Dorris Heffron

Don’t expect a sequel to City Wolves. Though it is, in an odd way. Nor is it about bears. 

It is the story of Clare, a wildlife photographer in a long second marriage that has become dangerous. Living in Ottawa, her work takes her to far flung places across Canada. It’s not the wildlife, but heartfelt purpose that brings her to an insider view of life in the oil sands city of Fort McMurray.

Clare makes an escape visit to her sister, a veterinarian with a dog project on reserves near Calgary. Her security force is a herd of donkeys. It is the wildlife gathering at the floe edge in the High Arctic that draws Clare and an up and coming photographer, Michelle Valberg to be hauled by sled to camp on ice at the receding floe edge, during the summer solstice. 

Back home with her dogs and people in Ottawa, Clare throws a 70th birthday party with life-changing consequences. She discovers the different nature of love in old age, the harmony, peace and intimate pleasure it can bring. Yet the story ends with fireworks, Canadian style.

Writing with the authenticity of American writer David Sedaris, sharing his sense of the unique humour of complex characters, Heffron is unabashedly Canadian. Her novels are full of heart, with striving human beings and animals. Her voice is like no other. Dorris has declared Bear With Me is her final novel, but she will do shorter forms of writing.