowded" when two ex-lovers turn up at the Hope Hotel to catch her gig, a third is on his way, and #2 gives her a phone message from #4. From the tiny stage, she notices the Harley women. "I admire how every step and glance is a sexual act. Their nail polish is libido. They wear tri-coloured rosebud tattoos in places I barely wash. They are as alert as I am to the mood of the room and pass through." "Round River" uses Paul Bunyan yarns to ease communication among a newcomer to a BC logging town, her lumberman lover Duff, and his very attractive 20-year-old son. Her deeply rooted inner conflicts almost sour the three-way relationship. But Duff finds the centre of peace and understanding for them all in a metaphor of work. "My father used to say, 'Hand-falling trees was so quiet,' but I've done it, too, and I know there's no difference. ... The bounce of timber hitting dirt is loud no matter how it was cut or who cut it."
148 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1995
2 people want to read
About the author
Lorna Jackson
8 books1 followerA classically trained vocalist who spent a decade singing country rock in small-town BC bars, a big city Vancouver girl who shears sheep and plants corn in the country on Vancouver Island, an exacting university writing teacher by day and raucous hockey aficionado by night: Lorna Jackson is full of the sort of contradictions that make for bright, original writing.
After the saloon singing years, Jackson returned to university to pursue degrees in English and take writing classes with Jack Hodgins and Mark Anthony Jarman. By the end of her student years at UVic, she had published a collection of short stories, Dressing for Hope (Gooselane Editions, 1995) and was teaching in the departments of English and Writing. Her first novel, A Game to Play on the Tracks (Porcupine's Quill) was published in 2003. She has been a columnist for Quill and Quire magazine, a contributor to the Georgia Straight, and serves on the editorial board of Malahat Review. Her writing—fiction and creative nonfiction—has appeared in such magazines as Brick, The Fiddlehead, The New Quarterly, Canadian Notes and Queries, and Canadian Fiction Magazine. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Writing at UVic.
After the saloon singing years, Jackson returned to university to pursue degrees in English and take writing classes with Jack Hodgins and Mark Anthony Jarman. By the end of her student years at UVic, she had published a collection of short stories, Dressing for Hope (Gooselane Editions, 1995) and was teaching in the departments of English and Writing. Her first novel, A Game to Play on the Tracks (Porcupine's Quill) was published in 2003. She has been a columnist for Quill and Quire magazine, a contributor to the Georgia Straight, and serves on the editorial board of Malahat Review. Her writing—fiction and creative nonfiction—has appeared in such magazines as Brick, The Fiddlehead, The New Quarterly, Canadian Notes and Queries, and Canadian Fiction Magazine. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Writing at UVic.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 2, 2009
Fun, that's all really. I really want to hang out with Lorna Jackson, she sounds like my kind of girl.
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