Tragic Links, the fourth book in Cathy Beveridge’s series that focuses on historical disasters with significance to Canada, offers an alternative look at our country’s past through the eyes of young people. The chronicle of a Canadian family, specifically 13-year-old Jolene, the book follows a vacation journey to Grandma’s in Montreal for Thanksgiving weekend. While on holiday, the family is researching for the Museum of Disasters they’ve opened, and through a time crease that’s discovered in la belle province, Jolene runs into some disasters of her own.
Slipping back through the decades, the teen finds herself reliving history as she’s swept up in the Roaring Twenties, enthralled by the old-fashioned cars, ancient-looking theatres, flapper styles, and throwback hairdos. She meets a few new friends along the way; one of them, Poppy, looks eerily similar to her, yet Jolene ignores warnings that seeing one’s doppelganger can be an omen of death. Without conducting the proper research, Jolene accompanies the girls to a theatre show, unaware that peril awaits them.
In an atmosphere of family feuds between her mother and her aging grandmother, Jolene seeks refuge in the past, discovering dusty old photos in the attic that may reveal some tragic links between unanswered questions from her grandmother’s history and her new/old friends from the 20s.
An older boy in the neighbourhood named Stephan is all too happy to give Jolene a hand (and a few butterflies) in mapping out her family tree to find answers. Intrigued by her father’s Museum of Disasters and the idea of “preserving destruction”, Stephan and Jolene trace some of his Mohawk ancestors to the Quebec Bridge Collapse of 1907, and Jolene makes the hasty decision to travel back to that day through another time crease. Knowing she can’t re-write history, Jolene and her family must get out alive, knowing how many will perish on that fateful day.
Throughout the novel, Beveridge delivers an interesting lesson, from Jolene’s perspective, on these catastrophic events. Tragic Links illustrates history in a contemporary way, with Jolene visiting contemporary exhibits on the 20s and learning about transportation and entertainment from that decade, and then experiencing it for herself, all the while still juggling concerns about a school dance she’s missing, her crush on Stephan, and her slightly dysfunctional family.
Canadian history can seem like a boring and daunting topic for young teens, but this award-winning author has found a way to liven up the subject matter, making it memorable for its readers by retelling its stories through the eyes of a teenager, as opposed to the pages of a textbook.
Writer Meaghan Isaacs is currently based in Ottawa.
