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What the Stones Remember: A Life Rediscovered

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I can't believe I'm the first reviewer to take a stab at WHAT THE STONES REMEMBER, A LIFE REDISCOVERED. Everyone I know is reading this book! It's especially good for people who are just undergoing recovery, those who will recognize and nod with wonder at the pain Lane describes at just waking up and experiencing the little things, the color of your bedroom walls, the feel of the cotton pillowcase under your cheek, as if for the first time, without the sheltering batting of cocaine or alcohol. He thinks of the American poet Weldon Kees who, fueled by despair and drink jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge in the early 1950s, and of Kees' famous zen riddle, "Whatever it is that a wound remembers/ After the healing ends."

Lane finds the courage to remember the years before he fell into heavy drinking, and what a dreary lot of memories he dredges up! Okay, there were some happy moments too--a sensuous description of lovemaking at age 16 with the girl who would become his first wife--but mostly he grew up in Canada, a misbegotten part of the world with more casual brutality, sexual violence, and abuse against childred than you will find in Ghana or Sierra Leone. For pocket money he sold himself to pedophiles, for a quarter here or a dollar there, allowing them to buy him forbidden ice cream sundaes in depressing town dessert joints. At another time he watches from between parked cars as three white men brutally rape and torture a native Indian woman. For Lane, youth is an unusual place, marked by the absence of his dad during World War II and by the remarkably hard-earned wisdom of a lovely mother, with a caustic wit which, who knows, might have contributed to Lane's own dexterity with words.

I don't like his poetry very much, and it's a shame that he feels he has to quote from it in this book, but as a memoirist he really shines. After getting out of the treatment clinic, he goes to work on his garden, like Candide, but even there memories of different things that happened to him sometimes leap up and assault his senses so that he'd do anything to have just one drink! And sometimes he finds bottles of vodka hidden around the house, and garden too. Malcolm Lowry probably said just as well and earlier to boot everything that Patrick Lane has to say about the sadnesses of Western Canada, the glittering allure of drink, and the repentance of women's arms, but Lowry (author of UNDER THE VOLCANO and one of Lane's literary heroes) has been gone a longtime, the victim of his own alcoholism, and Lane lives on, triumphantly speaking of a new marriage to another of Canada's notable literary figures, a woman who he calls "Lorna" here. Maybe her real name is Lorna too, but in any case you get the idea he's trying to protect the innocent and to lacerate only himself and his people.

I predict a long future for this book if only more people knew about it besides people in recovery.

This memoir by one of Canada's best-known poets follows Patrick Lane's first year of recovery from a lifetime of alcoholism, a recovery that unfolds almost entirely in his Vancouver Island garden. The narrative weaves between his present-tense garden and the struggle and brutality that was Lane's past. His poetic voice permeates his storytelling, compelling us to see how the honesty and enchantment of the natural world can save us from our nightmares, our addictions, our terrible losses - if only we will let it.

Originally published a year and a half ago in Canada as There Is a Season: A Memoir in a Garden, the book won the 2005 BC Award for Canadian nonfiction. It is not at all disingenuous for Lane to re-release his memoir under a new title - What the Stones Remember - as there really are two stories folded into the one book. This new title summons the story of Lane's turbulent past as a wayward child, an absentee father, a fledgling poet, a failed husband, a triumphant writer, and ultimately a recovering addict. We follow him deep into his personal history and come to understand, along with him, that it is a miracle he is still alive. This story is rich with personal intrigue, gossip, sentimentality and curiosity. I think it's rare that we look even into our own lives so intimately.

The second story is the simple unfolding of the seasons in his suburban garden, and it mirrors Lane's journey of recovery and self-redemption. His garden is his sanctuary and the midwife of his rebirth as a sane and sober person. He delves into the ecology of his garden with the same studied depth as he digs through his personal history. The carefully documented hours of observation are underscored by a book knowledge of plant and animal classification, behaviour and habitat.

This being said, Lane is first and foremost a poet, and his garden ramblings are never dry or dense. How can they be when he periodically unearths old vodka bottles in the woodpile or under a bush? Or when he stops to watch a hermit thrush dance and mourn beside its dead mate? Or sees his mother, long decades dead, kneeling in the corner under the plum tree?

What the Stones Remember contains equal parts beauty and horror. Patrick Lane describes a past that many people would be inclined to leave buried in the furrows of time. But in bringing forth the dead, the wounded, the lost, this poet carves a path of healing and new life.

As a 60 year old male recovering from my own life of addiction, I was somewhat resentful when I first read the reviews for this wonderful book -"how dare someone write my life's story!" was my first thought. Having read the book, however, I am glad that Patrick Lane took the time to write such a moving and poignant story. His skills as a poet echo throughout every chapter of the book. The peace he finds in his garden stands in total contrast to the chaos he put himself through for forty five years. As a member of a 12 Step fellowship who followed almost the exact same path (minus the gardening skills), I have told all the other men in my program that this book will help them find a piece of themselves - and ultimately peace for themselves. Lane's book will be a cornerstone for the foundation I am building in my own recovery.

"I circle my father's death for a means to get close. I remember my Uncle Jack pushing my head into my father's coffin. The taste of lipstick and powder will stay on my lips forever. Kiss him, he cried, Kiss your father goodbye." So Patrick Lane in What the Stones Remember. There is a cruel courage in how Lane dwells on the memory of his murdered father and voices pain and grief. In the breathtaking, breath giving tradition of Derek Jarman's Modern Nature, What the Stones Remember turns to nature and gardens for healing from the hurtful, painful wonder of life. With this savage, soothing book, Lane, fulfilling a promise he made in an early father poem, "Fathers and Sons," reaches "down into the heavy earth" and sings his father "back into the day," and himself free of the poisons of drugs and alcohol. What the Stones Remember is a lyrical masterpiece to be treasured by all recovering alcoholics, avid gardeners, and passionate lovers of Annie Dillard and Thoreau.

Andre Gerard.
Editor of Fathers: A Literary Anthology

This is one of most beautifully written memoirs I have ever read (and I read a lot). Lane's poetic language, his mastery of scene, the dance between concrete detail and lyrical lushness all work together to create a moving journey for the reader. If you appreciate language and the healing lessons of nature and can respect the courage it takes to back at your life with honesty and acceptance,you will love this transcendent,important book.

DEPRESSING BUT HOPEFUL BOOK ABOUT RECOVERY FROM DRUG AND ALCOLHOL ADDICTION AND RETURN TO NORMAL, SOBER LIFE.

This is a book that is too good to not write about. It's too good to be left unread. It's the story of one of Canada's best poets and his journey to clarity after giving up his addictions to alcohol and cocaine. This is a painterly book filled with vignettes of people and landscapes across the artist's lifetime. As most addictions are an attempt to soothe the pain of trauma, this book goes back in time and shows us the origin of Mr. Lane's demons: his 'salt of the earth' and flawed parents, a difficult and poor childhood, and the coming of age in hard times. As Mr.Lane works in his garden, he keenly observes the plants and the animals he finds there. He takes the reader back through time and space to his life in Western Canada, women and drinking and friendships and beautiful landscapes. We meet the people and the events that shaped his life and also caused him to want to be numb. There is no self cherishing. Mr. Lane's eye is unflinching and clear. That Mr. Lane was a such a gifted writer despite his drinking, we can only look forward to even better work now that he has bravely faced his demons and decided to move forward. I applaud this book and this author and I wish him a long life in his garden as he continues to heal. -Brian David Mansfield