THE DEFENDER: Cathy Turrie
Cathy has been a part of the Wasaga Beach Public Library family for over 14 years. She loves Wasaga Beach and walks the beach regularly, no matter the season. She grew up in Thunder Bay and has called Wasaga home for the past 2 decades, continually being active and involved within the community. Cathy is a proud mom of 2 girls and shares the love of reading, and chocolate, with them.
Cathy says she chose We’re All in This Together by Amy Jones because of how it resonated with her, and because of her ability to relate too many of the settings.
“Free-spirited Kate has her life illustrated through impactful and heartbreaking passages that detail her struggle to grasp the meanings of words as she battles dementia. We see her working backwards to try to recall words and memories she was once so familiar with. The book is set in Thunder Bay, ON, and nearby Kakabeka Falls. Having grown up there, I was able to easily visualize and immerse myself into the story and clearly paint a picture of what the characters were experiencing. Reading a book which depicts a stranger’s interpretation of the area I’d grown up in, reinforces my belief that it is important for people to read about where they’re from; it presents a new perspective of the things one may see every day and may take for granted. Just as Kate begins to forget her world and attempt to piece together the little she is able to recall, I too, found myself recalling and searching for past memories of the place I once used to know so clearly.”
Cathy says “We’re All in This Together is about the traces we leave behind that do not evaporate, about the expansiveness of familial love and its capacity to absorb even this.”
THE BOOK: We’re All in This Together by Amy Jones
A woman goes over a waterfall, a video goes viral, a family goes into meltdown — life is about to get a lot more complicated for the Parker family.
Like all families, the Parkers of Thunder Bay have had their share of complications. But when matriarch Kate Parker miraculously survives plummeting over a waterfall in a barrel — a feat captured on a video that goes viral — it’s Kate’s family who tumbles into chaos under the spotlight. Her prodigal daughter returns to town. Her 16-year-old granddaughter gets caught up in an online relationship with a man she has never met. Her husband sifts through their marriage to search for what sent his wife over the falls. Her adopted son fears losing the only family he’s ever known. Then there is Kate, who once made a life-changing choice and now fears her advancing dementia will rob her of memories from when she was most herself.
Set over the course of four calamitous days, Amy Jones’s big-hearted first novel follows the Parkers’ misadventures as catastrophe forces them to do something they never thought possible — act like a family. (Goodreads.com)