Joan Barfoot : Gaining Ground

.Every now and then I like to set myself another reading project. I’ve had Great Works, Old Women, and now I’m embarking on a little journey into books written by women about women living alone in remote areas.  There are any number of books written about people taking to the simple life, leaving the everyday world, and living self-sufficiently.

Heidi Sopinka : Utopia

Heidi Sopinka’s second novel is set in the LA art world of 1978. This is the time of Andy Warhol and Valerie Solanas (who tried to kill him). It begins at a party, with a young woman in a room breast feeding her seven-week-old baby. Not just any young woman, but Romy, performance artist and part of a glamourous power couple with Billy, some years older, and recipient of Guggenheim awards and shows in Europe. Romy is ripped apart by anger and jealousy. She feels that Billy will always be more famous and respected than she is because she is a female. And this is the theme of this story; the battle between the sexes.

Margaret Laurence : The Stone Angel

My project for April, to read eight (or more) books by or about very old women is off to a roaring start with The Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence. I am ashamed to say that while I have read a few Canadian authors, Carol Shields, Robertson Davies, Emily St John Mandel and Margaret Atwood, I had not heard of Margaret Laurence. I now discover she is a superb writer, up there with the truly greats, awarded honours in Canada with university departments named after her, and an essential  early member of an emerging Canadian literature tradition.