An Honest Woman: A Novel

By (author): JoAnn McCaig

If there ever was a time and place to explore the territory of mature women and their journeys this would be the time. The subjects of sex, passion, confidence in JoAnn McCaig’s An Honest Woman are beautifully played out against society’s stereotypes of women as they age and as they confront the truths of themselves outside the societal frameworks in which they have been boxed.


There are metafictional elements turned loose in this novel. First, there is an intensely self-conscious narrator and second, there are characters who live inside fictional worlds and travel outside those worlds for intense real-life encounters. Their storytelling draws attention to themselves as both living, breathing people but also fleshed-out fictional world characters.


The structure of the novel is complex, layered, and interwoven. There are several narrators, stories within stories, and writers making things up and fantasizing while living real (albeit fictional) lives. There are literary allusions galore and cameo appearances by thinly disguised famous authors. It can all get a little crazy, so McCaig has provided a few support materials: an infographic that maps out the different characters, and relationships and authorships, a fairly detailed table of contents, a few postscripts, and a couple of appendices. Watch for symbols that indicate that the narrator has lapsed into fantasy and for when she returns to her “real” life, such as it is. That said, An Honest Woman has enough grounded familiar plot lines to keep a general reader interested and layered ambiguities to keep the well-read interested. While there is some undermining of traditional literary conventions, there is nothing lost in McCaig’s exploration of the relationship between literature and life. The novel is humorous, and sometimes really funny; it is also a smart and warm and moving read.

AUTHOR

JoAnn McCaig

JoAnn McCaig is a very bookish person, and is the author of a novel, The Textbook of the Rose, and of a critical study, Reading In: Alice Munro’s Archives. She taught university English for many years and now is the co-owner of an independent bookstore in Calgary.

Awards

  • W O Mitchell City of Calgary Book Prize 2001, Winner
  • Georges Bugnet Award 2001, Short-listed
  • Excerpts & Samples ×

    “That night she dreamt that familiar dream. The one about pulling up to a house in the country. A sweeping double staircase, a dog barking, someone awaiting her up on the landing, the high porch. Like always, the dream ended before she found out what was behind the door at the top of the stairs.”

    “This is her story, JM’s story. This is what happened when a final not flicker but conflagration of desire engulfed her, as the last hormones flared and fled. Fiery desire to love and make love and write and rise and triumph and and and — ”

    Reader Reviews

    Details

    Dimensions:

    304 Pages
    8.5in * 5.5in * .75in
    475gr

    Published:

    September 15, 2019

    Publisher:

    Thistledown Press

    ISBN:

    9781771871785

    Book Subjects:

    FICTION / Erotica / General

    Featured In:

    All Books

    Language:

    eng

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