Running Toward Home ~ Reviewed by Elizabeth Nolan

Posted by Pearl Book Reviews Thursday, September 22nd, 2011

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Running Toward Home by Betty Jane Hegerat
NeWest Press, 2006
220 pages

Reviewed by Elizabeth Nolan

With Running Toward Home Hegerat develops some of the same character types that appear in the stories in A Crack on the Wall, but instead of the insular world of family life, the focus is on a chaotic world spinning further out of control – the outcome when home and family are fractured.

The story begins with Wilma dropping off her foster son for his annual date with his birth mother at the Calgary Zoo. Twelve-year-old Corey has already been through many homes and is in danger of losing his current situation if he runs away – which is all too likely after Tina ditches him at her volatile boyfriend’s request. Running a fever and confused about how to get back to the first home he’s really been safe in, Corey hides in the zoo after closing time while Wilma and Tina try to find him before the “system” catches on.

During her social work career Hegerat is sure to have witnessed countless cases even more heartbreaking than this fictional nightmare, but her strengths as a writer give readers emotional insight into the world of foster care with a story that is not only palatable but often gripping. As a parent, it was hard for me to put the book down until I learned whether Corey would be safe, and when I reached the end I had an overwhelming desire to take hold of my own young child and never, ever let him go.

Aside from Corey’s obvious appeal, though, Hegerat skilfully portrays not just the well meaning, middle class foster mother but also the harder-to-get-right birth mother. Tina is clearly not up to being a mother herself but she owns up to her mistake and does what she can to bring Corey back – even partnering with the woman who has replaced her. Other interesting characters include Wilma’s husband Ben, who is just as worried but less inclined to action; Tina’s grandfather, who mourns the loss of a whole series of family members; and a social worker who’s been through the system herself and become all the more insanely bureaucratic.

Running Toward Home’s real strength is that it contains hope and the all too real threat that hope’s promise won’t be realized. And like her short stories, the novel proves Hegerat’s conviction of the importance of ordinary lives.

Excerpt from Running Toward Home

“The voices, the shouting that woke him, had come from inside his head. He’d been dreaming about Shawn. He tried not to think back. Tina had taught him that. Don’t worry about who your dad is, don’t ask where your grandma is, forget about the last school, the last place you lived, and where you’re living now. Think about when you’re old enough that Social Services doesn’t get to tell us what to do anymore.”

Elizabeth Nolan is a journalist living and writing on Salt Spring Island.