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plots, with questions * swered. Sullivan‘s biography of Elizabeth Smart, â€" Byâ€"Heart, was finely done. And so is this ork in Sullivan‘s biographies, there is a strong sense that she genuinely cares about her subject. Sullivan does not pretend that there is an arm‘s length "objectivity" from which she can view her subjects. These are real people, people she cares about, whose work she admires. Literary biography can be pretty dull, when it tries to give an assessment for all time of &n author‘s life and work. is more interâ€" ested in what makes ; do what they do. What does it mean to be a writer? How do the writer and the person connect = if they do at all? sullivan considers her taik: Biography is a form of revenge against life, a rebellion against the impossible fact that a life can disappear so easily â€" all that energy, passion, humor that constitutes an individual can one day simply stbp.â€" As she considers MacEtven‘‘s life, Sullivan is especially haunted by the questions "But how to write about Gwendolyn; who kept herself so hidden, and how to discover why that hiding was necessary?" h 4 sullivan that there is no hope of conâ€" Maqu,h-mrdnda mum-rammd.n will haus ta ballauns rhine be thew aracaont thom. will have to follow dues &s they present themâ€" mummammm memory: To write a biography, then, is to write a metaphysical detective work: looking for the dues to a life. I want to write this life of Gwendolyn admitting its hypothetical nature: what can and cannot be known about Gwenâ€" dolyn MacEwen.1 want this to be a book with its skeleton exposed. it is a brave way to think about presenting a book, an honest way â€" and it works. The resultâ€" _ One of the questions . g« «. ~â€" Sutlvan wanted to explore in n on was the isue of the # IF * woman writer She setmeinctna ies wanted to know if it is still Arue that the writing lite «exacs " an inordinate cost C * â€" from a woman writer." 6 She decides that it does, that although MacEwen had cared for a great many people, and had been well4oved, she had almost never been "taken care of." MacEwen cared passionately about her work,, and she lived at a time when it was very difficult to be a poet. Postry is not, it seems, central to Canadians and to Canadian readers the way nonfiction is, or the way the novel is. That realâ€" ization was devastating for Mackwen, and she was too honest to ignore it â€" or to pretend that things were different. The work always seemed to be central in MacEwert‘s life. She did not talk about herself, about her pain or about her doubts. On stage, she was always cool and seltâ€"possessed. Backâ€" stage before a performance, she was nervous to the point of being sick. Sullivan explores the connection between those two persona. Which one was Gwendolyn Mackwen? How did she hold the two together? Why did she finally fail to hold them together? As Sullivan follows the threads of MacEwen‘s life, she finds a life of secrets, secrets which MacEwen kept and protected. in the end, Sulliâ€" van suggests, MacEkwen‘‘s life was forfeited to these secrets. Out of great difficulty, MacEwen constructed a life for herself. She seemed, in her pictures and in her poetry, not to connect to her Scottishâ€"Eng lish ancestry. She valued mythology, and she creâ€" ated her poetry and her life as the kind of myth which she befieved was essential. 1 am grateful to Sullivan for this book about MacEwen. I also appreciate the way she wrote it: she invites the reader to share the process of writing biography and so gives her book many Judith Miller is associate professor of English at Renison College at University of Waterloo. # # # hawsiby and sign a demsen cond cikey K Aienna Choir Boys 101 QUEBN ST., W KHTCHENER THE INCOM PA R A B L E se * 1GAMâ€" GPM * 1OAM 4PMA Contuct t on Mn ton sgecut hsn «dated w 1570