ISBN-13: 9781773901800
Publisher: Linda Leith Publishing, $26.95
Publication date: 10/04/2025
“The Unfinished World is a beautiful, insightful novel that performs a remarkable trick with history, time, and memory, a brilliant interweaving that is both teasingly cerebral as well as richly heartfelt.” – Bill Gaston, author of Juliet Was a Surprise and The World
“As intricate as Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas – but more fluent – this dazzling novel takes the reader around the world, through time, across genres, and finally, into deep, cold, and dangerous waters. A thrilling and compelling read propelled in equal measures by grief, wonder and joy.” – Kathy Page, author of This Faulty Machine, A Memoir of Loss and Transformation
“The Unfinished World is extraordinary … Marilyn Bowering’s writing has always had the power to enchant.” – Isabel Huggan, author of The Elizabeth Stories and You Never Know.
In a global culture seemingly intent on stripping the young of the possibilities of love, purpose and belonging, Pearl stands at the end of her strand of descent and DNA with the resources of the lives of those who have come before to act as warning and counsel if only she can uncover their significance to her own life and use them to change its course.
Distraught after her grandmother Nora’s death, Pearl scatters Nora’s ashes in the places she has loved. As Pearl retraces her grandmother’s last journey, she recovers a series of handmade dolls that Nora has left behind for her to find – dolls that have been handed down in the family for generations. Hidden within each is a tiny note from grandmother to granddaughter.
Together, these dolls and the messages they carry lead Pearl to recall and recount tales given to her as a child. It is these stories, ranging from the semi-mythic past to the present, that enable Pearl to view her life against the larger scale of human survival and responsibility to the future. Once Pearl accepts her mysterious gift of communication, not only is she allied with the survival of another species, but she uncovers the key to love and happiness for herself.
Second chances are possible, as are deep and fundamental connections with the natural world.
“The dolls were like footprints; like breadcrumbs or still-life objects stored in a palace of memory, a palace that Nora said contained the rooms of your life. All you knew and learned and all you had inherited was stored in them, but you had to make a map to find your way through, like the storytellers did.”
“What will people think?” the poet asked himself. Although the only question that mattered was the girl’s question, “How will I get through the coming days and nights without the companionship of those I love?”