deirdre santesso

Seventeen year-old Larry Kinsella knows nothing of life beyond the city of Vancouver and when he first meets Benita Pigeon, a member of the Carrier Nation, he is drawn to her by their differences. Their brief, often tumultuous, relationship is brought to a calamitous end by an unwanted pregnancy and by Larry’s response to it. Consumed by anger and bitterness, Benita flees to her ancestral home where she struggles to adjust to a traditional way of life, while Larry, driven by guilt and remorse, enters the seminary and becomes a Catholic priest. But the past lays claim to both of them and when they meet again it is under circumstances where they must struggle to redeem themselves and to find their true identity. Set in the middle of the last century against a backdrop of northern British Columbia and the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, “Back To Hope” is a story that often touches on violence, conflict, poverty, and despair. But it is also a meditation on family and belonging, on faith, and above all, on hope.