Dream of Madeleine Thien

I rush to Jose and Bex's office b/c they had phoned to tell me Madeleine Thien committed suicide. I arrive in a rush to their little room of an office -- with a window in the back, and a ledge where they put an office plant, a large desk that belongs to Jose, and another small one by the side wall with a computer monitor (not their real office). "What's going on? Why did Madeleine Thien commit suicide? What about her husband?" He helped her. I imagine Madeleine Thien sitting on the edge of large bed, in a well-lit room, with white draperies and matching bedding, bawling and bawling and bawling her eyes out, completely inarticulate. Her northern european engineering of a husband kneels by her side, comforting her. "So why?" Because her parents died. "Did they die together?" Yes, some teenagers playing with fire, apparently burned down their house in the middle of the night. Madeleine Thien was with the boys; she approved of them playing with fire; who knew that that would burn down the house and cause the death of her parents? Maybe we found this illicit information off the internet, but Madeleine Thien felt guilty and responsible for killing her parents. Her husband laid her on the bed, and silenced her tears in peace. There was no other way, call it conscientious euthanasia.

The only thought running through my head at that point was that i better buy her new book before it's sold out and goes into reprint. I want the first edition, the first printing, in hardcover.

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It is morning now. I wake up, and mom is admonishing me for leaving the water boiling on the stove last nite, before i took a shower and went to bed. I arrive at a coffee shop, and lo and behold, Madeleine Thien on the front cover of Globe & Mail's A&E: review of her new book, Uncertainty, published April 2006 by McClelland & Stewart.

I am comforted that in her review and interview, she said that her husband, planning to finish his PhD within another 3 months, had taken an additional 4 years! He's just about done. Apparently, yes, misery loves company!