It could have been timing but I really didnt find this story interesting and couldn't feel like I could continue with it, The pace was too slow but maybe I'll pick it up again in the future to see if I'd like it any better.

When young Melba Girling, of Grand Manaan Island, New Brunswick, gave birth to her fourth child, a baby girl, she was so thoroughly exhausted, she could not even fathom choosing a name for the child. So, she called her big sister Flora and "brother in law" Sammy Weinstein, living in Montreal, to choose the baby's name. Sammy chose Esther, a beautiful heroine of the Jewish people. Six months later, Melba calls Flora again, asking her if she can do her a favour and watch Esther, just for six months. Russel, Melba's husband, was drinking too much, and Melba had to work in the fish cannery, (to try to make ends meet), and she just did not have the energy to look after baby Esther. She promised it would be only 6 months ... Well, 6 months turned into 10 years, and Esther Girling was raised as the Jewish "princess", Esther "Weinstein", (and NOT "Girling"), in Montreal. She was the apple of Sammy's eye. Esther believed Flora and Sammy were her true parents and no one told her otherwise. Then, due to an unfortunate circumstance, Esther, is returned to Melba, and to the poverty of Grand Manaan, New Brunswick, and to a family she does not know or understand, and that could be and were, downright cruel to Esther.

That is the background of the book Melba"s Wash. I was immediately attracted to the book on #netgalley, because of its tie in to Montreal. I always try to prioritize books that take place in Montreal, and this also tied in with Jewish Montreal, moving it even higher up in my priority list. Esther's story is such an unfortunate one, but it did make for a REALLY interesting read. The notion that these sisters flipped a child back and forth, is really shocking.
If this at all appeals to you I would suggest you pick up this book I give it 5 stars! Thank you #netgalley for the eARC and the opportunity to read #melbaswash. I loved it.

I requested a digital galley of this book because much of it is set on Grand Manan Island which I’ve visited several times and is one of my favourite places in Canada.

Despite the book’s title, this is more the story of Esther, Melba’s daughter, than it is about Melba. Esther, born in 1954 to an impoverished family on the island, is sent to live with Melba’s sister Flora and her Jewish husband Sammy in Montreal for ten years. Then Esther is returned to Melba until she is 16 and moves to the mainland. Esther’s adult life, most of it lived near Calgary, is also sketched in.

The author blurb suggests that in many ways this novel is autobiographical: “Born into an impoverished New Brunswick family, Reesa Steinman Brotherton was taken to Montreal, raised Jewish, then at age 10 sent back to her family of origin.” It seems that the novel is a way for the author to work through her experiences; it sometimes reads like something written to help her understand herself.

Esther certainly earns the reader’s sympathy. She is moved around without any consideration for her feelings; she is, as she repeatedly points out, traded “for a black and white floor model RCA Victor television set” and later a flush toilet. Melba and Flora’s behaviours are difficult to forgive, especially because both abandon more than one child.

Yet one can also feel some sympathy for Melba because she is a victim of poverty. Melba’s husband Russell drinks excessively and the family home has no bathroom or running water. The community, however, does little to help: “Shame on you Baptists, and Catholics and Anglicans and Pentecostals. Didn’t you know that you can tell a lot about a family by looking at the laundry hanging out on their clothesline? Didn’t any of you see Melba Girling’s wash? Diapers flying in the salt breeze, greying and thinning season after season, blue and red, blood stained polka dot handkerchiefs hanging wrung out of square, patched knees on pants, mended dog-ears on shirts, and darned, and darned again, work socks.” Melba has a difficult life and seems to have no friends. It is obvious she longs to be loved: “Esther had no idea that maybe Melba needed a friend and that if a person were desperately unhappy enough, they might not be very choosy about picking him or her.”

Of course, it is not only Melba that suffers. Her daughters look for love and happiness which they do not have in their childhood home. Marriage is seen as a way out, but it and the pregnancies that follow only continue the cycle of poverty. By the time Frieda, Melba’s oldest daughter, is 24, she has six children and lives with them and her husband Roger in “a two-room shell of a house” and “No one knew if Frieda and Roger ever did get off welfare.” Access to birth control would have made such a difference in the lives of so many women in the novel.

The author’s portrayal of life in the 1950s and 1960s is very realistic. Esther is born in my birth year so I can relate to the descriptions of growing up in that time period. References to ordering from the Sears catalogue and mixing “the orange egg yolk-looking blob” into margarine brought back memories. There is even humour in some of the references: Esther “didn’t know what we used the Simpson’s catalogues for.”

Esther’s sense of not belonging is nicely emphasized by the repeated appearance of islands. She is born on an island and spends ten years on the island of Montreal before returning to Grand Manan. Even in High River during the flood, she lives in an apartment surrounded by water. In every home, she feels she is from another place and doesn’t belong: And “if you were from away, you could never really belong in the fullest sense of the word, and you weren’t trusted when it came right down to it.”

Unfortunately, there is too much telling and not enough showing. For instance, it is inevitable that Melba’s fractured upbringing is going to have an impact on her life. Does the reader really need to be told that her removal from her secure life in Montreal is the beginning of “the building anxiety that would last for the rest of her life”? Her fear of abandonment is unnecessarily emphasized: Esther “wondered why it was that she was so bad, what was so wrong with her, that even two mothers didn’t want her. Esther would wonder this for her whole life.” Esther’s actions clearly show her struggle with identity, yet the author insists on telling us, “In her mind, Esther lived between a Christian and Jewish upbringing. She lived this duality her whole life.” And we’re told that “Seeds of doubt, chaos, anger and abandonment, depression and anxiety, pill-taking and suicide were planted in her short time on Grand Manan, and would follow Esther the rest of her life.” As an adult, “Esther was unhappy. How many times would she have to move? How much money would she have to spend replicating her childhood home? . . . This road would spread before her for most of her life.”

The majority of the novel focuses on Esther’s life until the age of seventeen. Then the last 15 percent covers over 40 years. We are shown little; we are just repeatedly told that Esther moved again and again and that she is addicted to prescription drugs. This last section of the novel needs considerable revision. The detailed description of the High River flooding is excessive, yet other information is lacking. We learn that Esther’s sister Liona “eloped with Ross Mackie” but when she reappears she is addressed as Liona Green? A niece that has never been mentioned drives Esther to pick up her car after the flood?

There is an interesting story here, but the writer’s style needs polishing. The part of the novel dealing with Esther’s adulthood needs major revision.

Note: I received a digital galley of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.