Wretched [TRADE PAPER ]

“ Is it even my story to tell?” wonders Nelle, an expecting Mother isolated on the Canadian Shield working through the emotional legacy that her adopted Grandmother has left of two unworn Stars of David that Nelle has found in a clay canister in the basement. Amongst a handful of letters from a Jewish man in an internment camp in Belgium, Nelle strives to tell the story of a secret love, of a man’ s escape and ultimate death in Auschwitz to her unborn daughter.Sara Hailstone’ s writing is born from navigating the raw and confronting connections that living in rurality projects by scouring domestic landscapes. She is an educator and writer from Madoc, Ontario who orients towards the ferocity and serenity of nature and what we can learn as humans from the face of forest in our own lives. The novel is based on true events but there is an element of magic realism and healing for women in reclaiming the rites of the sacred feminine.