The Ripening: A Canadian Girl Grows Up
by Lily Iona MacKenzie
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Pub Date Nov 14 2021 | Archive Date Dec 10 2021
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Description
Sexual awakening can be messy business.
Tillie Bishop never knew her father, and when her mother abandons her, Tillie quickly becomes streetwise. Even in Calgary, forces of the coming 1960s—a decade of rebellion, discovery, and upheaval—are already at work within her. As a Canadian Girl in Training, she’s tried to follow their Christian guidelines, but she prefers to make up her own. She smokes cigarettes in the church bathroom during the group’s meetings and plays kissing games afterward with neighborhood boys. Barely a teenager, glamour becomes her new guiding star, and she fantasizes about a future of dating men and having sex.
At seventeen, during a stay in Toronto, she becomes a band groupie and throws herself into the “sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll” scene—just what she she’s been looking for. Then, seeking more adventure, she moves to San Francisco, drawn to its psychedelic night life, leading to a deeper downward spiral. However, Tillie’s grit and ability to face life’s challenges are inspiring, the seeds for later discovering her artist self.
Tillie takes readers on a wild ride through a period of riotous personal and cultural change. Join her if you dare!
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Tillie Bishop eventually becomes a visual artist and changes her name to Tillie Bloom. Follow the older Tillie in Freefall: A Divine Comedy. She’ll take you into an art world you’ll never forget.
Advance Praise
"Lily Iona MacKenzie has created a child who will be a seeker. Tillie is not just any child. Tillie and her mother’s hard-scrabble life is set primarily in Calgary, with a brief time on a prairie farm. MacKenzie knows the landscape, from the Canadian cities to the prairie “flatter than dinner plates.” She takes her reader to down-on-your-luck hotels, the Zoo, and the Calgary Stampede, with the excitement of the rodeo and the sordid underbelly of the midway at night. But Tillie hungers for more adventure and spends time in both Vancouver and Toronto. Before she turns eighteen, she “escapes” to San Francisco. This is the story of a journey, and MacKenzie navigates it expertly. She knows her craft." – Betty Jane Hegerat, Canadian author of Odd One Out, The Boy, Delivery, A Crack in the Wall, and other memorable books.
“Tillie’s life wasn’t meant to follow other girls’ paths. With free love, hippies, and drugs looming, she ends up in San Francisco. Lily Iona MacKenzie deftly takes readers into that throbbing world of drugs, booze, and one-night stands. They’ll root for Tillie as she struggles to find herself and be swept along as she learns that true happiness is seldom found amid glitter and grime. It’s hiding somewhere else … in plain sight. A well-written and visceral story.”—– Janice Gilbertson, author of Summer of ’58, Canyon House, and The Dark Side of Gibson Road
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