Rating by Canadian Senior Years(out of 5)
I was very moved by this book. I am sure that it would be helpful for those going through this kind of grief to realize that they too can survive and eventually move forward as the author has been able to do. Having never experienced this myself, it provided me a glimpse into what others have lived through or are experiencing.
One Friday, Walter Dohaney, novelist M.T. (Jean) Dohaney’s husband, went out as usual to play hockey with his friends. She never saw him alive again.
Without warning, Jean was plunged into the most painful and disorienting experience of her life. Faced with a tumult of emotions and sudden responsibilities, she turned to her writing for solace and began a journal.
In her journal, Dohaney’s sharp sense of humour and her impatience with conventional pieties lay bare the depth of her bereavement, yet at the same time they express the life force within her. She is frank about her anger at Walt for not being there to take care of the house and family; she faces her annoyance at sincere well-wishers who say exactly the wrong thing; and she exposes her distressing loneliness. When Things Get Back to Normal is a compassionate yet bracing companion for those struck down by loss, which indirectly gives practical advice about the changes that come with widowhood.
Two years after her husband’s death, Jean agreed to publish her journal. When Things Get Back to Normal gained critical acclaim when it was first published in 1989, but its finest praise came from the dozens of people who wrote and called to tell the author how it had helped them through their own grief. When Jean’s novel A Fit Month for Dying was released in 2000, the publicity surrounding the book prompted a flurry of phone calls to the publisher from people seeking copies of When Things Get Back to Normal. During the next year Goose Lane Editions sought out and acquired the book. The new edition was released in March of this year, due in no small part to the many readers who took the book, and Jean Dohaney, into their hearts.
Author Helen Fogwill Porter was one of the many that found strength in When Things Get Back to Normal when her husband died, and her introduction to this new edition offers her own experience of “normalcy.” Jean Dohaney’s new afterword tells where she is now, fifteen years after Walt’s death.
THE AUTHOR
M.T. (Jean) Dohaney was born in the small village of Point Verde, Placentia Bay, Newfoundland. She completed her BA in English at the University of New Brunswick and a Masters and PhD in literature at the University of Maine and Boston University. In 1988 she released her first novel, The Corrigan Women. She followed this with To Scatter Stones and A Fit Month for Dying. In 1996 she won the Thomas Head Raddall Atlantic Fiction Prize for A Marriage of Masks. In 2000, her filmscript Come Back, Paddy Reilly won the Atlantic Film Festival/CBC Writer’s Project and is currently in development as a feature film.
Praise for M.T. Dohaney
When Things Get Back to Normal
“A fine, austere writer . . . a help to anyone going through bereavement or a major separation.” — Saint John Telegraph-Journal
“Expand[s] our understanding of death and its impact on people through a personal and moving account of one woman’s experience of grief and loss.” — St. John’s Sunday Express
A Fit Month for Dying
“Dohaney’s unfailing ear for dialogue and use of dark humour create characters almost too vibrant to be contained by the page” — Quill & Quire
“Emotional depth, exquisite dialogue, and a tale worth the telling make A Fit Month for Dying a superb literary experience” — St. John’s Sunday Express
“Dohaney is one of the first modern writers to give an authentic voice to women in outports.” — Atlantic Books Today
The Corrigan Women
“If Dohaney never writes another novel, she can rest assured that her first has been worthwhile.” — The Globe and Mail
“In its rich and sometimes violent emotional texture, The Corrigan Women belongs in a class with such works as Alistair MacLeod’s Lost Salt Gift of Blood.” — New Maritimes
“The genuine drama of people struggling to live with severe social, religious and psychological constraints. . . . Dramatically concentrated and powerful . . . elegantly written.” — The Fiddlehead
If you would like to order this book through Amazon.com, press the following link:
To contact the publisher:
Kathleen Doucette
Goose Lane Editions
469 King St.
Fredericton, NB
E3B 1E5
(506)450-4251 Tel.
(506)459-4991 Fax gooselane@nb.aibn.com
Advertising Information 
(out of 5)