Introduction
On Tuesday 8 October 2024, I went to Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa for the book launch of Invisible Prisons by Lisa Moore and Jack Whalen, the real-life story of Jack who suffered abuse at a government-run reform school for boys in Newfoundland in the 1970s.
Quote
“Stories get buried because of the trauma of bearing witness. Of digging them up. Turning them over in the light. The sheer effort of remembering. Reliving. Though forgetting is often impossible.”
The event
- This book launch was presented by the Ottawa International Writers Festival in partnership with Library and Archives Canada. You can watch the video recording of this event here.
- This is the first time that Lisa Moore writes a non-fiction. She is an award-winning author of fiction and short story collections. Invisible Prisons is a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction.
- Jack Whalen’s wife and two adult children were present at the event to support him. Jack was always worried that his children could be taken away from him when they were growing up. As a result, he was very strict with them, imposing curfews. He also wasn’t able to help them with their homework, as he was not given an education in the Whitbourne Training School for Boys. He has a grade 6 level, can barely read and doesn’t know how to write.
- Jack ran away 24 times from the Whitbourne Training School for Boys. He always went to see his family when he escaped and was invariably taken back to the reform school where he was put in solitary confinement for longer and longer periods of time. He estimates that he has spent a total of more than 700 days there in the four years he spent at Whitbourne.
- On one occasion when he ran away, it was so cold that he broke into a cabin to warm up. He was hungry so he opened a can of beans. Lisa Moore in describing this scene, imagined the propane stove being lit and got carried away comparing the flames to a blue flower. Jack, when he heard the description, said: “I ate the beans cold”. He kept Lisa honest.
- Alice, Jack’s mother, passed away before the author started to write the book. However, Jack and his wife, Glennis, talked about her a lot. In addition, Lisa knew women of the same generation in Newfoundland and that the catholic church had a great deal of power over them. So, she was able to imagine what Alice was like and what it felt like to wake up in the night knowing her son was not in his room.
- Jack was amazed by the how the book turned out. He feels Lisa “hit the nail on the head”. He used to have nightmares about the abuse he experienced in Whitbourne. However, he hasn’t had any for several months, and he thinks he might have finally put the past behind him.
- Jack has built a replica of the solitary confinement cell on the back of his truck. He has travelled around Canada and, with his daughter Brittany, a lawyer, he was able to extend the statute of limitations to sue the government for child abuse in Newfoundland. He is hoping to do the same in New Brunswick. These were the only two provinces where you had only 2 years after reaching adulthood to report such crimes.
- Jack was in touch with other boys who were in Whitbourne when he left the reform school, but he moved to Ontario in his twenties and hasn’t been able to stay in touch with them.
