Aubrey Connar, a middle-aged recovering alcoholic, lives with his 89-year-old mother Min in Harman, a small town in southwestern Ontario. It's 1968 and Min is planning her 90th birthday party. Half the Connar clan isn't speaking to the other half, and the town is filled with eccentric characters whose secret and public histories are interwoven with each other and with the history of the town. This rollicking story dips into the lives of the characters and keeps the reader hooked until the climax of the novel--Min's birthday party. But, despite Min's tendency to die occasionally, and come back to life, this story is about life, about living life to the fullest, and the joy and frustration of human relationships.
Better Than Life celebrates all the blessings and bruisings of blood ties, and explores the emotional misfires that can hamper the most precious of human connections with poignancy and wry humour.
About the Author
Margaret Gunning was born in Chatham, Ontario. Her varied writing career began with the publication of a humour column in the Hinton Parklander in 1985. Since then she has published hundreds of articles in periodicals from Victoria to Montreal. Her poetry has been published in blue buffalo, Room of One's Own, Prism International, and Capilano Review. She has also published short fiction and appeared on numerous radio and television programs. Better Than Life is her first published novel. She currently lives in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia.
