The story of her courageous, laughter-filled journey to complete her book Blue Lake was published on the pages of the Montreal Gazette on Monday. She died that evening.
Feb 13, 2018 • February 13, 2018
Article content
Janet Blachford, who raced against time to finish a novel while fighting incurable cancer, has died.
She was 79.
The story of her courageous, laughter-filled journey to complete her book Blue Lake was published on the pages of the Montreal Gazette on Monday. She died that evening.
Books writer Ian McGillis told readers of Blachford’s decision to eschew chemotherapy so she could focus on writing when she learned she had incurable leukemia in January 2017.
“I know how much that treatment can wear on you and I wanted to finish the book,” she told McGillis.
She found strength and joy in writing the novel, which was in its second draft when she got the diagnosis.
“Sitting in those waiting rooms,” she said of her treatments at the MUHC’s Cedars Cancer Centre, “I could see that the people who were happiest were the ones who were doing things. The whole point of life is creation. I thought, ‘I can write my way out of this.’ ”
Blue Lake, which is published by John Aylen Books, was launched last December. The book explores one summer in the life of a Laurentian lakeside community not dissimilar to Lac Anne, near Morin Heights, where Blachford spent most summers growing up. McGillis described it as “a novel worth celebrating” regardless of its backstory.
Janet Savage Blachford was born in Montreal and attended the all-girls school The Study. She came from an artistic family: her aunt was the painter Anne Savage, and her nephew was Galt McDermot, the creator of the Broadway musical Hair.
She received a BA and an MA at McGill University, but her plans to complete a doctorate in the 1980s were derailed by a five-year battle with cancer.
Blachford published her first novel, Rehearsal, in 2007. It tells the story of a group of women of various ages who belong to the choir of the Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul, which is preparing for a performance of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion.
She was near completion of a third novel, In the Pink, about what she described as the “lost world” of upper-crust anglo Montreal.
“I keep saying, ‘Give me three decent weeks, where I can think and work, and I don’t get too tired, and I’ll get this thing done,’ ” she said.
Funeral arrangements have not been finalized.
https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/obituary-montreal-author-janet-blachford-raced-against-time-to-finish-novel
Berlusconi71
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento