BUTTERFLY WINGS

About the Book

“Just a word before I sleep. You will be my eternal guiding stars. Let there be no wasted tears or regrets. They would only damage the so-delicate wings of all those wonderful butterflies.” With these last written words, Ida tried to ensure we would continue our family life without her as wife and mother. For her, butterfly wings were the symbol of the almost magic and utterly fragile connections we make among each other as family members and as close friends throughout our lives. Such connections can, she felt, be made, perfected, broken or damaged in so many ways as we navigate perilously throughout our lives. “Les ailes de papillons,” she said. They were butterfly wings. She felt those fragile things that we call love and friendship, bonds and trust—shimmering, delicate—hanging by the merest thread.

About the Author

Alan J. Yates was born in Edinburgh, Scotland and moved to Canada in his late teens, where he pursued a career in journalism and broadcasting that would last over thirty years. He received his university education in Canada, with a B.A. in English and French Literature from Concordia University in Montreal and an Honours M.A. and Ph.D in Communications from McGill University in Montreal. His thesis was on the broadcast plays of the late Canadian author, W.O. Mitchell. Throughout his career, he lived in Montreal, Edmonton, Alberta and in Ottawa, Ontario, where he is presently retired and lives with his second wife, Carla Curran. The present work is in some ways a sequel to his first novel, “Figs of the Imagination,” which is loosely based on his adventures growing up in Scotland in the forties and fifties.