Revelation - Joanne Gormley

When her mother dies, Christine Macdonald is left haunted by the half-told tales of a child her mother gave birth to during WW2. Through found journals and letters, she begins to piece together the story of her parents' lives. Christine also revisits her own adolescence, a disturbing time when her mother, suffering a religious breakdown, confided confused secrets about the war baby. What truly happened between her parents? And what part did the Catholic Church and her grandmother play in the story of the child? Christine's inquires lead her to the Quebec archives with the hope of discovering the truth.

An intimate family tale that interweaves the lives of three generations, Revelation investigates the power of stories, their impact on memory and legacy, and how imagination, love and forgiveness can offer a way forward.

Joanne Gormley is a Montrealer who worked as a community theatre artist and a teacher of ESL to immigrants and refugees before co-founding and directing Yoga on the Park in Montreal. Now retired, she devotes more time to visual art and writing. Joanne volunteers for the Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign of the Stephen Lewis Foundation.