Holding My Breath: A Novel
by Sidura Ludwig
THE WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
4 March 2007, review by Elizabeth Hopkins
Family Story... captures tangible quality of city's fabled North End
"I have become my family's narrator."
So says Beth Levy, the protagonist in Winnipeg-born, Toronto-based writer Sidura Ludwig's debut novel about three generations of Jewish women in our city's fabled North End.
Shared stories, overheard conversations and the litany of things that are not said fuse together in Beth's version of her family story.
Ludwig creates, in the process, a group of characters who are complex, strong and distinct. She is, of course, working on a canvas that has inspired numerous other writers, from Adele Wiseman and John Marlyn to Maara Haas and Sheldon Oberman.
Spanning a period of just over two decades and set largely on Selkirk and McAdam Avenues, Holding My Breath begins with Beth's birth, in 1952.
Ludwig evokes a profound sense of time and place through cultural allusions, such as the Kennedy assassination, as well as through references to North End landmarks past and present.
Conveying a sense of a slower-paced time, she writes about Beth and her mother Goldie's Wednesday morning routine of walking down Selkirk Avenue: "We bought fresh baking form Gunn's and washing detergent from Oretzki's Department Store (which had everything; you could buy washing detergent, underwear and a frying pan in one visit)."
This almost tangible quality is in evidence throughout the moving novel. Beth's mother Goldie, her father Saul, her Baba, and Beth's two maternal aunts, the independent and feisty Sarah and the plodding Carrie, are all skilfully drawn individuals, living in a city replete with promise and character.
The old adage of "write what you know" does not necessarily hold true.
Although Ludwig may have based her characters on people she has known and been influenced by stories she has heard, she was born well after the period in which this book is set.
This does not detract from the novel's immediacy and authenticity. It may, in fact, add to its intensity, as imagination is often more vivid than factual memories.
Big literary themes are covered in subtle ways. The characters wage a daily battle with the ghosts of the past and the allure of the future, and individual dreams and hopes collide with familial loyalty, obligation and an omnipresent guilt.
As she grows up, Beth is increasingly influenced by her aunt Carrie's reminiscences about late brother Phil, who was sent to war: "[A]and so it came that my uncle, who was dead to everyone else, came alive to me through my silent aunt and my ever-hungry imagination."
Entrusted with Phil's journal, Beth discovers his notes on, and drawings of, constellations, mingled in with his personal musings.
Thus begins a fascination with the night sky and an ambition to become an astronomer. Despite her mother's discouragement ("Space is not for little girls, Beth)" and the pressures and distractions of growing up, Beth holds on to this dream.
The complexities of family relationships and the roles with which every individual is saddled are the primary sources of conflict and growth for Ludwig's characters.
A central theme is whether it is possible to maintain a deep connection with the past and to fulfill family expectations, while pursuing one's own distinct goals.
The title, Holding My Breath, refers to Beth's sense that she forever is waiting for her life to begin, for a time when she can start living for herself, as opposed to playing out her designated role.
Goldie, her mother, wanted to have more children, but Beth, as the only child, shoulders the heavy weight of expectation by herself.
Trying to explain her fascination with the stars, Beth describes it to her mother in this way: "Stars are like looking into the past... When you're looking at a star, you're looking at something that took place thousands of years ago. It's the closest thing we come to having a time machine."
Ludwig has already secured publishers in England and the U.S. Her sensitive and detailed exploration of character, combined with her skill at evoking the specificities of time and place, create something to which everyone can relate.
It is a story of a young woman's coming-of-age and of the Winnipeg Jewish community after the Second World War.
It is also a narrative about the bond between family members and the ways in which they both nurture and stifle one another's individuality.
The lives of these women unfold, both affecting and being influenced by the growing city in which they live.