The box of the dead
By: Beatrice MacNeil
Publisher: McArthur & Company
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Toronto, ON
Language: eng
Number of pages: 280
ISBN-13: 9781770871830
Subjects: Physicians' spouses; Older women; Reminiscing in old age; Photograph collections; Fiction; Boardinghouses; Parrots; Widows
Description: Novel centers on Ivadoile Spears, aged ninety-two, who was widowed early and has run a boarding house on Cape Breton for many years in the splendid home left to her by her doctor husband. We muse with her over the turns her life has taken -- the characters who stayed with her between sea-voyages, the blood on her hands at far too young an age. Ivadoile now pauses to listen to the fat bird sing in her 'Secret Garden' and reminisces about the thorns and roses in her long life.