Old Stones

At the end of the Second World War nearly 50,000 women emigrated to Canada from Britain and the continent, scarred from the bomb-rutted fields of Europe. For them that Atlantic crossing marked the beginning of a great adventure: a new country, a new life and a new husband. For many children of these unions came a dual heritage, a cultural divide that made “home” a difficult place to define.

In Old Stones, the gap between A. S. Penne’s privileged English and provincial Canadian backgrounds is made achingly clear in family stories from both continents. In the end, the author does indeed find home — where she least expects it. An unsentimental look at a war-time union, Old Stones is an inquiry into a woman’s two very different selves, as well as a candid examination of a cultural divide.