NEWBURYPORT – The Greyhound had been a champion racer, but her wins and the prize money she won were never enough for the humans who owned her or those assigned to care for her.
For the Greyhound, there was no graceful retirement from the track like thoroughbred horses receive when they are put out to pasture. The greyhound carried scars internally and on her body. And worst, when she had run her last race, she lost her perceived place in the world.
In her debut novel, The Way of the Greyhound, Ginamarie Talford of Newburyport tells the story of Brendal Mar’s search for peace in life and equally important the quest for finding her voice and her way.
Talford said it is a story designed to help people overcome loss, grief and anxiety. It deals with these human emotions in a heartwarming manner, so readers may find new beginnings, self-love and a connection to nature or the Tao.
Talford, a high school English literature teacher and college Humanities Department head, gives us an emotionally packed story, telling it through an allegory of pain and suffering and finally salvation.
For Brendal Mar, the greyhound, finding her way begins when she is sold or given away by her owner to a caring young woman, whom the greyhound calls Jeep Girl. The dog, filled with anxiety, does not understand Jeep Girl’s motivations and is prodded by a bee to distrust the woman and make her escape to an unknown future.
According to Talford, the Bee symbolizes the human ego, buzzing constantly in one’s ear, often giving bad advice that leads the greyhound to make bad decisions. Fortunately, there are forces of good that come in her life. The Moon and Mouse, who befriend the Greyhound, represent one’s own intuition, Talford said.
The Greyhound in her travels learns to trust the Moon and the Mouse, who encourage her to find Jeep Girl, who lives in a house along the Merrimack River.
Talford, who has parented two rescued greyhounds, Brendal Mar and SweetP, and fostered a third greyhound, pours a lot of herself into this novel. “Ginamarie believes in love, magick (her spelling), angels, awakenings and serendipity,” the novel jacket reads.
She shares lessons she has learned from great writers like Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Edgar Allan Poe and other romantic authors and American transcendentalists. She crafted the book like a sonnet with three quatrains, like a Shakesperean sonnet.
After graduating from Boston College, Talford earned a master’s degree in English and had a career in education as a teacher, principal and chair of a college Humanities Department. She found her own voice in singing, and working with a Nashville, TN, studio, released her first album Emerging Moon in 2007. In October, she released a new song, Galway Rain.
She trained as a martial artist and is a second-degree black belt in Soo Bank Do-Moo Duk Kwan. She is also a Reiki Master.
“These disciplines have taught her to seek solace and healing in nature and the Tao,” the back cover said.
Pick up a copy of Talford’s novel in either of Newburyport’s book stores, at the Illume Book Store on Market Square or the Jabberwocky Book Store in the Tannery.
