Let Us Be True

Let Us Be True
by Erna Buffie
Published by Shadowpaw Press
Review by Sally Meadows
$24.99 ISBN 9781998273065

As an award-winning documentary filmmaker, Erna Buffie has put her strengths of visual thinking and stellar storytelling to excellent use in her recently re-released debut novel Let Us Be True. Originally published by Coteau Books in 2015 and a finalist for both the Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction and the Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book at the 2016 Manitoba Book Awards, the book was re-published by Shadowpaw Press in 2024 for a whole new generation of readers to devour.

This sweeping story, which unfolds over several generations with a myriad of twists and turns, is told from various viewpoints that allow readers to get an intimate portrait of each deeply flawed character. From the grit of the Great Depression to the battlefields of WWII to mid-century and turn-of-the-century life on the Prairies, Buffie’s descriptive mastery–along with her historical knowledge–immerses the reader into each compelling but often painful scene. Like a tragic accident we can’t pull our eyes away from while passing it on a highway, Buffie has crafted a page turner that is hard to put down, employing portents that leave the reader wondering what was meant, and what will be revealed next.

The story centres around Pearl Calder, an embittered widow, and her two daughters, Darlene, a professor unsuccessfully navigating two love relationships, and twice-married Carol, who finds solace in consumerism, as they come to terms with Pearl’s hospitalization and impending end-of-life.

Touching on numerous difficult topics throughout the story, Buffie liberally incorporates the cinematic technique of abrupt scene and time transitions as she reveals the trauma from past generations and how it has shaped her characters’ lives in ways they may never fully comprehend. As I read this book, I found myself reflecting on my own family’s storied history to help me understand how we got to where we are today too.

The title of Buffie’s book, which is part of a poem quoted by one of the minor characters to his paramour (“Ah, love, let us be true to one another…” (p. 133)), along with his lover’s response when they break up (“Sorry that you can’t let yourself be loved” (p. 143)), summarizes, in my opinion, the overarching theme of this book. When we lack or can’t receive the love we all crave deep down and are unable to be open and honest with others and ultimately ourselves due to past unresolved (and perhaps unknown, ancestral) trauma, it is exceedingly difficult to live a full and happy life.

Buffie is also a writer of short stories and has had numerous opinion editorial pieces about environmental and climate issues published with the Winnipeg Free Press. She blogs at https://www.ernabuffie.com/.

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