Notes Towards Recovery

by Louise Ells

Notes Towards Recovery , is a short story collection that explores loss and the spaces around loss. At the centre of these stories are everyday women who must navigate these spaces and their shifting boundaries, often redefining themselves in the process.

215 pages, Paperback

Published March 25, 2019

Reviews

[Tim Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book. As a new author I am reading with new attention and Louise Ells richly rewards a careful read with her thoughtful stories. I'm also a Canadian who lives in Northwestern Ontario and she captures the human and natural terrain with surgical accuracy and respect for the inherent dignity of her characters.

These stories unfold at a very human pace and we see the world through the eyes of women and girls navigating loss and tragedy. However, the emotions evoked are empathy and compassion. The way the author treats issues of illness and coming to the end of life are contemplative and philosophical in nature. Like a kind of background radiation, the injustice faced by women and the poor is a character too and leads the reader to think about fairness in new lights.

The author's style is economical and vivid at the same time. She somehow manages to take the reader so authentically into the story, that it feels autobiographical (though the diversity of characters makes that impossible). Notes Towards Recovery reminded me of Alice Munro's stories, but with more rounded edges. I'm looking forward to the next book by Ms. Ells.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let me start by saying that I have never been a fan of short stories. I always felt like there was something lacking or that I didn't have enough time to get attached to characters and their stories. I think that it may just be that I did not read the right stories. I really enjoyed this collection. I found so many details within different stories that I could relate to or that tied to something I have experienced. The running theme of family really resonated with me as I grew up in a tight-knit family. When I first got this book I don't think I was really ready for it, so I had put it aside. Something made me pick it up this last week and I found myself flying through the stories getting caught up in them. I didn't feel that they were rushed or that I could not relate to the characters, so I believe that is a testament to how they were written. I felt like I was right there sort or watching from above, so to speak. A sweet collection that I am very happy to have crossed paths with.

[Andrew Stickland · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful collection. The stories are all beautifully crafted, with such sympathetic and believable characters and such a wonderfully evocative sense of time and place. I found it hard to read more than one story at a time, because each one is so rich and satisfying that I felt I needed to savour it for a while and revisit my favourite sections before I was ready to move on to the next.

For those who enjoy the work of Alice Munro, Tove Jansson or Claire Keegan, I would strongly recommend adding Notes Towards Recovery to your TBR pile.

[Divya Ramaswamy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a beautiful collection of short stories - poignant and moving. I really enjoyed reading all of them, my favorite being Moon Jellies. There's so much compassion and empathy in the telling of the stories, and the landscapes so perfectly complement the characters, their emotions, and circumstances.

[Debra · Rating 5 out of 5]

The whole time that I was reading Notes Toward Recovery, I wondered -- Why is no one talking about this book? The short stories in the second half, that deal with care workers, are poignant. This is no peek through a window; rather, Ells flings the door open onto a world few of us know much about. As the title suggests, there are tragedies from which each narrator must recover. In a prose style that ranges from the informal "Frank Tooley got it into his head" to such images as "I find the moon jellies and watch them glide down through the water like a sky full of parachutists," Ells takes us back to forgotten places and times.