Wayne Hoffman
"The End of Her"
Thursday, Ferbuary 23, 2023 | 7 PM
Via Zoom
Part memoir and part mystery is how to best describe Wayne Hoffman’s book, The End of Her: Racing Against Alzheimer’s to Solve a Murder. Hoffman recounts his quest to solve the murder of his great-grandmother, killed in her sleep in Winnipeg in 1913, and to share his findings with his mother before her mind is ravaged by Alzheimer’s Disease. In the process, the author’s search for truth explores issues of Jewish identity, the immigrant experience, familial obligation, love, and loss.
As The End of Her continues, Hoffman weaves chapters about his mother’s decline and his family history into a single narrative. He unravels family mysteries and paints a vivid picture of life in Winnipeg’s thriving Jewish community in the periods before and after World War One and the influenza outbreak of 1918. He also explores the relationship between the immigrant communities of Winnipeg and the distrust, antisemitism, and biases that persisted among the groups that settled in Canada.