Reviews

Shadow Maker: The Life of Gwendolyn MacEwen

Shannon Emmerson

In search of a more satisfying biography, I pulled out a book I received a few Christmases ago—Rosemary Sullivan's Shadow Maker: The Life of Gwendolyn MacEwen. Sullivan's book made me weep during two separate readings. Intelligent and committed to asking the questions King does not—questions concerning the biographer's authority and claim to interpret a life—the book does what a biography should do. It tells MacEwen's story, it asks questions and it forces the reader to question the "facts" presented and the biographer herself. Another biography by Sullivan, on Elizabeth Smart, is equally powerful, insightful and emotionally compelling. I hope that biographers like Sullivan take up where King has left off with Margaret Laurence. Laurence, I think, deserves a closer look.

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