Larry "has flown the coop," leaving a to his bed" the day that she was born a growing number of fictional daughters black rabbit ("Satan") and "one measly "November 7, the anniversary of the who is - now that women are writing shirt" to remind Lureen of him. Lureen Bolshevik Revolution." Harris' "The more of the scripts - mis-fathered or has no interest in acting on anything she Soma Building" is the most philosophical, fatherless. It is not an entirely satisfying has learned; she wants her Larry back, polysemous of the realistic stories. In the ending because Lannie leaves too many and she dreams about him, waits for him, end the narrator becomes the creative stones unturned: we wonder what ever and reconstructs conversations with him writer about whom Hams writes, and the came of her university lover, the ''boy'' until Larry finally reappears in the middle father's wisdom initiates her own Tim, or herchildhood friend, Angela- the of the night, and they go off and make revelation, her unfinished fiction, in her only person in whom she confides. And love in the park. office in the Soma Building. Hams' narra we also expect there to be a more pro This is the only story of its kind in tive voice is complex, butnowhere is voice found reason for getting to know Barney Double Bond, but it is one of the stories as self-consciously intricate as it is in and Iris from the inside, but none which depends very much on its prairie Sharon Butala's first novel, Country of comes. setting for metaphor and dialogue, almost the Heart. Not as tendentious as last year's Baker's as much as Merna Summers does in the Shattering reader expectations in terms Dozen (Toronto, Women's Press), the already much acclaimed "Threshing of both its moral vision and its narrative stories in Double Bond are just as radical. Time" (1982). "Threshing Time", winner conventions, Country of the Heart is at the Although we don't know why the editor, of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize for its same time a most conventional novel. Caroline Heath, has settled on this title (in year, is wrenching in its detail of a Short on action, Butala concentrates on spite of the fact that there are some brief threshing job, gripping in its presentation the story which emerges when told simul notes on the back jacket that try to of ranching men and, in particular, of Max taneously from at least three different explain), we do know that it has some Staunton's subtle and entirely controlling points of view. She does this not so much meaning for her, for Fifth House, and pre molestation of little Estelle while a father to show incongruities as to illustrate both sumably for the writers in the collection. paralysed by his sense of powerlessness the shared experiences of intimates, and And we also know that the bond has watches on. the separate and secret lives of individuals something to do with women and, in Joan Clark's "God's Country" is also who are intimate. most cases, the land. But something else very much tied to the land, but it's not the One character dominates the triangle struck me about the "double bond." That prairies. Set inan East Coast mining town, Lannie, a university student whose woman's bond with her past (with tradi Clark's hero simultaneously confronts her mother died when she was a child, and tions, with convention, family, and the home town and her first love. Sharon whose father abandoned her. She returns land) is as revolutionizing as the bond she Butala's Meredith (a feminist chemistry "home" to her Aunt Iris' and Uncle makes with her present (with experiment professor in Central Canada) relinquishes Barney's when university term ends. and change, with new mores, sexual her troublesome daughter to her roots During her stay with them, she sur love, society, and the city). The her father's prairie ranch. But the story mounts obstacles rarely elevated to plot tremendous variety of fiction in Double ("0 What Venerable and Reverend material, among them dysmenorrhea and Bond covers a literary spectrum thatwould Creatures") closes with a touching abortion. Though imperfect, Lannie's stretch from one kind ofbond to the other, passage in which Meredith remembers point of view is sometimes corroborated and from one kind of literary tradition to her "beautiful baby," reminding us of and sometimes confused by the points of its radical antidote. Brenda Riches' tender, 8-part vignette, view of her guardians, Iris and Barney, Itis primarily for this reason that Double "Snow Flurries," through which every both of whom have skeletons in their Bond is radical- it has defied our expecta mother will weep. closets - where they remain. Separate tions withoutmaking us too uncomfortab Butala and Riches focus on the experi narrative threads do develop and in le, without judging us or our sisters, even ence of mothers with daughters, while tersect, but there is always some slippage, our brothers ("the night watchman," the Beverley Harris and Gertrude Story giving Lannie enough room to set things novel's Barney, Bonnie Burnard's as yet weave slightly eerie plots around right for herself. unmentioned Allen in "Crush") too daughters and their memories of their Lannie's quest for intimacy is also her harshly, and without dismissing the ordi fathers. Story's moving "Das Engelein passive mourning after it, and in this nariness of womenwho have immigrants' Kommt (The Little Angel Cometh)" is respect, Lannie very much resembles Lois blood, rural families, family wounds, jobs written from the point of view of "the Simmie's meek and lonely night watch and ambitions, and illicit longings and angel's" sympathetic sister, whoinimper manin herwondrous shortstoryin Double secrets. And this is also true of Country of fect English witnesses how the father Bond. Almost too quickly Lannie resolves the Heart which, if condensed and filmed, crushed his daughter(s). Harris' narrator, to act, and sets out to find her lost father, would give us a graphic picture of the however, is reverent ofa father who "took her sister and herbrother. Lannie is one of double bond of which we are all a part.
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VOLUME 6, NUMBER 4 125 Helen Benedict, Recovery: How to Survive Katherine Govier, Fables of Brunswick Ontario: Penguin Books Canada, 1985. Sexual Assault. Garden City, New York: Avenue. Markham, Ontario: Penguin Ann Oakley, The Captured Womb: A History Doubleday, 1985. Books Canada, 1985. of the Medical Care of Pregnant Women. Julia Brophy and Carol Smart, eds., Phil Hall, Why I Haven't Written. Ilderton, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984. Women-in-Law: Explorations in Law, Ontario: Brick Books, 1985. Mary O'Brien, Lionel Stevenson, Terry Family and Sexuality. London: Caroline Latham, How to Live With aMan: Dunton Stevenson. Elders of the Island. Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985. Everything a Woman Needs to Know. Charlottetown, P.E.I.: University of Patricia Crawford, ed., Exploring Women's New York: New American Library, Prince Edward Island and Ragweed Past. Winchester, Massachusetts: 1984. Press, 1985. AlIen & Unwin, 1985. Paula Gilbert Lewis, ed., Traditionalism, Alice Parizeau, The Lilacs are Blooming in Claire Culhane, Still Barred from Prison: Nationalism, and Feminism: Women Warsaw. Trans. A.D. Martin-Sperry. Social Injustice in Canada. Montreal: Writers of Quebec. Westport, Connecti New York: New American Library, Black Rose Books, 1985. cut: Greenwood Press, 1985. 1985. Beatrice Culleton, April Raintree. Kathleen McDonnell and Mariana Alison Prentice and Susan Mann Winnipeg: Pemmican Publications, Valverde, eds., The Healthsharing Book: Trofimenkoff, eds. The Neglected 1984. Resources for Canadian Women. Toronto: Majority: Essays in Canadian Women's Marion Engel, The Tattooed Woman. The Women's Press, 1985. History. Vol. 2. Toronto: McClelland Markham, Ontario: Penguin Books Robert Martin, ed. Socialist StudiesrEtudes and Stewart, 1985. Canada, 1985. socialistes. A Canadian Annual #2; Paul Roazen, Helene Deutsch: A Juliana Horatia Ewing, Canada Home: The Critical Perspectives on the Constitution. Psychoanalyst's Life. Garden City, New Fredericton Letters, 1867-1869. Ed. Winnipeg: Society for Socialist Studies, York: Anchor PressIDoubleday, 1985. Margaret Howard Blom and Thomas 1984. Judith Rowland, The Ultimate Violation: E. Blom. Vancouver: University of JilIJulius Matthews, Good and Mad Women: Rape Trauma Syndrome. Garden City, British Columbia Press, 1983. The Historical Construction of Femininity New York: Doubleday, 1985. Charlotte Fiihrer, The Mysteries of in Twentieth Century Australia. Diane Schoemperlen, Double Exposures. Montreal: Memoirs of a Midwife. Ed. Winchester, Massachusetts: AlIen & Toronto: Coach House Press, 1985. Peter Ward. Vancouver: University of Unwin, 1985. Phyllis Webb, Water and Light: Ghazals and British Columbia Press, 1984. Erin Moure, Domestic Fuel. Toronto: Anti Ghazals. Toronto: Coach House Angeline Goreau, Whole Duty of aWoman. House of Anansi Press, 1985. Press, 1985. Toronto: Doubleday, 1985. Bharati Mukherjee. Darkness. Markham,
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