Marilyn Stanley
, Cassandra Schiemann
, Ken Gilmour
, Barry Kazimer
, Karen Nordrum
, Sandra Furlotte
, Jude Castillo
, Nancy Steinhausen
, LJ Law
, Deb Philippon
, Sarah Schwartz
, Vanessa Charbonneau-Dinelle
, Marissa Yip-Young
, Vivian Thorgeirson
, Natasa Ilic
, Andrea Gillespie
, Andrea Pole
, Margo Beredjiklian
, Noelle Walsh
, Davina Liew
, Holly Elisabeth
, Deana Bueley
, Jessica Trento
, Thelma Ball
, Chris Carvalho
, Karen Reid
, Janice Cournoyer
, Jean Smith
, Anndee Newson
, Stephanie Baird
, Debra Fisher
, Melissa Kohlman
, Linda Leitch
, Marjorie Roy
, mikayla thompson
, Cynthia Moreau
, Diane McPherson
, Kat Sommer-Derksen
, Joann Horgan
, Paula Ritchie
, Anne Range
, Randi Ann Doll
, Denise Duvall
, Robert Hykawy
, P. Thompson
, Rodney Cross
, Margaret Jones
, Dylan Curran
, tom stormonth
, Sara Conway
, Natalie Mudri
, Laura Peters
, Karen Kendrick
, Sharon Bird
, Siobhan Monaghan
, Melissa Poremba
, Jessica Gilbert
, Pamela Roberts Griffith
, Diane O'Flaherty
, Teira Stauth
, Beth Dekoker
, Rosa Cross
, Esther VanGorder
, Pat Johnston
, Tanya Bellehumeur-Allatt
, Adele gallogly
, Kevin Smith
A literary meditation on memory, time, love, and loss
Fishing With Tardelli contemplates the relations among four parents — mother, father, stepfather, and a Brazilian fishing companion — and the author. Over marriages and remarriages, fathers and mothers become stepfathers and stepmothers, and brothers gain and lose stepbrothers and half-brothers, sisters and half-sisters across two continents. The various homes become part of Besner’s internal geography; memory, dream, story, fable become permeable layers folded over bald facts baldly stated.
Beginning with an older man’s recollections of himself as a young teenager fishing with Tardelli in the bay in Rio de Janeiro, the memoir reflects on time lost and time regained. The narration ranges across the mid-’40s in Montreal, where two couples marry, divorce, and remarry in a new configuration; proceeds to Rio de Janeiro in the mid-’50s, when one of these newly formed families emigrates; and returns to Montreal in the late ’60s and early ’70s. After a 50-year interlude, Besner returns from Western Canada to the pandemic moment in Toronto.
