An heretofore unknown artwork by Canada’s best-known Post-impressionist painter, Emily Carr, shapes the lives of two ill-fated lovers. Aki Nakamura, acquires a painting, The Primordial, as World War II tightens its grip across the continents. Nora Greene, the wife of the son of a lumber baron is irresistibly drawn to the second generation Japanese-Canadian man who saves the life of her husband. Over the decades that follow, the painting changes hands. It is cherished and hidden, then revered and lusted after by larcenous and shrewd art curators. The story draws us through shuttered rooms to exclusive art auction houses and the homes of ultrarich private collectors. The painting binds strangers across generations and reveals the truth of what happens to two people separated by forces far greater than either can foresee.

The Primordial is a sweeping odyssey of love and separation, survival and destiny, and the afterlives of the things we leave behind.     

If you had a deep dark secret that would shatter your life if it became known, who would you tell and when?  Meet Brenda Leamington, an ailing elderly woman who decides to reveal the elements of her life to a hospice volunteer who visits her on Thursday afternoons, along with his dog and his own burden of emotional pain. From her childhood in London and a series of violent deaths that haunt her throughout her life, to her efforts in preventing the collapse of a revolutionary aeronautics program and her short-lived first marriage in Canada, the series of visits unwinds the tortuous tale of her life. From their first meeting, Brenda begins to divulge her spirit of resilience, hard-fought independence and as their relationship deepens, her darkest secret.

At times told through the eyes of Colin, the emotionally damaged hospice volunteer, events conspire to devastate Brenda’s family after a shocking series of revelations erupt from the well guarded past of her second husband’s early years in the Netherlands. Brenda is left to disclose her sins and self-doubts to this grief-numbed stranger in the pitiless confessional of her death bed. This is a story of a woman determined to celebrate her own singular path to a life of joy and ultimately, a passing blessed with redemption.

Click HERE to read a View Into The Visits

.