Overview

“Enjoy your homes. Enjoy your food. There is nothing that can take their place.” Half a world away from her home in Manitoulin Island, Ethel Mulvany is starving in Singapore’s infamous Changi Prison, along with hundreds of other women jailed there as POWs during the Second World War. They beat back pangs of hunger by playing decadent games of make-believe and writing down recipes filled with cream, raisins, chocolate, butter, cinnamon, ripe fruit—the unattainable ingredients of peacetime, of home, of memory. In this novelistic, immersive biography, Suzanne Evans presents a truly individual account of WWII through the eyes of Ethel—mercurial, enterprising, combative, stubborn, and wholly herself. The Taste of Longing follows Ethel through the fall of Singapore in 1942, the years of her internment, and beyond. As a prisoner, she devours dog biscuits and book spines, befriends spiders and smugglers, and endures torture and solitary confinement. As a free woman back in Canada, she fights to build a life for herself in the midst of trauma and burgeoning mental illness. Woven with vintage recipes and transcribed tape recordings, the story of Ethel and her fantastical POW Cookbook is a testament to the often-overlooked strength of women in wartime. It’s a story of the unbreakable power of imagination, generosity, and pure heart.

Full Product Details

Author:   Suzanne Evans
Publisher:   Between the Lines
Imprint:   Between the Lines
ISBN:  

9781771134897

ISBN 10:   1771134895
Pages:   306
Publication Date:   01 December 2020
Audience:   College/higher education ,  General/trade ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly ,  Undergraduate
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Table of Contents Prologue: Setting the Table I. Meeting the Emperor 1. What's a Manitoulin Girl Doing in Singapore? 2. The Tiger Woman 3. Bon Voyage Photos 4. Stepping Out in Singapore 5. Guns, Bicycles and Spies 6. Loaded to the Hilt on Benzedrine 7. Silence of the Guns II. Getting to Hunger 8. The Road to Jail 9. On the Inside 10. Shopping for Food and Answers 11. Shop for Some Pumpkins in Stall 38 12. The Logic of a Dream 13. Recipes of Longing III. Dreaming it Up 14. Stitching Stories 15. The Red Cross Silence Hut 16. The Games People Play 17. Double Tenth 18. Descending Mania 19. Solitary Confinement IV. Breaking Out 20. Shameful Hunger 21. First Feasts 22. The Horrors of Health Care 23. Is this Home? 24. Never Enough 25. The Gift of Food V. Putting it all Together 26. Not Fit Company for Herself 27. Treasure Van 28. What's in the Bottom Drawer? 29. A Forgiving Spirit Draws Two Worlds Together Notes Index

Reviews

Suzanne Evans has delved deep and written with great sympathy about the long drama of picking up the pieces of a broken life. --Elizabeth Hay, Giller Prize -winning author of Late Nights on Air Such remarkable stories of Canadian women need to be told. --Dr. Heather Eaton, author of Ecofeminism and Globalization

Author Information

Dr. Suzanne Evans holds a PhD in Religious Studies. After working, studying, and living in China, Indonesia, India, and Vietnam, she now lives and writes in Ottawa. She is the author of Mothers of Heroes, Mothers of Martyrs: World War I and the Politics of Grief. Her writing, which has appeared in academic and literary journals, newspapers, magazines, and books, has a strong focus on women and war.

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