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Before It Was Easy
Before It Was Easy is a Whistler Independent Book Award Finalist
Claire has always been a woman of action, a woman surging through life’s challenges, blind to the tragedies left in her wake. Claire’s younger sister Heather and Claire’s daughter Nora follow behind, picking up the pieces, making things right. Or so it has always seemed to Heather and Nora.
“When I was young Claire was my big sister,” says Heather. “When I had my own family she was my older sister who enjoyed life and maybe drank a bit too much; then she was my sister who fell down the stairs and had a brain injury, my sister who got on with the business of life and scolded me for worrying. Now she’s getting on with the business of dying and suddenly I realize I don’t know who she is.”
Before It Was Easy is a story of damage done and tenderness found. It is a story inspired by personal loss, a story that straddles the boundaries of memoir and fiction. “We tell stories to make sense of our lives,” says author Kath Curran. “Such a story may be framed within the surface details of a life lived, but reaching the deep truths—surfacing the intertwining textures of pain and tenderness that make a life real—this is the work of imagination.”
Told through the voices of its three main characters, Before It Was Easy is about learning to speak the stories that return us to our beginnings, about following those threads of pain and tenderness that reveal to us, perhaps for the first time, who we really are.
Claire has always been a woman of action, a woman surging through life’s challenges, blind to the tragedies left in her wake. Claire’s younger sister Heather and Claire’s daughter Nora follow behind, picking up the pieces, making things right. Or so it has always seemed to Heather and Nora.
“When I was young Claire was my big sister,” says Heather. “When I had my own family she was my older sister who enjoyed life and maybe drank a bit too much; then she was my sister who fell down the stairs and had a brain injury, my sister who got on with the business of life and scolded me for worrying. Now she’s getting on with the business of dying and suddenly I realize I don’t know who she is.”
Before It Was Easy is a story of damage done and tenderness found. It is a story inspired by personal loss, a story that straddles the boundaries of memoir and fiction. “We tell stories to make sense of our lives,” says author Kath Curran. “Such a story may be framed within the surface details of a life lived, but reaching the deep truths—surfacing the intertwining textures of pain and tenderness that make a life real—this is the work of imagination.”
Told through the voices of its three main characters, Before It Was Easy is about learning to speak the stories that return us to our beginnings, about following those threads of pain and tenderness that reveal to us, perhaps for the first time, who we really are.
298 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 12, 2015
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September 10, 2018
"Before It Was Easy" is like a love song. The instruments play the many versions of the melody, lending their own voice sometimes in solo, sometimes blending together for the chorus. How better to honor one's mother than to orchestrate a family, a community into such a tribute. And the melody lingers on for all to read and remember in Curran's book. I am in awe at the empathy Kath Curran displays as she writes fiction based on experiences from the point of view of her aunt, herself and her dying mother, making sense out of clues. It had to be like following bread crumbs in the dark and could only have come together through sharing around the manuscript, and thru inspiration. This book is a legacy, a treasure beyond any heirloom for Kath, for her family, for those of us that left things unsaid, and for all of us trying to piece together the story of how we matter in a time and place where things aren't talked about or denial stands guard over dark secrets.
Artfully described scenes circle in and out of the story threaded carefully together, sensory details invoking memories for the reader. Lying on her deathbed Claire remembers skiing home off the mountain as darkness falls, carrying a lantern made of a can holding a candle casting light through holes punched through the tin. I could picture the twinkling lights descending the massive slope reflecting off the cold white snow. Along with Claire's daughter Nora, I tasted the bittersweetness of realization that the refrain her mother sings, "You are My Sunshine", is flanked by verses saying goodbye. And I could imagine Claire's sister Heather frantically searching through boxes in the garage for the Shirley Temple doll given to her at Christmas time ever so long ago. She has learned that Claire had wanted it—indeed in a rare show of vulnerability, Claire had asked for it. In a touching scene, Heather and her children dust off and restore the doll for Claire to have. All of this and so much more wrapped in laughter, irony, superstition, faith and even joy as a family comes together, each as they are, to honor a courageous lady, whose generosity and sparkling smile lit up a room and warmed their lives.
Artfully described scenes circle in and out of the story threaded carefully together, sensory details invoking memories for the reader. Lying on her deathbed Claire remembers skiing home off the mountain as darkness falls, carrying a lantern made of a can holding a candle casting light through holes punched through the tin. I could picture the twinkling lights descending the massive slope reflecting off the cold white snow. Along with Claire's daughter Nora, I tasted the bittersweetness of realization that the refrain her mother sings, "You are My Sunshine", is flanked by verses saying goodbye. And I could imagine Claire's sister Heather frantically searching through boxes in the garage for the Shirley Temple doll given to her at Christmas time ever so long ago. She has learned that Claire had wanted it—indeed in a rare show of vulnerability, Claire had asked for it. In a touching scene, Heather and her children dust off and restore the doll for Claire to have. All of this and so much more wrapped in laughter, irony, superstition, faith and even joy as a family comes together, each as they are, to honor a courageous lady, whose generosity and sparkling smile lit up a room and warmed their lives.
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