The family stories in contemporary CanLit are not all that different from the stories and novels read by my grandmother’s generation. The women in my family did not read obsessively, no, but regularly, yes. What else was there to do in the evenings when your favourite show was in reruns
At first glance, it seems as though who is more – or less – Canadian matters in this story. Because I am Canadian, I latch on to the idea of whether Douglas’ father is more “reticent” than his mother, whether he is “cautious and single-minded”, whether I myself exhibit any
Language is important in “Orphans’ Progress”, specifically the relationship between English-speakers in Ontario and French-speakers in Quebec (predominantly Montreal, with a reference to Chicoutimi). It matters, immediately and lastingly, because the orphans, Cathie and Mildred, are the children of an English-Canadian man and a French-Canadian woman. Governor General's Award Winner
In “Saturday”, the mother had dreamed a different kind of life for her daughters. In “Up North”, Dennis’ mother is dreaming of a different kind of life for herself. She’s on a train, north of Montreal, heading for Abitibi, Quebec. That’s where Dennis’ father is working in the bush.
The image of the father in this story, unable to sleep, counting his sons-in-law instead of sheep, makes me smile. The way that he matches his memory of their faces with the litany of names, his uncertainty about the fifth, his debates over which of them is married to
