JOAN BARFOOT

The Idyll Inn, the setting for Joan Barfoot's brilliant eleventh novel, Exit Lines, is a pastel-hued care facility designed for seniors "with healthy incomes but varying hopes, despairs, abilities and deformities." In scathing detail, Barfoot describes the Idyll Inn's plastic plants, inoffensive art and pallid recreational activities, all familiar to any reader who has had occasion to visit such a place -- or to live in one. Running the show (or so she thinks) is priggish administrator Annabelle Walker, charged with keeping the residents happy, or at least as happy as is required to keep a tidy profit flowing to far-away investors. But not all residents of the Idyll Inn choose to acquiesce. Sylvia Lodge, one of the Idyll Inn's first residents, prides herself on her steely backbone, despite crippling arthritis. Affluently widowed, she has selected the Idyll Inn as a less objectionable alternative to a perilous dwindling at home. She coolly refuses to be bossed, certainly not by Annabelle Walker (about whose family Sylvia keeps a dark secret), or by her estranged daughter, Nancy, from whom she keeps yet another, even more explosive, secret. Sylvia is determined to unapologetically lay claim to her lifetime of choices, responsibilities and blame, not yet aware that her icy solitude will shortly be broken by the company of three soon-to-be-intimate friends. Given the facility's small population, the Idyll Inn's new inhabitants are bound to have crossed paths. And indeed many have. Wheelchair-confined George Hammond, once a handsome shoe store--owner with a stay-at-home wife and adored daughter, long ago cupped Sylvia's feet in his hands and admired her well-formed calves. He has done far more with Greta Bauer, his former clerk, whose loneliness as a young immigrant widow with children rendered her available for a comfortable and seemingly uncomplicated affair. Now deposited under the same roof by absent children, the former lovers are in a position to reflect on the consequences of their choices. Completing the newly formed coterie of friends is tiny Ruth Friedman, a retired Children's Aid worker who keeps many of the city's darkest secrets, and whose passionate late-in-life marriage to fellow social worker Bernard did not include children of their own. Now also widowed, her grief unfathomably deep, she has taken to cheerfully rea

The Idyll Inn, the setting for Joan Barfoots brilliant eleventh novel, Exit Lines, is a pastel-hued care facility designed for seniors with healthy incomes but varying hopes, despairs, abilities and deformities. In scathing detail, Barfoot describes the Idyll Inns plastic plants, inoffensive art and pallid recreational activities, all familiar to any reader who has had occasion to visit such a place or to live in one. Running the show (or so she thinks) is priggish administrator Annabelle Walker, charged with keeping the residents happy, or at least as happy as is required to keep a tidy profit flowing to far-away investors.But not all residents of the Idyll Inn choose to acquiesce. Sylvia Lodge, one of the Idyll Inns first residents, prides herself on her steely backbone, despite crippling arthritis. Affluently widowed, she has selected the Idyll Inn as a less objectionable alternative to a perilous dwindling at home. She coolly refuses to be bossed, certainly not by Annabelle Walker (about whose family Sylvia keeps a dark secret), or by her estranged daughter, Nancy, from whom she keeps yet another, even more explosive, secret. Sylvia is determined to unapologetically lay claim to her lifetime of choices, responsibilities and blame, not yet aware that her icy solitude will shortly be broken by the company of three soon-to-be-intimate friends.Given the facilitys small population, the Idyll Inns new inhabitants are bound to have crossed paths. And indeed many have. Wheelchair-confined George Hammond, once a handsome shoe storeowner with a stay-at-home wife and adored daughter, long ago cupped Sylvias feet in his hands and admired her well-formed calves. He has done far more with Greta Bauer, his former clerk, whose loneliness as a young immigrant widow with children rendered her available for a comfortable and seemingly uncomplicated affair. Now deposited under the same roof by absent children, the former lovers are in a position to reflect on the consequences of their choices.Completing the newly formed coterie of friends is tiny Ruth Friedman, a retired Childrens Aid worker who keeps many of the citys darkest secrets, and whose passionate late-in-life marriage to fellow social worker Bernard did not include children of their own. Now also widowed, her grief unfathomably deep, she has taken to cheerfully reading horrifying news stories aloud to her new friends, who are soon to discover that these daily doses of gloom are less for their edification than they are in service of a desperate project for which Ruth needs their complicity.In the wryly funny and wholly compassionate Exit Lines, acclaimed author Joan Barfoot once again treats her readers to an intimate encounter with some fascinating characters engaged in the fight of their lives. Sylvia, George, Greta and Ruth are at times tender, angry, hilarious and deeply flawed, but always utterly and captivatingly human. How do we treat the elderly in our lives? How do we intend to grow old ourselves? Will we ever come to the end of longing? Exit Lines brings to the surface these and other fundamental questions about the nature of life, and its closing.

A joyful and generative novel about running away to make a new home for a new self. Sarah MossI didnt know how badly I needed it. Barfoot shows us the beauty and terror of being alone.Amy KeyThis is what the best writing does: makes you think, think again, think better.Claire KilroyA modern masterpiece.Doireann ni GhriofaAn outstanding sense of place and inner space: unsettling as well as memorable.Margaret DrabbleBeneath the radical disquiet is a beautiful hymn to the hearts and minds of women. Sarah HallI swear I loved them all, and I did the best I could. And then I left them, left all of it.Abra has a perfect-seeming life as a wife and mother: until one day, she walks away, leaving only a note asking her family not to look for her. In a woodland cabin, her new life alone begins. There are no mirrors, no clocks, no memories: just the squirrels breathing in the forest, and silence of vegetables growing. Years later, a young woman arrives, and the past-flashes begin. Daughter? A strange word. Is this her? And what will this mean?Joan Barfoots Gaining Ground is a both a provocative meditation on living on your own terms and an exquisite work of art. It calls to anybody who has ever wanted to escape - who has asked what it costs to be wild, to be sane, to be free.What readers are saying:So damn extraordinary.This book meant everything to me.An instant all-time favorite.I loved reading this book . . . A story of impossible bravery, survival and reconciliation.A beautiful story about a woman who puts her own happiness in life above her maternal duties.One of the most influential novels I have ever read.Wonderful. So much food for thought. I never re-read books, but this is one of the first Ill make an exception for.A quiet masterpiece.

A darkly comic novel about life, death and everything that matters!At three oclock in the morning, that defenceless hour when anything feels possible, the Idyll Inns only sounds are the low hum and thrum a building makes to keep itself going. An uneasy hour, it is also the most discreet time for unsavoury acts. If all goes well, there will be no repercussions.At three oclock in the morning, four people convene in one room to do the unthinkable. All four harbour secrets - of betrayal, sex, fear, and guilt - but all four are united in their loathing of the director of the Inn. Fuelled by Sylvias secret wine stash, they begin to confess to past demeanours, to abandonment and hope, to questions of love and loyalty. But then one of them asks a question that no one is prepared for...EXIT LINES is a wry, funny but also terribly poignant novel about lifes turning points and about how we adapt and change. It is about growing old disgracefully and tackles the Big Questions with a refreshing lightness of touch.