- Women's Writing in Canada by Patricia Demers
Patricia Demers's monograph sets out to highlight the vast and diverse body of work created by women writers in Canada from the 1950s to the present day. Women's Writing in Canada demonstrates impressive and extensive research results in discovering and resurfacing forgotten or overlooked women authors, many of them award-winning writers. Demers focuses primarily on English-Canadian writings but also includes French-Canadian contributions – for instance, Nicole Brossard. In addition, she explores Indigenous, Asian Canadian, Black Canadian, and other women writers of colour – for instance, Eden Robinson, Kerri Sakamoto, Dionne Brand, and Deepa Mehta. However, Demers follows the too frequent approach in Euro-centric anglophone literary criticism of including only "token" francophone, Asian Canadian, and Black Canadian writers. Brossard, Robinson, Sakamoto, and Brand are established writers. Thus, Women's Writing in Canada does not offer surprise discoveries beyond white, anglophone Canadian literature.
Demers does attempt to overcome the division between French- and English-Canadian writing by juxtaposing authors from the two language [End Page 381] groups under particular thematic headings. Writers such as Anne Hébert and Gabrielle Roy are examined together with Ethel Wilson and Adele Wiseman in the subchapter "Wrestling with the Strictures of Marriage and Family." Yet Demers falls short of actually crossing the language barrier. She notes that "[m]uch of the fiction of the fifties by women writers – in the continuing careers of Ethel Wilson and Gabrielle Roy and the debut novel of Adele Wiseman (1928–92) – reveals differing constructions and illusions of happiness and the fragility of survival." Statements like these, however, are not followed up with critical analysis but with summaries of the writers' works.
The scope of this book, in terms of chronology as well as coverage of literary genres, is its main strength. It offers a wealth of information to scholars seeking to acquaint themselves with the field. For readers unfamiliar with Canadian history, Demers offers effective summaries of historical milestones, and the book includes a timeline that contextualizes women writers with important Canadian and world events from the 1940s to 2017. Women's Writing in Canada is organized in seven chapters, each examining one genre. This arrangement gives the book the quality of a survey, of a catalogue rather than a critical discussion. Yet it also provokes us to expand our definition of the "literary." Demers's discussion moves beyond fiction, drama, and poetry to encompass children's literature, non-fiction, visual culture, and music. The women she discusses include singer-songwriters, film makers, book illustrators, and authors of graphic novels – for example, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Léa Pool, Ann Blades, Jillian Tamaki, and Mariko Tamaki. These are indeed innovative additions to the field of literary studies.
In one of the more compelling chapters – on non-fiction – Demers not only examines autobiographies, memoirs, and writings by "commentators of our world" but also highlights the contributions of journalists, advice writers, and food writers. For instance, Mary Allen Moore (1903–78) was a cookery columnist who was published across Canada. She founded her own "canning company, Mary Miles Foods, and with the rationing of sugar during World War II experimented with recipes using syrup and honey." Cookbooks and recipes are indeed valuable social and historical documents that illuminate the "sociological contexts" of their time of production.
The conclusion highlights again the interconnectedness of women's writing in Canada. Topics covered include the search of women "to find space, medium, and language" for their writing that are especially prevalent in the 1950s. These topics develop in the twenty-first century where "asymmetric relationships and issues of belonging and estrangement remain prominent." Demers's monograph successfully demonstrates that "[many] topics intertwine and emerge in different genres, highlighting more and more the salient connections among artists and modes of expression." Whilst it does not [End Page 382] provide any in-depth analysis, Women's Writing in Canada issues an irresistible invitation to researchers to explore the many fascinating, and often forgotten, writers who are included in the study.