The author Judith McCormack discusses her new novel The Singing Forest (Biblioasis, 2021), with Joseph Planta.

The Singing Forest by Judith McCormack (Biblioasis, 2021). Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: The Singing Forest

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, British Columbia, at TheCommentary.ca.

A new novel, that I’ve started and finding it hard to put down is The Singing Forest. It’s author Judith McCormack joins me now and I’ll ask her about her book, and how she wrote it and why. In the book we’re taken to Belarus, where in a forest is the long-kept secret of the mass grave where Stalin’s police murdered thousands in the 1930s. In Canada, in the present, a young lawyer named Leah Jarvis is tasked with the deportation of an elderly man, Stefan Drozd, who fled to Canada many years earlier to take on a new identity. Leah has to travel to Belarus seeking hard facts, asking complex questions. The ideas of justice, vengeance, and motive are contended with, and it’s fascinating to think about as the time has passed from the crimes themselves. Heritage, inheritance, and memory are also investigated in the book that is quite engaging. Judith McCormack’s writing has been shortlisted for the Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Commonwealth Writers’ Fiction Prize, the Journey Prize, and the Amazon First Novel Award. Her short stories have appeared in the Harvard Review, Descant, and The Fiddlehead, among other publications. She has several law degrees, and is the recipient of the Law Society Medal, and the Guthrie Award for access to justice. Visit www.judithmccormack.com for more. This new book is published by Biblioasis. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Judith McCormack; Ms. McCormack, good morning.

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