Ancestry and legacy

Tomorrow
by Valerie Green

Surrey: Hancock House, 2024
$24.95 / 9780888397843

Reviewed by Vanessa Winn

*

Turning her experienced eye to recent history, Victoria author Valerie Green delivers Tomorrow, the fourth and last book of the McBride Chronicles. The intriguing premise of this latest instalment is a young English woman, Victoria Blake, receiving an unexpected inheritance in 1968 from unknown family in faraway British Columbia. The will’s codicil, made shortly before the late Mrs. McBride’s death decades earlier, has the catch that Vicki must live in the house, which she cannot sell. This fruitful plot twist reflects the nineteenth-century story of the deceased, as well as prevalent inheritance themes in that era’s literature, such as the novels of Dickens and Trollope. In Tomorrow, Green gives it a fresh mid-twentieth century take.

At first stunned and angered that neither her late father nor her trusted aunt Bee (who helped to raise her) had told her about her real birth father, Vicki is initially resistant to her overwhelming turn in fortune. The precariousness of life and worldwide relationships in wartime England, where she was conceived, makes the circumstances plausible, despite her doubts. Bee, filling in a few pieces of the puzzle, supports Vicki journeying to Canada so that she can decide whether to accept this family bequest and adopt a new home, creating a circular motif around questions of adoption and belonging for several characters, past and future.

In her Author’s Note, Green introduces the current social issues she tackles in Tomorrow, such as mental illness, abuse, sexuality, and suicide. Of course, these are not new issues, though awareness has grown in modern times. Readers of Green’s earlier McBride Chronicles volumes may feel echoes of the protagonist’s ancestors in some of the challenges that Vicki and her family face in the changing context of the recent decades. Spanning nearly two centuries, an underlying thread of continuity is skilfully woven throughout the chronicles. 

When Vicki arrives at Providence, her inherited mansion in Victoria, BC, she is struck by the 1860s portrait of a woman with whom she bears an uncanny resemblance. This vivid image is reminiscent of Dickens’ Bleak House, with some characters impervious to the similarities between kin. The woman, Vicki learns, was Jane McBride, her great-grandmother. Although it’s not necessary to have read the previous books in Green’s chronicles, knowledge of the older generations’ stories adds depth in this fast-moving novel, particularly as a few characters share the same names as their ancestors. Family trees are provided to help track the extended relationships.

Jane McBride also leaves Vicki the key to her locked lifelong journals. Vicki develops a fascination and deepening appreciation for the house and the history of its prior residents, a family she never knew. Jane’s ghost lingers in the house, evoked by the stories she left behind, which are vibrantly portrayed in Providence, the first novel of the chronicles. Nearly a generation will pass before Vicki fully understands the parallels between them, despite their separation in time and distance. 

When Vicki reads of Jane’s abuse in domestic service and its later impact on her relationship with her husband, the news appears far removed from Vicki’s sudden good fortune. Independently wealthy in a new home and country, the adventurous young woman has the privilege of choice. She is warmly welcomed by the Caldwells, old friends of the McBrides, who have a generations-run legal firm to assist her with her inheritance. On impulse, or perhaps the captivating guidance of her late great-grandmother, Vicki chooses an architectural restoration company, where, unknown to her, a Caldwell is a partner. 

It is not, however, Joe Caldwell who advises Vicki on restoring the house, but his partner Ryan Foster. Swept up in the excitement of her new life, she is naively charmed by his good looks and evident attraction to her. Her new relationship, the icing on her inherited cake, appears too good to be true. Issues of fate and choice are laced through Vicki’s developing story and bear a momentous impact on her children. 

It is challenging reading about women whose personalities are gradually subsumed by their partners, made strikingly ironic during the burgeoning 1960s women’s liberation movement. With Vicki’s desire to keep her new family together regardless of the cost, the insidious erosion of her sense of self shadows the power of social expectations to override the legal gains of the era. Her denial of her husband’s narcissism further jeopardizes her children’s well-being, passing risks to the next generation, in a timely depiction of continued harm. These boding inherited ills counteract the apparent good fortune of the family.

Like the earlier books of the chronicles, the narrative structure alternates between characters. In Part One, the viewpoint alternates between Vicki and Ryan. Although Vicki’s perspective receives more chapters, the reader is privy to warning signs of Ryan’s deceptive side through his outlook. He does admit, however, that the late Jane McBride terrified him as a child, foreshadowing his resentment of Vicki’s interest in her newfound family. Jane even makes an eerie appearance in a chapter heading, relating the honeymoon where Vicki begins to see hints of Ryan’s faults. Whether intended or not, this suggests Jane’s presence resonating hidden within Vicki, even while her focus is taken up with Ryan. While Ryan initially warns Vicki that real estate developers will be after her property, she ironically falls prey to a more sinister kind possessiveness closer to home.

The background setting is evocative with enduring cultural references of the period, including vintage music, the new rage of colour TVs, the moon landing, and Trudeaumania. Green neatly weaves local history into the plot, such as the 1970 tragic collision of the Queen of Victoria ferry with a Russian freighter. Reverberating with the maritime fate of her grandmother Sarah, as told in Legacy, Vicki’s concern for family and friends onboard sparks a revelation from Ryan about his own roots, hinting at a possible source of his worsening behaviour. 

Like Jane before her, Vicki has a rebellious daughter, Kaitlyn. But it’s not her mother who Kaitlyn chafes against. Resisting her father’s mercurial neglect and control, Kaitlyn takes desperate steps to escape him. Her descent into drugs reveals another social ill from which privilege cannot protect her. Part Two shifts to the perspective of mother and daughter, as well as the youngest child, Cal, the namesake of Vicki’s birth father, whose globe-spanning story is featured in Legacy. 

Reinforcing the name of the family estate in Victoria, Kaitlyn’s return home proves providential for her. She is among the fortunate to access rehab treatment, and rediscovers sanctuary through her gift for art, with Vicki’s support. In careers, the opening of doors seems somewhat pat for several family members, despite their turbulent home life. But it is Cal, Kaitlyn’s younger brother, who receives the brunt of their father’s disparagement, which is driven by homophobia and self-centredness. 

It takes a tragedy for Vicki to realize the terrible impact of her husband’s actions on the family and to find the strength for change. Revisiting Jane McBride’s recovery in the face of tremendous losses, Vicki draws a source of resilience from her ancestors, reawakening her own spirit. She steps beyond Jane’s path and discovers her own inner courage to open her heart again.

Part Three comes full circle to beginning a new life, and Vicki welcomes her grandchildren into her home, as Jane McBride did before her. One granddaughter, fittingly named Jane, has a new vision for the colonial mansion, Providence. The epilogue’s introduction of a descendant of an Indigenous character who Jane McBride disapproved of in Destiny, suggests this granddaughter has found a new way forward in preserving the heritage home, through reconciliation and sharing both sides of the colonial experience. Revealing similarities with the path of Point Ellice House Museum, a real heritage site near the setting of Providence, Green offers a vital and hopeful vision of a future beyond Tomorrow.

*

Born in London, UK, Vanessa Winn lives in Victoria, where she received a BA in English Literature at UVic. Her second novel, Trappings, depicts real people and events in mid-19th-century British Columbia during the aftermath of the gold rushes. Her debut novel, The Chief Factor’s Daughter, similarly portrays factually based social history during the Fraser River gold rush and was studied at universities in British Columbia. Winn’s poetry has been published in various journals and she also writes non-fiction. Beyond her passion for the written word and historical research, she also teaches Argentine tango. Please visit her website. [Editor’s note: Vanessa Winn reviewed books by Valerie Green, A.S. (Lana) Rodlie and (once more) Valerie Green for BCR, and her own book, Trappings, is reviewed here by Valerie Green.]

*

The British Columbia Review

Interim Editors, 2023-25: Trevor Marc Hughes (non-fiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction)
Publisher: Richard Mackie

Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an online book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, Maria Tippett, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.

“Only connect.” – E.M. Forster