Borrowed Memories, a novel

Forthcoming from 8th House Publishing in June 2024

A reading from Borrowed Memories at a Zoom event organized by Guernica Editions for the finalists of the 2020 Guernica Prize for Literary Fiction.

“An evocative and nuanced story. Ivan’s ambivalence and longing, caught between his parents and Mia, past and future, make for a fascinating internal journey.”

Jury, 2020 Guernica Prize (Finalist)

Ivan Pyefinch, a freelance translator, is the self-appointed custodian of family memory. He moves home to the Thousand Islands for the summer to care for his ageing parents and escape the sting of his failed marriage. His father Horace, a former World War II pilot, is fighting now to regain his driver’s licence, while his mother Aida wages a losing battle against Alzheimer’s. They are living on borrowed time, and Ivan is there to lend them some more.

Enter Mia Hakim, a Jewish filmmaker in Quebec who has always preferred the memories of others, even as she dreams of her Sephardic roots. She plans a research trip to Tunisia in search of her lost childhood and enlists Ivan to translate her scenario. When Mia arrives unannounced at the Pyefinch home on the eve of the Remembrance Day parade, a health crisis in the family puts all their stories on a collision course.