Must Write: Edna Staebler's Diaries (review)

Scholars interested in Canadian life writing will welcome the publication of this selection of Edna Staebler's diaries. A short example of her diaries was previously published in Kathryn Carter's 2002 collection The Small Details of Life: Twenty Diaries by Women in Canada, 1830–1996, but the archive (held at the University of Guelph) is large. Readers may think of Staebler as a folksy writer of cookbooks, creative non-fiction, and journalistic pieces, but the diaries reveal a woman and author of considerable depth, subtlety, and complexity. Arguably, the diaries are her major literary achievement and not only because of their sheer volume – Staebler kept a diary for eight decades – but also because of the quality of the writing. Her previously published writing tends to be realist, and it has perhaps been undervalued in a critical milieu in which formal experimentation is lauded. Staebler's writing style suits the diary genre perfectly: there is a liveliness and wit to the prose, as well as a subjective complexity shaped, which engage the reader. The topics she addresses are intrinsically interesting. For instance, for a woman of her generation and upbringing she is remarkably frank about her need for independence – from family and from men – and for sexual and intellectual fulfilment. The diaries reveal a strong feminist who pulled against the constraints of her society: 'This business of being married and doing nothing with a brain, which may or may not be any good, is too, too awful.' She is scathing in her comments about her difficult marriage to an alcoholic and unfaithful husband. And she is thoughtful about her own aging process. At times her tone is philosophical; at other times playful, even funny.

As the title suggests, the thematic focus of this volume is Staebler's desire to write, both to express herself and to be a published author. The 'must' in the title is a mark of that unfailing passion; it is also a directive she issues to herself. Recurring fears that she does not write often enough, well enough, or consistently enough seem to have plagued her. No doubt Staebler's obsessive focus on her writing is heightened, perhaps even exaggerated, by the editor's selection practice. The singular focus can make for repetitive, potentially boring reading. Certainly, one longs to know more about other matters that shaped Staebler's life and identity, especially her personal relationships. Men other than her husband are mentioned but we don't know if Staebler wrote much about her feelings for them. There is very little about Staebler's parents or sisters or the family's long and deep involvement in the Kitchener-Waterloo area. There are many other threads to pull from the diaries, and one can only hope that in the future Christl Verduyn or other scholars will undertake the considerable task of reading, transcribing, editing, and publishing more of them.

Included in Must Write are four of Staebler's journalistic pieces, numerous photographs, a chronology of the author's life, a family tree, and a few reproductions of the diary pages themselves. Verduyn also supplies invaluable contextual material through brief introductions to each chapter and through endnotes. At the end of the book is a helpful bibliography. Verduyn opens the volume with a cogent (if brief) essay in which she locates Staebler's diaries in historical and critical contexts. Especially important is the discussion of theoretical work in the area of women's life writing. This theoretical context provides a framework through which to analyse autobiographical self-representation in the diaries. Readers are obviously interested in the facts of Staebler's life, but just as important is the way she shapes her identity through language. The inclusion of this extratextual material makes Must Write a thoroughly scholarly edition. Verduyn has honoured Staebler's writing achievements; she has also made an important contribution to Canadian life-writing studies by bringing to a wider audience a significant primary text.