Publisher's Weekly Review
Blogger and gardener Risen's debut memoir is based on a "collection of reminiscences" from a 10-year period. After the death of her father, an emotionally distant man from the Ukraine, the author and her husband purchase a ranch-style house and an acre of land surprisingly situated in downtown Toronto. The garden is neglected, but Risen, steeped in "love of nature and living things," sees the possibilities. Having spent her childhood playing in a ravine near her home in Alberta, she's eager to restore the abandoned property, once part of a larger estate. The land is rife with unexpected delights: a huge, decaying pagoda, underground aquifers, a pond, koi, deer, and all manner of vegetation. She soon begins making maple syrup, cattail fried rice, and bleeding heart valentines (recipes, instructions, and foraging guidelines included). As the restoration painstakingly progresses, Risen simultaneously delves into her past, exploring why her immigrant parents never revealed details of their family history. She also shares her love of the land with her ailing mother and with her husband and young son (who grows from toddler to techie teen in the course of the decade's work). As she restores the property and heals her long-troubled soul, Risen paints a vivid and exquisite portrait of nature and its profound significance. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
A Canadian essayist's account of how rehabilitating an abandoned garden helped her to better understand her hard-shelled Ukrainian-born parents.In her first book, Risen chronicles how she and her husband decided to buy the "anonymous hidden house" with the overgrown garden shortly after her always-silent father died. The house was the least of their renovation worries, however; it was the junglelike garden that they knew would make the greatest demands on their time and budget. Yet the author relished the challenge, in part because the one-acre plotlocated minutes from downtown Torontomade her feel closer to the gardener-mother who always seemed to keep her at arm's length. As she began her landscape renovation project, her mother's health declined rapidly. Risen soon realized that she would never be able to share her gardenwith its duck pond, broken-down pagoda, secret paths, and hidden wildlifewith her too-frail, increasingly demented mother. The project also brought up memories of the life she had shared with her parents. The small river that ran through her property recalled the river to which she would escape as a youth, and apple trees she discovered in her garden recalled her mother's cooking. The more that Risen worked on her garden, the more she realized that her task was not to transform it into a neatly manicured landscape but one that respected the local ecology. Learning to bring sustainable order to her patch of earth as well as uncovering family documents that offered clues to her parents' difficult early lives helped the author come to terms with her mother and father. She could not change the people who raised her; she could only accept them and know that they "did the best they could." Interspersed throughout with recipes for forager-style dishes and desserts, Risen's book is as much a celebration of nature and family as it is feast for the heart and soul. A generous, poignant memoir. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* To call this book's subject a massive project would be a massive understatement. The unkempt garden that Risen and her husband bought belonged to an old estate that had been carved up, and as the family assesses the work to be done, they make discovery after discovery. Not only does the garden encompass a full-fledged ravine with a pond, abandoned construction equipment, a secret pathway, and a crumbling, decades-old pagoda, it is also home to a host of wildlife and plants determined to maintain their place in the ecosystem. The story of how they tackle their enormous undertaking over a period of years is notable for both its breadth and depth. For Risen, it's a powerful window into the passion of her Ukrainian-immigrant mother, at a time when her mother's faculties are fading. She ruminates on her parents, their secrets, and the toxic silence that permeated their home, the story of her upbringing unfolding along with the seasons spent battling the wilderness outside into submission. The story, like the garden, is ambitious in scope, but Risen's amazing dedication pulls it together, both on the page and in the garden. A remarkable book.--Thoreson, Bridget Copyright 2016 Booklist
Excerpts
Chapter 1: Sour Cherries The patterned linoleum of Father's tiny bathroom is curled back under the cabinet, the glue dried up long ago. Everything dries up: glue, skin, love. The cabinet's bottom is sticky and stained with age, crowded with half-empty bottles of aftershave, shampoo, and other toiletries. Mom and Sonia didn't have the courage to clean out the bathroom, so I volunteered. I've decided to stay for a few weeks, now that the funeral is over, to help Mom with whatever needs doing. I'm okay with the worst tasks, perhaps to relieve my guilt for not living nearby and for letting Sonia, the dutiful daughter, carry the weight. All garbage, I decide. I pour as many liquids down the avocado-green sink as I can; they swirl around the rusty drain stopper and soon I am floating in a stink of Resdan hair tonic and Listerine . The sharp fumes burn my nostrils. I hold my breath as I wash away a life; it all comes down to some pill bottles, checkered work shirts in the closet, and a few boxes. My arms are heavy as I work, and my hands shaky from lack of sleep. Strange dreams and chest pains now punctuate my ongoing insomnia. Stress, Sonia says. I wonder what a heart attack feels like, and whether Father shouted as he tumbled off that ladder. My dreams are a slide show of the past few days, images I hope to soon erase: Max, heavy with sleep on the pew, thankfully unaware of the terrifying open-casket, incense-filled Mass that no toddler should witness; the line of tombstones near Father's, because our parents and their friends, a group of displaced immigrants, prepurchased a row of plots together when they all turned fifty; Mom's tombstone, waiting, her name, and below it 1924- , as they lower Father's oak coffin into the adjacent plot. I was transfixed by the blank space, waiting for its inevitable date, on the dusty tombstone. My parents did us a favor by preplanning, but more importantly, they wanted to be together at the end. A symbolic gesture that recognized that they understood each other in ways their children never would. They were right. We didn't talk about anything much after the funeral except for the one demand Mom made from the hearse's back seat. "If I'm sick, no machines, no feeding tubes. That's an order. If I can't live on my own, you girls must let me go." "What if you can still hear us?" I asked. I never did tell her that Father heard me from the depths of his coma. Too much had been said, and not said, and then it didn't matter. "If I can't live without machines, it's not real life," Mom answered. I promised, ignoring the sickening dread in my stomach. Sonia escaped into the hazy view through the dust-covered window. I understand Mom's point âe<-- âe Since the funeral, Mom has been in the garden. August is a busy time. She prepares vegetables and fruit for winter during the day, and spends the evenings with Max in front of the television. Mom doesn't understand SpongeBob SquarePants, and Max doesn't understand The Price is Right , but The Nature of Things seems to bridge their seventy-year divide. I've been cleaning out house cupboards, and I'm surprised by the things I've long forgotten and the sentimental memories they arouse. My first rock collection fascinates Max, especially the smelly yellow sulfur chunks that I picked up from the rocky railroad beds of the tracks that ran directly behind our first house. I twirl a sharp granite rock between my fingers, and I'm suddenly playing on the tracks, creosote in my nostrils, as the trumpet of an oncoming train's horn shoos me away from my rock search. I was never afraid. I snap back into the present. Mom's canned goods from twenty years ago, in neat dust-covered rows, however, terrify me. I ruthlessly trash them âe<-- âe "What about the garage?" I walk past Mom to the old-fashioned metal garbage cans at the driveway's end. "Not now." She shakes the dirt from an onion. "Your sister and I can sort through it during the winter. I'll have to sell the car, though." My chest tightens. I've always hated that car. "Okay, I'll keep to the closets for now," I say. She doesn't hear me because she's already moved to the shrubs along the south-facing stucco wall: red currants, gooseberries, and chokecherries. Jellies to be made. Sonia arrives when I'm sorting through the basement closet. "Look at all this camera stuff. Do you want it?" I ask. "My basement's full. Why don't you take it?" "No, I'm flying." Father had amassed a sophisticated camera and lens collection, all in their original boxes. "Did he ever use this stuff? It looks brand new." "Perhaps Max will want it someday? He's already showing his technical side," she says. She's right. Max is crouched on the floor, his expression intense as he joins plastic LEGO action figure pieces. He's working on For Ages 8+, beyond his years, Sonia observes proudly. We find a shoebox filled with old crinkled-edged photos. "These are mostly their friends at parties in the basement," I tell her, flipping through the box. "Want them?" Father didn't have to talk to people if he was behind the camera. "No thanks," Sonia answers. "You?" What's the point? They're photos of local Ukrainian friends we know as little about as we do our parents. None of them are family, or maybe they are, because we don't even know if we have aunts and uncles somewhere in the Ukraine. It's not that we don't care; we've become used to not knowing what we're missing. When our curiosity occasionally surfaced, we were too afraid to break the silence, and then it slowly, simply ceased to matter. "Nope. Although Cam likes to save stuff like this for Max. I'll take it for him." We fill Sonia's car with "things Max might want in the future." She doesn't have her own children, and I'm moved by her thoughtfulness. She's also a pack rat. "Where's Mom?" she asks. "Garden." "Have you discussed the wedding yet? How's Megan?" "Megan still thinks we should cancel. It's up to Mom." I can't believe I'm going to indirectly prevent my best friend's wedding. We walk up the stairs to the kitchen. Mom, in her dirt-covered T-shirt, is stirring instant coffee . Her fingernails are filthy, but she doesn't seem to notice or care. A bowl of lime-green berries, hairy and translucent with thin white stripes, sits on the table. "For you," she says to my sister. For a moment I sense the closeness between them and I fight the insecure feelings that surface. Mom grows those berries especially for Sonia. And peas, and corn, and they trade flower seeds. I hate gooseberries, and I don't fit in here. "Why do you like those things?" I ask Sonia. "They look like they come from an alien berry farm." "Dennis likes the jam," she says. Edmonton is the world's preserving capital. The summers are so short that gardeners grow what they can for two months and store it for the other ten. "Mom, about Megan's wedding --" I start. "I thought about it." She puts down her cup. "Your dad was happy she's finally getting married. So am I. And Peter is such a handsome man. Ukrainian, too. The wedding must go on." What? I look at Sonia's expressionless face. Since when did marrying into our culture matter? I wonder if Sonia is mentally justifying her marriage to a Brit while I defend mine to an Italian. I thought we were good if we simply stayed away from Russian Communists. And Father happy, for God's sake? Impossible. He was silent, angry, or nothing at all, but definitely not happy . "Your friends won't criticize?" I ask Mom. Suppose not, they're all Ukrainian. "Marriage comes first," Mom says as she heads toward the door. "Besides, life is for the living. I'm going back outside if you girls don't need me." Some things never change. Maybe we do need you. Maybe, just once, just this time, we need you. Excerpted from Unearthed: How an Abandoned Garden Taught Me to Accept and Love My Parents by Alexandra Risen All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
![Cover image for Unearthed [electronic resource] : Love, Acceptance, and Other Lessons from an Abandoned Garden](https://images.yourcloudlibrary.com/delivery/img?type=DOCUMENTIMAGE&documentID=kmkdfz9&token=nobody "Cover image for Unearthed [electronic resource] : Love, Acceptance, and Other Lessons from an Abandoned Garden")
