This book tricked me into thinking it’s a Canadian version of The Diary of a Provincial Lady or Excellent Women. It’s prefaced by an article about the author, presenting him as this sweet, bespectacled teacher type who writes cute little books about daily life in picturesque villages. The novel is set in 1934-8, it’s narrated in the form of a diary and letters between sisters, and I prepared to have a cuteness attack of the kind one enjoys while reading E. M. Delafield.
Yeah, well, nah. The novel takes every convention of the “spinster of this parish” genre and tears it to shreds, together with the poor spinsters. Richard B. Wright is some sort of an incredible Canadian genius I never heard about until now. He writes about female loneliness and female longing with extraordinary realism and terrible cruelty. I’m not sure why he set his novel a century ago. Clara Callan and the rest of the sad spinsters from the novel would have been exactly the same today. But maybe that is the point.
It’s a brilliant novel, people, and it’s very mean. One hopes that the ending could offer some hope but the author added an afterword that crushes that dream, too. Also, Richard B. Wright visited our planet from a faraway galaxy where political correctness had never been invented. Dude had absolutely no idea what he was expected to think about female empowerment and all that. Clara Callan merited its author every literary award in Canada when it was published in 2001, and it definitely deserves the accolades.
Highly, highly recommended. Canadian literature rules.
P.S. The digital version is at $0.10 on Amazon right now. I promise it will be the best dime you’ll ever spend.
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