Toggling between past and present, The Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence, a major figure in contemporary Canadian fiction, tells the story of ninety-year-old Hagar Currie Shipley. In the present day, Hagar struggles mightily in being relegated to a nursing home—for, age notwithstanding, her quiet life has been one full of rage. Approaching death, she retreats from the daily squabbling of her son and daughter-in-law to the fraught haven of reflection—where she relives her ill-advised marriage and remote home on the prairie—to bear witness finally to her own failures and the betrayals of others.
 
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Photo: The Stone Angel © M. Olival-Bartley