“With a wry humour and a detached, almost journalistic approach to the events, Saucier investigates the nature of love, and loss, of family and community, what we owe to one another, and what we are owed. And Miles to Go Before I Sleep is a haunting reminder of what makes us human, and that it is the questioning, as much as the answers, that keeps us alive.” —Robert J. Wiersema, The Toronto Star

Writer and filmmaker Megan Durnford spoke with her about the Abitibi region of Quebec that is central to her work, the train rides that inspired And Miles To Go Before I Sleep, and deciding to be happy. — Interview, Canadian Notes and Queries

The result is not a trial of character but an attempt to track the desperate flight of a desperate woman aboard the trains of the North, sifting through scattered bits of evidence to determine a motive.

After And The Birds Rained Down, a stunning meditation on aging and freedom, Jocelyne Saucier is back with her unique outlook on self-determination in this unsettling story about a woman’s disappearance.

Gladys is born aboard a train as it winds its way through northern Ontario’s most remote regions. On these same rails, she spends rapturous years in the company of her siblings and the other children she meets at each stop. On these rails, she finds love.

“Once you’ve known happiness, it’s impossible to believe you’ll never know it again.”

But what prompted this ardent optimist, now in the winter of her life, to jump from train to train and evade all attempts to bring her home? The question haunts her friends, as well as a railroad activist who will not be deterred. Someone, somewhere, must know what drove Gladys to leave Swastika far behind.