Over 150 Lambton County book lovers got the opportunity to listen to Olympian, broadcaster and author Perdita Felicien share stories and provide moving as well as humorous insights into her critically-acclaimed, best-selling memoir My Mother’s Daughter at Sarnia Public Library Theater on April 22 , the culminating event of the third annual One Book Lambton.
After several months of programming that dealt with themes found in Felicien’s memoir – including book discussions, a Caribbean-themed cooking class, a spoken word performance, virtual seminars on sexual harassment and protection for newcomers as well as a talk by Team Hoyt Canada president Wes Harding on the importance of inclusion in sport – the One Book Lambton committee invited the Oshawa-born author for an on-stage conversation that featured candid moments.
The onstage conversation with Felicien touched on topics ranging from her triumphant career as a world class hurdler to her mother’s harrowing experience as a new Canadian to the effect domestic violence and racism had on her family.
Throughout the 90-minute event, which was followed by a book signing session, Felicien stressed the book was a tribute to her mother Catherine, a documentation of all the trials and tribulations she went through as she made the journey from St. Lucia to Canada to build a better life for her children. It was a book meant to inspire others who may find themselves in a similar situation, Felicien said.
Before the event, she spoke of the elation she felt when she found out her book would be the subject of this year’s One Book Lambton and her excitement about taking part in her first in-person book signing since My Mother’s Daughter was released last year.
“I was honored when they told me they wanted to pick my book, because there are so many other books they could have chosen,” she said. “But I think they chose it because they saw a lot of the themes in the book that dealt with mother-daughter relationships, our struggles and our triumphs. And in my book I put out a lot of other issues that might resonate with others, things like homelessness and living in a women’s shelter.
“Basically it’s a story about women and children not having a lot and having to fight for everything, and I think people who’ve experienced what we’ve experienced feel less alone after reading it,” Felicien continued. “But I think it’s a triumphant story too – all of us have familial relationships we have to navigate and the book is an inter-generational tale of a family trying to make it. What’s universal is the idea of wanting more from life, wanting to better yourself and your family’s life. My mother came here as an immigrant from St. Lucia and the whole thing was she wanted to give more to her children than she could have obtained at home. And what mother, what father can’t empathize with that desire – to give your children better opportunities than you had.”
During her conversation with emcee and local radio broadcaster Eve Morgan, the one-time Canadian Female Athlete of the Year spoke lovingly about her mother, her siblings, her husband and her young daughter Nova, her rise to fame as a star athlete and her famous fall during the 2004 Athens Olympics, which made her grow as a human being, she said.
She also discussed her lifelong support for Oshawa’s The Denis House, a women’s emergency shelter that she and her family used in the eighties, and about her interesting connection to Sarnia – when she was 18 years old, she said, she came to Sarnia for a track meet and ended up tasting beer for the first time
“I drank a Sleemans in Sarnia,” she said, with a laugh.
Writing her memoir took several years, Felicien said, because she wanted to get it just right and do justice to both her own and her mother’s story.
“It took me four or five years to get it done. I had never written a book before, so I didn’t know where to start,” she said. “I love that the book found an audience, but I really wrote it for me, because when I stopped racing – and I raced at the top of the world for Canada for 12 years – I knew there was a part of my identity I didn ‘t know.
“I knew my mother would sometimes talk about her struggles and our early struggles, but I didn’t really know what that meant. And this book is really piecing back to that story. It’s unique in the sense that it’s a memoir, but I go back and reconstruct my mother’s life and my family’s life before I came into the world,” Felicien added. “I think it gives you the context when you see me racing, when you see me falling, when you see me triumphing, you understand the backstory of what drove me. (The reader) begins to understand that it’s more than just a race to me…so I think through this book people get an idea of what it takes to rise to the top in sport and in life.”
The reality of her and her mother’s stories only hit home once the book had been sent to the publisher, Felicien said.
“It was harder when the book was done and out. When I was writing it – I’m a broadcaster so details and information are really important to me – I was so fixed on getting the story right that I didn’t quite realize ‘this is my mom’, ‘this is my story’ ,” she said. “But once it was done and it was accurate, it hit me – things like my mom had to work up until the hour she had me, in active labor and not being able to go to the Oshawa General Hospital because her employer ordered her to make sandwiches.
“My mother gave me her blessing to tell these stories, because she knew that there were women out there who needed to see that others had gone through abuse and domestic violence and similar situations and she wanted them to know that they aren’t alone, ” Felicien said. “Sometimes when you see someone go through those things and somehow come out of it, it can give you some hope and some affirmation. But she said she couldn’t keep these stories to herself because it wouldn’t empower anyone if she kept it a secret – in fact she said the worst thing she could do was not to tell her story.”
With a rousing response from the audience, Felicien stayed long after the event ended to sign books, take pictures and chat with guests.
Ultimately, she said she hoped her book would find resonance among people who were struggling with the problems her family faced.
“I hope to give a voice to any mother, any child or any woman trying to make sense of what they’ve been through,” she said. “For me, I look at my past…and I want to share the lessons that I’ve learned with others.”