Like Maureen, Walsh was also once in a violent relationship, which helped her understand her heroine’s heartbreaking mindset.

So I am a product of that era and so the book is a product of me.” “I was coming of age when it was free love and groovy, and people who sold dope were considered to be rebellious superstars, kind of â€” as opposed to now, they’re considered to be the bottom of the barrel and really terrible people….

“There are so many parallels,” says the affable satirist and Gemini Award winner, who’s received the Order of Canada and a Governor General’s Performing Arts Award. John’s native herself who created the CBC comedy “This Hour Has 22 Minutes,” notes she didn’t go to Expo 67, didn’t get pregnant, and didn’t try to poison her boyfriend, as Maureen does.īut the 64-year-old did grow up not far from Maureen’s neighbourhood, “where all the bootleggers were.” Walsh was raised by her aunts and uncle, near her parents’ home, which was too damp for her to live in after a bad bout with pneumonia. John’s who gets pregnant during a choir trip to Expo 67 in Montreal. After being forced to give the child up for adoption, she gets caught in a web of alcohol addiction, domestic abuse, murder and drug dealers. The harrowing tale follows teen Maureen, a downtrodden, Catholic school student from hardscrabble St. TORONTO â€” Canadian comedy star Mary Walsh says her debut novel “Crying for the Moon” isn’t the story of her life, but it does borrow some elements from her past.

Crying for the Moon by Mary Walsh