Letter to Sister Benedicta — Rose Tremain

Fat and fifty, educated only to be a wife and mother, Ruby Constad has reached a point of crisis. Her husband, Leon, lies in a nursing home after a stroke that has left him paralyzed; her grown-up children are gone. In her anguish Ruby appeals for help to a half-remembered figure from her colonial Indigenous girlhood -- Sister Benedicta. Gradually the events leading up to Leon's stroke are revealed and a woman emerges whose capacity to love, hope and understand are far greater than she realizes.