The Break

As the characters of The Break struggle to survive and make sense of the many hardships, heartbreaks, and injustices of their lives, the novel considers what it means to be resilient. Many characters become tough and skeptical in response to hardship. Lou, a social worker, has learned to see the worst in everybody: giving the wrong person the benefit of the doubt could put the lives of the children she works with in grave…

The Break is set in a Canadian city with a large Indigenous population, and most of its characters are Indigenous. Through their stories, the book illuminates the prejudice and racism Canada’s Indigenous population experiences and how that prejudice affects them. Stella’s mother, Rain, died when Stella was a girl. Rain had been out drinking and dancing one night when she got into an argument with a man who beat her and then left…

Primarily told from the perspective of female characters, The Break examines the mistreatment and violence of which women—and marginalized women in particular—are so frequently victims. For many women in the book, domestic abuse is simply a fact of life. Officer Tommy Scott’s mother Marie experienced physical abuse at the hands of her husband. Lyn, an artist on display at Cheryl’s gallery, comes to her exhibit with a poorly concealed black eye—an observation that…

Though Lou, Paul, and Rita, strive to make better lives for their children, they still see the traumas they endured  in their youth play out again in their children’s lives. As teenagers, cousins Paul, Lou, and Stella witnessed the sexual assault of Stella’s best friend, Elsie, at a party one night. They then witnessed the unraveling of Elsie’s life as she dealt with the unintended pregnancy that resulted from the assault…