A ballet dancer leads a disciplined life, and Denise OBrian of Roberts Creek grew up training hard, spending summers at dance school and later at the Royal Ballet School in London.
It's no wonder she wanted some fun before signing on for a serious dance career. In 1970 at the age of 19 she travelled around Europe and fell in love with Israel, working on a kibbutz, roaming the country, taking hallucinogenics and making friends.
One night, in a grateful gesture to a Canadian man who had assisted her in dispersing a gang of thugs, she agreed to smuggle drugs out of the country. She was caught,imprisoned and became one of several American prisoners to endure the harsh conditions of Neve Terza Beit Soar, an Israeli jail.
Her story is described in The Prison Dance, a memoir of a time that opened her eyes to a deeper and darker world. While incarcerated, she met Palestinian political prisoners before they were later segregated in their own women's prison. She speaks of them now as "young, delightful girls moved to plant a bomb and then be tortured."
All the prisoners were subjected to harassment and discipline from the guards. They were not allowed to keep journals, their letters home were censored, and they were not protected from other lethal inmates.
But for all her trials, OBrian knew that the Palestinian prisoners faced worse. Her sympathy for their plight gives the book a poignancy that goes beyond her own sordid story of prison life. In one scene she describes the final farewell of two Palestinian sisters who were forced to part - one being deported, the other to remain for two life sentences. It is a memory that still haunts her.
Why write this now, more than 40 years later?
"No one was ready to read it before," OBrian said. "This is the first time that we are hearing more positive feedback about Palestinians."
Also, as she points out, when she was discharged from prison she was too emotional on the topic and drowned her memories by working full time on her career.
She later became a single mother and taught dance for nine years from her studio on the Coast.
Though the first draft was started 25 years ago, OBrian found it difficult to finish, finally self-publishing this year through XLibris. She wants people to read and learn from these stories, as she did.
"I think about torture a lot," she said sadly, "and I read prison stories. I understand about freedom being taken away."
The Prison Dance can be orderedat Talewind Books, from the author at [email protected] or can be found on Amazon.ca.
When bad things happen to people in their childhood, such as abuse or bullying, they can spend a lifetime working out the consequences in order to find peace. Some succeed. This is the premise behind Ben Nuttall-Smith's recent book, a memoir with a purpose, Secrets Kept Secrets Told (published by Libros Libertad).
Young Paddie is sent away to dangerous London by his widowed mother during the bombing of the Second World War. The boy is terrified and lives a nightmare when his uncle repeatedly sexually assaults him. He is sent to boarding school where he is bullied, and has the added strain of trying to protect his younger sister.
Before adulthood, his path has been mapped out for him as the eternal victim. He will be picked on wherever he goes, including being beaten up during an idealistic journey to the U.S. southern states in the 1960s to assist African Americans in their struggle for civil rights.
As a young man, Nuttall-Smith's protagonist blazes through several careers: the navy, Catholic orders and teaching, and finds some calm within his marriage and his career teaching drama, music and language. Finally in his late 50s the dam bursts, triggered by graphic movie images that remind him of his childhood.
Paddie breaks down, examines his past and tries to come to terms with it. His marriage over, he moves to the Sunshine Coast and finds peace in Sechelt where he builds a house and rock garden and takes part in the local arts scene.
When people hear that the book is about recovering from sexual abuse, they may want to shy away from the topic. But ultimately this is a joyful book that describes a man who has experienced pain and survived. His recovery is helped by manual labour and the sorting out of memories and emotions in a mostly silent retreat in Sechelt.
Nuttall-Smith maintains an affection for the Coast to this day, though his current home is in White Rock. With his efforts at self-knowledge he believes he has recovered, and he now wants to help others heal.
"Near the beginning of my 78th year," he writes, "I am a tiny but significant spark in an amazing universe."
Nuttall-Smith has also authored poetry, children's stories and a novel, Blood, Feathers and Holy Men. Secrets Kept Secrets Told is available at some Coast bookstores and can also be found on Amazon.com.
