What You Get at Home
In “The Rocking Chair” a piece of furniture simultaneously divides a family and heals old wounds. The narrator in the title story finds a sense of belonging and purpose in a small pool of light and her favourite book. In “Chopsticks” a piano in a personal care home reminds a woman of the sense of wonder and admiration she had for her father as a child. With the power of memory the characters that inhabit What You Get at Home find the strength to carry on when life is at its most challenging.
Dora Duecks work is immensely satisfying and dazzling in a way that you often dont find in fiction today. She takes the time to delve deeply into the souls of the people she writes about, to find the perfect word, phrase, cadence, that will bring to life their journeys toward peace and beauty. Dora is a sage and marvellous writer, and one of Manitobas best kept secrets.
Sandra Birdsell, author of The Russländer
This short story collection delves deep into the hearts of its Mennonite characters, and with few words evokes powerful emotion....What You Get at Home is not just about lives, but the power of the written word.
Mennonite Brethern Herald
...the ultimate pleasure of reading What You Get at Home is the authors creative prose, which often sounds more like poetry. Readers will find themselves going back to certain passages many times to savour them.
MaryLou Driedger, Rhubarb Magazine
As is often the case with good writing, sparse words evoke powerful emotion, and Duecks collection is immensely satisfying and personal in a way you dont often find in contemporary fiction.
Corby Skinner, Billings Gazette
Dueck's writing transcends the boundaries of time, place, culture and religion, resulting in a complex web of feelings and experiences that belongs to everyone, not just those who share the Mennonite experience.
Katie Funk Wiebe, Mennonite World Review
Dueck's stories in this collection are deftly written and finely nuanced; each character, each situation and event seems convincingly real.
Robert Martens, Mennonite Historical Society of BC
