Ana Burns is lying in an abandoned farmer’s field, falling asleep as the sun sets, when her mind is transported to her childhood, to another time, another field, where her life changed forever.
Growing up in Middletown, Connecticut, in the 1960s, Ana lives mostly in her imagination. One day, while collecting wildflowers in Crow’s Field with a friend, two older boys approach to ask what they’re doing. So begins the reliving of a violent attack that shaped the lives of the young girls.
When her family moves to Kingston, Ontario, amid Canada’s Centennial celebrations, Ana is determined to start anew. She will no longer be the quiet girl who follows someone else’s lead. She will be her own person. Her teenage years are a time of new friends and sexual discoveries, but also severe bullying. Though she continues to be haunted by the events in Crow’s Field, Ana becomes a woman willing to act and to speak.
In the debut novel from one of Canada’s leading playwrights, Judith Thompson delivers a transformative story of a young woman’s path out of silence.