Nathalie Ponze

Prunella in the Land of Beavers Nathalie Ponze

A merciless yet humorous account of a girls childhood. She is born in New York but ends up living first on the wrong side of town in Montreal then in the Canadian wilderness. First the heroine Prunella finds herself the target of racism among savage French Canadian children who play in the alleys of east Montreal. Then she follows her mother and stepfather to the Atlantic seacoast to live a life of stark necessity and abuse with the descendants of Irish immigrants. She is not accepted by either group but makes her way as astrology and chimera is used to deepen our understanding of this strange life.