life rattle show no. 1344

Presented on thursday, june 12, 2015

hosted by Laurie kallis

featuring

"Christina"
"A Casket and a Priest"
and
"A Bad Trip"
by Caroline Wade

tonight's Show

A special Father's Day show, Life Rattle Number 1344 features three stories by new writer Caroline Wade.

Caroline Wade was born in 1993 in Austin, Texas, where her surrogate mother then lived. However, a mere five days later, her two dads were able to bring her to their home in Los Angeles, California. She lived a pleasant, privileged life and was treated like a little princess by her two adoring fathers. She grew up loving both the arts and athletics, especially the sport of pinching her younger brother when her dads were not looking.

When Caroline was twelve, the father she was closer to at the time was diagnosed with cancer and everything changed. Her favourite sport then became running. She ran from virtue to vice and school to school until she graduated. Then she took a long run to Sweden. It was a bit too bleak for her there so she took one more run to Toronto where she became very tired. She decided she would take a quick break and reflect on all of her running while also attending university for English and Media. Caroline currently lives in the west end with her best friend, lots of plants, and a cat called Dumpling.

With full control and blistering honesty, Caroline Wade delivers three memorable stories that centre around a young woman’s rebellion in the face of her father’s illness and subsequent death. Her prose moves from shocking to heartbreaking against a backdrop of loss, and the wealth and excess of Los Angeles.

Framed between two scenes of a father struggling to calm his frantic daughter, the core of "Christina" centres on the young woman’s plunge into a narcotic tailspin after a dealer in “a black car, the kind of car your parents warn you about on Halloween,” sells her a bag of crystal meth, rather than the expected cocaine.

"A Casket and a Priest" reveals the broader context of our narrator’s plight as it moves in and out of scenes of her day-to-day life at school and at home, where her father is dying from cancer.

"A Bad Trip" takes us on a sometimes hallucinogenic journey of escape, ending in a dark, painful plea for an alternate reality.

Please Note: Tonight's story contains language and situations suitable for a mature audience. Listener discretion is advised.