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Even Such Is Time

by Elizabeth Bartel

194 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #02-0498; ISBN 1-55369-685-9; US$19.00, C$21.83, EUR16.00, £11.00

Anna is only 15 when she is sent away from the family's drought-stricken farm to work for a wealthy family in the city. Through marriage, children, a world war and a shocking family tragedy, Anna chronicles with gentle insight her own and her family's coming of age in a new land.

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About the Book      About the Author      Reviews      Sample Excerpt      Catalogue info

About the Book Anna is only fifteen when she is sent away from her family's drought-stricken farm to work for a wealthy family in the city. A recent immigrant from the ravages of Bolshevik Russia, Anna struggles to understand her place, first in the home of her proud English employers, and later in a community composed almost entirely of recent immigrants, where subtle differences of language and religion mark one just as indelibly. Through marriage, children, a world war, and a shocking family tragedy, Anna chronicles with gentle insight her own family's coming of age in a new land. What they choose to keep and what they discard decide who they will become-both as a family and as a people.

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About the Author Elizabeth Bartel makes her home in the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island, but keeps one foot planted firmly in the prairie soil of her childhood. She writes from the richness of her cultural heritage, celebrating the lives of ordinary people by showing them to be much more than that. Her poetry and short stories have been published in several literary magazines. Even Such is Time is her first novel.

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Reviews

"A wonderfully, compelling novel about a young Mennonite woman, her journey and her struggle for autonomy; set in the 1930's and forties. A must read. ...."

-- Dr. Annalee Lepp, professor in Women's Studies, University of Victoria and author of "Dis-membering The Family" a study of marital breakdown, domestic conflict and family violence between 1830 and 1920 in Ontario.

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Here is what Armin Wiebe, author of The Salvation of Yasch Siemens, says about EVEN SUCH IS TIME:

"Elizabeth Bartel's novel lays bare the conflicts, spiritual doubts, ambitions, snobbery, power struggles, cruelty, successes, failures, isolation and love that are part of the life of a young Mennonite woman isolated within in a family of outsiders living in a community isolated from mainstream Canada. No one in the varied cast of characters is allowed sainthood, not even the narrator herself. A compelling, credible story."

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From an article by Wendy Dyck that appeared in the September 2002 edition of in Focus magazine:

"Even Such Is Time is set in the 1930s in rural Manitoba, a desperate, dry place where newly arrived immigrants use their wits to meet the challenges of the so-called 'promise land'. The central character, Anna, is 15 when the story opens, and it is through her perceptive eyes that the lives and loves of her family are carefully chronicled and questioned."

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From a review by Judy Hagen in the Comox Valley Echo:

"This book is a long time coming - for few novels have been written about the settlement of the vast Canadian prairie that attracted so many Eastern Europeans both before and after the Great War of 1914-1918. Liz uses her own Mennonite background to weave a saga that relates the story of one family through the eyes of Anna, a daughter who longs to be Canadian rather than 'Russlander'."

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From a review by Paula Wild in the Comox Valley Record (Sept. 2002)

"Even Such Is Time is well-written and easy to read. It opens a window on the life and hardships of Mennonite immigrants to Canada; it also chronicles the relationships of a family as its members grow and mature. Bartel has paid great attention to detail and has not shied away from topics such as birth control and unwanted pregnancies and sex."

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From Al Reimer, Professor Emeritus of English, University of Winnipeg

"As a domestic novel, Even Such Is Time potrays the every-day lives of ordinary people, but with a passion and intensity that ensures a measure of suspense and emotional crisis. The climax, flowing naturally and inevitably from the earlier events, provides an arresting and satisfying ending to this family saga."

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From Rosemary Slater of Saskatoon, SK

"Bartel's first hand knowledge of her subject matter and her gentle, evocative descriptive style make this book an easy read. For those who lived through the times Bartel describes, it provides a trip down memory lane. For younger readers, it provides a glimpse of history with a human face."

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From a book review in the United Church Observer (Feb. 2003)

"This novel, set in ural Manitoba during the 1930s and '40s, is a study of strong women who learn to be survivors, coping with drought, war, changing culture and a questioning of long-held beliefs. It explores the struggle of a family of immigrants to adapt to a new country in trying times."

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Sample Excerpt

(Pp 89 - 90)

Later that night I stood at the bottom of our staircase and looked at the worn treads. Countless pairs of feet had hollowed them over the last fifty years.

"Come to bed," Henry said from the top of the stairs and turned to give me that certain look - a husband insisting on his marital rights. This was marriage, my marriage. I had made vows. Wives submit yourselves to your husbands, the Bible said.

I moved around the table away from the stairs. "I'll just put the milk in the cooler." I prayed that Harry who slept in an alcove just off our bedroom at the top of the stairs would wake and cry for my attention. I waited and I heard Henry pause as he looked down at his sleeping son before he went into our bedroom.

I wiped the balustrade with my apron, rung after rung as far as I could reach from the bottom of the stairs. I heard the water run upstairs in the bathroom. Henry would wash and brush his teeth before he got into bed. I waited. I looked at the steps again hoping Henry would fall asleep quickly. He had said he was tired.

I took a step, after all, they did not lead to a scaffold or a guillotine. How many settler wives had trod them, afraid to go up to an impatient husband's arms? I knew exactly how it went. First there would be Henry's urgency, then my submission and our clumsy coupling. I took another step and waited. How many unwanted pregnancies? The Bible said that children were a blessing from the Lord. Now I prayed only to be barren. Another step. How many women dead in childbirth? Liebster Heiland, I prayed when I got to the top of the stairs. Shoals of sperm seemed to swim toward me. Don't let this be the time I get pregnant, I prayed.

I paused beside Harry's crib. He was perfect. In the dark I could not see his lashes, the beautiful way they feathered on his cheeks. I pulled the quilted coverlet over him. There was no sound from the bedroom. A breeze fluttered the curtain at the window in the hallway. Through the half closed door I could see that the room was dark. Henry slept. Tomorrow, I told myself. Tomorrow I must go and ask Zena what to do, but now I was safe for one more night.

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Catalogue Information

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