fbpx

Autumn’s Grace

$9.99$22.95

a novel by Bonnie Lendrum

Print: 978-1-926708-88-1
ePub: 978-1-926708-89-8
PDF: 978-1-771330-43-5
416 Pages
June 01, 2013

SKU: N/A Categories: , , Tag:
Families who would want to honour a parent’s request to not die in hospital encounter obstacles that can defeat even accomplished health professionals. Autumn’s Grace is a story that spans a ten-month period as the Campbell family comes to terms with the father’s diagnosis of cancer. The diagnosis seems a particularly unfair blow to a veterinarian who has lived a very healthy lifestyle. In addition he has treated his animal patients and their owners with more respect and compassion than many of the human health professionals are willing or able to provide. The adult children (two nurses, veterinarian, and teacher) confront a health care system they thought they knew, and familial relationships that they had avoided for decades. Generational pulls and career conflicts challenge the siblings as they support their parents, conduct their own family and professional lives, and are forced to face critical situations and the decisions that they must make. They muddle through with varying doses of tenacity, courage, humour and hope.
An important criticism of the health care system, this novel is a gift to people dealing with a dying parent and fulfilling their final wishes.

“Bonnie Lendrum provides valuable insights into the heart-wrenching struggles that families may experience as they strive for their loved ones to have the best possible end-of-life care. Compassionate and compelling, this book will motivate health care professionals to continue their work toward a seamless and coordinated health care system that can best meet the patient’s and their families’ needs.”
—Mary Davies, MSCN, member of the June Callwood Circle of Outstanding Hospice Volunteers

“Autumn’s Grace is a rarity—a novel that gives the reader a close-up and at times blindingly honest view of a family’s end-of-life journey. The novel explores the emotions of each family member as they try to deal with an unexpected diagnosis of cancer—their fear, anger, frailty, love, resentment, strength and loneliness. This book is a valuable resource for anyone wanting to understand the complexity of emotions facing what for many of us is one of the most difficult times in our lives and one that few of us are ever prepared to face.”
—Janet Napper, Past Executive Director, Hospice Association of Ontario

“This novel provides a bold and realistic exposé of the health care system as it deals with diagnosis, treatment, and care of someone facing the prospect of a complex terminal illness. The subject of death and dying are sensitively handled throughout, but this is not a recreational read for the squeamish because little is left to the imagination in the descriptions of medical technologies and the maintenance of bodily functions following surgery. The author is clearly well versed in the clinical intricacies of her setting, and is an astute observer of the impact of a pending tragedy on relationships within a three generational family. This is a novel that should be added to the reading list for students of health services as it raises a number of important contemporary issues in hospitals and especially in palliative care.”
—Judith M. Hibberd, RN (Retired), Professor Emeritus, University of Alberta

“I highly recommend this book and respect Bonnie Lendrum’s ability to help everyone appreciate what ‘patient care’ is all about.”
—Lorine Besel, Past Vice-President Nursing, Royal Victoria Hospital, Montreal

Autumn's Grace


Bonnie Lendrum is a wife, mother, nurse, gardener, volunteer, and ballet student living in Carlisle, Ontario. The latter activity is an attempt to defy the age-associated effects of gravity. A former community nurse, she has cared for patients and families in the icu and in their homes, directed large departments, and participated in research and teaching. Her writing is informed by the experiences that worry her, like palliative care and its delivery in rural communities. Her first published work was a chapter in Nursing Management in Canada. Autumn’s Grace is her first work of fiction.

1 review for Autumn’s Grace

  1. InannaWebmaster

    “A graceful debut novel”
    Reviewed by Brenda Jefferies, Flamborough Review
    August, 27, 2013

    http://www.flamboroughreview.com/community/a-graceful-debut-novel/

    If, as the adage suggests, the best approach to penning a novel is to write what you know, Carlisle author and retired nurse Bonnie Lendrum started in the right place. Then she took it a step further, by writing about the things that keep her up at night.

    Lendrum’s debut, Autumn’s Grace, is a labour of love, with each November, March and April for the past 10 years dedicated to the process – even while she juggled the responsibilities of a career, family (she and her husband, Kenn, have two sons, Luc and Mathew) and volunteer work handling PR for the anti-quarry group FORCE. The result is an engaging, unflinching story of family relationships in the midst of dealing with illness, death and the amount of time and attention we devote to end-of-life care.

    The inspiration for the book was born out of Lendrum’s personal experience. “I had a cluster of deaths…there is a time in your life when there are more deaths than births; more funerals than weddings,” she explained. The process, which is unique to each person but one shared by every family, left her questioning the level of resources and education our health care system devotes to supporting families losing a loved one.

    “We don’t spend enough time talking about how to die well,” she observed in a recent interview with the Review, noting that the addition of residential hospice facilities in recent years has been welcome, but the health care system needs to go a step further. “We would welcome an equivalent to midwives to palliative care,” she said, drawing the comparison to resources surrounding childbirth. “We need more support available for dying at home. It requires time, and it requires effort.”

    The novel’s story centres on the Campbell family as they deal with the diagnosis of the patriarch, Max, a 74-year-old veterinarian who is faced with a painful form of cancer. The reader follows along as he, his wife Marj and his three daughters, Jane, Jessie and Gillian – two of whom work in the health care field – maneuver the tests, diagnosis and end-of-life care for their husband and father.

    The characters – and what they are going through – are highly relatable. Creating them was a “curious process” for Lendrum, who as a nurse had plenty of time in her 40 years as a nurse to observe the behavior of patients and their families. “I made note of the conversations I had with people,” she explained, adding that she gained impressions of the “social graces” of managing difficult situations. She also drew on her own experiences navigating the final stage of life for family members, notably that of her mother-in-law, who wished to live her final days at home. “It was strenuous in the extreme,” she recalled, noting that while they received the resources available through the health care system, they weren’t enough. Instructed to make an application for a nursing home, Lendrum instead found herself bridging the gap as caregiver – sometimes making the trip to her mother-in-law’s Guelph condo two or more times a day. She felt compromised and vulnerable at having to leave a frail 85-year-old alone in her home; eventually, the family arranged for a private service to provide care – a costly option not available to everyone.

    The question came to Lendrum: “How do people go about dying at home? It’s not for everyone, but we should have the choice. “I had a sense of being overwhelmed – and I have a medical background.” That’s when the seeds for the book were planted. “I thought it would make a good paper at first, but then realized it didn’t make sense for a professional journal,” she said. She contemplated framing the storyline as a series of linked short stories. “But it just kept going and going to 700-plus pages and I thought, ‘I have a lot to say.’”

    Lendrum signed up for the Humber College School for Writers correspondence program. Her mentor was novelist and short story writer Sandra Birdsell; Alistair MacLeod, author of No Great Mischief, ran the week-long seminar portion of the course. “I’m a science major. I thought, ‘I’m so out of my league,’” she said, describing her feelings of intimidation. “I wish I could take the class again so I could appreciate it more.”

    Lendrum cites idols such as MacLeod, Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood and Timothy Findlay, along with John Irving, as influences in her own writing. “I keep returning to them, to see how they do things,” she said. While difficult, the initial writing portion of the project turned out to be the easy part, noted Lendrum. Tougher was the process of whittling it down to a manageable length. “At 700 pages, I had to start slashing and burning,” she said, calling the 13 different edits “painful.” But, she added, “I could see it getting better.”

    The final version of Autumn’s Grace came in at 399 pages. Feedback has been positive – most notably, a friend whose father had passed away a decade earlier contacted Lendrum. “She said the book made her appreciate and understand the events of that time better,” she said.

Add a review

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Format

Printed Copy, ePUB, PDF

You may also like…