Review of Anna Catalano, “Cry Sanctuary”, Luna Station Quarterly 36 (2018): Read online. Reviewed by Sara L. Uckelman.
Content warning: Domestic violence, alcoholism, death in childbirth.
Tuppy has been trapped in her marriage to Josiah for more than twenty years, for more than half of it she’s been trying to figure out how to escape. Tonight is her night, if only she can get out of the house without waking him, out of the house and to the bus stop.
After that, she doesn’t know what next, can’t even think beyond the first step to freedom. What she finds at the bus stop is nothing she could ever have planned on, but her silent cry for sanctuary was heard and listened to.
Despite the (relatively) optimistic note that things started off moving towards, this was a hard, harsh story. The route to the ending is not a happy one, and the ending, while victorious, is also not happy. But there is something hopeful about the story of one woman’s escape from violence, and the way in which it sets the scene for her to help others escape.
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