Remembering Lucy Maud Montgomery by Alexandra Heilbron (review)

506 letters in canada 2001 university of toronto quarterly, volume 72, number 1, winter 2002/3 to conclude that an enormously energetic political leader with a strong mandate, clear sense of purpose, fierce dedication, and >can do= attitude is not enough. The structure of Confederation has determined from the beginning that central Canada will dominate the national government; even regional development programs whose original purpose was to reduce disparities and benefit the east in particular have been bent out of shape to stimulate the development of any region or subregion at all in any part of the country. The result has been the continued decline, in relative terms, of the Atlantic region. The solution, or at least the beginning, Savoie suggests, is for Atlantic Canada to ally itself with the west in advocating Senate reform so as to make the upper chamber an effective voice of provincial interests within the structure of the national government B just as the American Senate, an elective body with two seats for each state, is. This is a long-term proposition, but it does get at the roots of the central Canadian dominance which has marginalized the east for generations. The question is whether Senate reform, which has been discussed almost since the beginning of the federation, is politically possible. (IAN ROSS ROBERTSON) Alexandra Heilbron. Remembering Lucy Maud Montgomery Dundurn. 256. $26.99 Alexandra Heilbron=s contribution to the ongoing field of L.M. Montgomery studies consists of a series of thirty-two interviews with neighbours, parishioners, maids, and friends who encountered Montgomery as a minister=s wife in small-town Ontario during the 1920s and 1930s, as well as reminiscences of some of Montgomery=s surviving relatives. The book is nicely illustrated with photographs, some of which have not been seen before, and the final section is fleshed out with hard-to-find reprinted materials from magazines. The book fills a gap in Montgomery studies by gathering in one place various impressions of Montgomery=s public personae. Read as such, it is a pleasant tribute to a person who was well loved by her community. That said, in attempting to recollect earlier observations of a very private woman who has been dead for sixty years, by those who knew her either as children, adolescents, or young adults, the interviews rely on the tricky terrain of human memory and thus seem tinged with more than a little nostalgia; in other words, the interviewees speak through the memory-filter that tells us to speak only good of the dead. Although there is no doubt that the people interviewed are entirely sincere in their respect for Montgomery, it is telling that not a single person has anything negative to say about her in the entire book: the Montgomery who emerges from these anecdotal narratives was a perfect mother, devoted wife, indefatigable minister=s wife to her parishioners, jolly relative, impeccable housekeeper, gracious hostess, charming neighbour, and poised humanities 507 university of toronto quarterly, volume 72, number 1, winter 2002/3 community figurehead whom everybody adored. This Montgomery stands in stark contrast with the person found in her Selected Journals (four volumes to date, 1985, 1987, 1992, and 1998), who, in addition to enjoying many of the facets of her public life, could often be impatient, angry, bored, and even malicious towards the same communities of people to which this book gives a voice: in her own words in the journal, she was sometimes even snappish and sarcastic to irritating people. Since several interviewees mention feeling upset after reading the Selected Journals because >that=s not the Lucy Maud I knew,= perhaps Heilbron could have pushed this issue further by discussing the journals with the interviewees in more detail. Heilbron=s sparse introduction is surprisingly brief for someone who has worked so much with Montgomery material: it would have been helpful, particularly for the many readers who have had no access to the journals or other biographical material, to expand on the discrepancy between popular memory and Montgomery=s own life record by providing concrete examples and quotations to summarize Montgomery=s conflicting role as minister=s wife (for instance, were his parishioners really unaware of her...