As she traverses the city of Toronto, Gladdie McConnell, the heroine of Connie Gault’s Euphoria, sees an octagon-shaped building with a cupola on top. It is the cyclorama, that popular 19th-century entertainment in which a panoramic painting on a cylindrical screen revolves around the viewer, placing her in the middle of a historical event. The one Gladdie passes but never manages to see is “Jerusalem on the Day of the Crucifixion.”
Similarly, the reader of Gault’s novel is positioned in the middle as the narrative unrolls, past and present flowing together seamlessly around her. In the beginning, a promise is made, at the end the promise is fulfilled, and the story of its fulfillment is set to start over again. Gladdie, who makes the promise, tells it to Orillia, the object of her commitment. The two are thrown together by another spiralling force—the cyclone that whirls around Regina and causes a convergence of several characters.
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Joan Givner has written two major biographies, an autobiography, two novels and several collections of short stories. She is the author of the Ellen Fremedon series of children’s books. Her young adult novel, A Girl Called Tennyson, was published in 2010 by Thistledown Press.
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