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After fifty years together, Gertrude and Mildred are facing some serious life changes. The bridal shop they own, A Rose on Corydon, has been a meeting place for their small community of friends and customers, with whom they have long shared joys and sorrows, worries, and triumphs. Unexpectedly, a series of events threatens the foundation of the life they have made together and tests their relationship in new ways. Mildreds 73-year-old hip is no match for an icy sidewalk, and long-time friend Wordie stares cancer in the face. Thirteen-year-old Arlie, aged beyond her tender years by the same illness, is a stalwart support, as is the thrice-married Perfume, on her way down a fourth aisle to eternal happiness-, holding, perhaps, the key that makes the changes more bearable. This poetic and graceful novel explores the secrets and promises sustained by a love affair whose dimensions render speechless the most experienced of lovers. Educator, activist, editor, and writer Deborah Schnitzer is the author of the novel Gertrude Unmanageable and the long poem Loving Gertrude Stein, as well as scholarly works and critical anthologies equally devoted to the unexpected. Educator, activist, editor, and writer, Deborah Schnitzer is the author of the novel, Gertrude Unmanageable, the long poem, Loving Gertrude Stein, as well as scholarly works and critical anthologies equally devoted to the unexpected. Her latest book, An Unexpected Break in the Weather, won the 2010 Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction. Schnitzer is a 3M Teaching Fellow in the English Department at the University of Winnipeg. A Rose on Corydon is the city's "go to" bridal shop, and the owners, Milly and Gertrude, have decided that after 30 years, it's time to close the business. They decide to host Perfume's fourth wedding as a closing-out party, but the celebration turns sour when Wordie is diagnosed with cancer. This novel grapples with the meaning of friendship, family estrangement, and how we care for the ill and the elderly. This luminous literary novel will delight those who treasure word play, want a Winnipeg fix and yearn for interesting and complex stories.
Just as Mordecai Richler did with St. Urbain Street in Montreal, University of Winnipeg English professor Deborah Schnitzer brings life and story to our own Corydon Avenue.
Readers will enjoy references to Bread and Circuses, Nucci\'s, the Green Scene, Redeemed, and the \"crossing guard costume man\" at St. Ignatius School. This is written by someone who knows and loves the neighbourhood.
The multi-faceted story begins with lonely introvert Jeannette watching two elderly women cross the street: \"It\'s a walkrough day, iced, the side streets almost impassable and the wind as belligerent as Jeannette\'s unwashed apartment window.\"
Yes, Winnipeg weather plays supporting actor in Schnitzer\'s story. Her words capture what we might notice but don\'t usually recognize: \"Winter sun. Cedars tender in burlap dresses.\" In February, \"temperatures unsteady, slush frozen in filthy alleys, ruts and cars stillborn in attached garages.\"
But the central characters are the elderly women who are a couple -- Mildred and Gertrude, longtime owners of A Rose on Corydon, a fictional bridal shop (like 7th Avenue on Academy?). When Mildred falls on the street and breaks her hip, a series of events begin that spell the end of the Rose.
This broken hip forces Mildred and Gertrude, who are in their 70s, to face the reality that they need to close their business soon. But there is so much that remains to be sold, and it\'s wrong to close a shop without a proper ending.
So, when their longtime friend and customer Perfume announces her fourth marriage, Millie and Gertrude offer to host her wedding in their store, with its stairway fish tank and fireplace.
It\'s a clever going-out-of-business ploy and a not-to-be-forgotten event: all participants and guests, including the men, will purchase their wedding outfits from the wedding sto
Just as Mordecai Richler did with St. Urbain Street in Montreal, University of Winnipeg English professor Deborah Schnitzer brings life and story to our own Corydon Avenue.
Readers will enjoy references to Bread and Circuses, Nucci\'s, the Green Scene, Redeemed, and the \"crossing guard costume man\" at St. Ignatius School. This is written by someone who knows and loves the neighbourhood.
The multi-faceted story begins with lonely introvert Jeannette watching two elderly women cross the street: \"It\'s a walkrough day, iced, the side streets almost impassable and the wind as belligerent as Jeannette\'s unwashed apartment window.\"
Yes, Winnipeg weather plays supporting actor in Schnitzer\'s story. Her words capture what we might notice but don\'t usually recognize: \"Winter sun. Cedars tender in burlap dresses.\" In February, \"temperatures unsteady, slush frozen in filthy alleys, ruts and cars stillborn in attached garages.\"
But the central characters are the elderly women who are a couple -- Mildred and Gertrude, longtime owners of A Rose on Corydon, a fictional bridal shop (like 7th Avenue on Academy?). When Mildred falls on the street and breaks her hip, a series of events begin that spell the end of the Rose.
This broken hip forces Mildred and Gertrude, who are in their 70s, to face the reality that they need to close their business soon. But there is so much that remains to be sold, and it\'s wrong to close a shop without a proper ending.
So, when their longtime friend and customer Perfume announces her fourth marriage, Millie and Gertrude offer to host her wedding in their store, with its stairway fish tank and fireplace.
It\'s a clever going-out-of-business ploy and a not-to-be-forgotten event: all participants and guests, including the men, will purchase their wedding outfits from the wedding sto