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In the summer of 1806, a young Orkney woman disguised herself as a man and signed on with the Hudson's Bay Company to travel to what was then called Rupert's Land. For a year and a half she hid her identity and her deception was revealed only when she was giving birth to a baby boy. In less than an hour, she turned from John Fubbister into Isobel Gunn. Very little is known about the real woman - her birth certificate, a few entries in the Hudson's Bay Company logbook, a line in the census, her obituary. Audrey Thomas has taken the threads of Isobel Gunn's story and turned them into a compelling novel about an unusual woman, her short life, and the effect she had on those around her. Audrey Thomas first heard the story of Isobel Gunn while she was living in Scotland in the mid-1980s. She was based in Edinburgh for a year as a Canada-Scotland Literary Fellow and travelled extensively within the country. A number of years later, Thomas was on assignment in Scotland's Orkney Isles for Saturday Night Magazine when she heard the story again and decided she had to write about it.There was little factual material available, but Thomas spent four years researching the story and the colourful era in which it took place. Her research led to the rich texture of the book, incorporating historically accurate details of the period and capturing the social attitudes of the day. ... Read more

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Audrey Thomas, one of Canada’s most eminent authors, challenges her readers to follow her into new fictional territory with every new book. In Tattycoram, she travels, for the first time, not intounfamiliar countries, not into factual history, but into a distant fictional world: Charles Dickens’s mid-19th-century England. In Thomas’s novel, Harriet Coram, abandoned as an infant at the London Foundling Hospital, becomes a maid in the Dickens home. Though kindly treated, she is plagued by the nickname "Tattycoram," taught to a caged raven by a nasty relative. Thirty years later, after many twists of fate, Hattie’s peace is disrupted by a woman from her past. Dickens has caricatured both of them in Little Dorrit, and Hattie must decide whether to confront the novelist who has stolen their identities. ... Read more

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This study brings together analysis of novels by three contemporary North American women from diverse backgrounds in order to make contributions not only to gender studies, but also to narrative theory. Audrey Thomas and Daphne Marlatt are contemporary Anglo-Saxon Canadian writers whose work has been extensively analyzed within the field of feminist literary theory. Louise Erdrich is a best-selling American author of Chippewa and German-American descent. Marlatt's and Thomas's works have never been studied outside a Canadian context, and Erdrich's work has mostly been looked at in the context of ethnic women writers or Native American literature. By analyzing the works of these authors through the lenses of subjectivity, gender studies, and narratology, Caroline Rosenthal brings to light new perspectives on their writings. Although all three authors write metafictions that challenge literary realism and dominant views of gender, the forms of their counter-narratives vary. In her novel Intertidal Life, Thomas traces the disintegration of an identity through narrative devices that unearth ruptures and contradictions in stories of gender. In contrast, Marlatt, in Ana Historic, challenges the regulatory fiction of heterosexuality. She offers her protagonist a way out into a new order that breaks with the law of the father, creating a "monstrous" text that explores the possibilities of a lesbian identity.In her tetralogy of novels made up of Love Medicine, Tracks, The Beet Queen, and The Bingo Palace, Erdrich resists definite readings of femininity altogether. By drawing on trickster narratives, she creates an open system of gendered identities that is dynamic and unfinalizable, positing the most fragmented worldview as the most enduring. By applying gender and narrative theory to nuanced analysis of the texts, Rosenthal's study elucidates the correlation between gender identity formation and narrative. Caroline Rosenthal is assistant professor of American Studies at the University o ... Read more

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Once hailed as the most influential Black woman in the U.S., Mary McLeod Bethune has received little scholarly attention in the histories of the period.McCluskey and Smith examine the complex career of this leader, demonstrating her role as stateswoman, politician, educational leader and visionary.A unique blend of original documentation and scholarship, highlighting over 70 documents from 1902 to 1955. ... Read more

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A thorough examination of a complex hero's life
Mary McLeod Bethune is one of those known/unknown African-American heroines. While many have heard her name, still many don't know of her longtime, prosperous friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt, or the details about her life as a young southern girl with more than a dozen brothers andsisters. Many also know there's a college in Daytona named for her, in part(Bethune-Cookman), but they don't know her relationship to the institution.This book, a comprehensive look at her life, answers many of thosequestions, and more. For those who already know about her life and wantmore depth (or even a biography written for adults, rather than the manychildren's books on Bethune), or for those who don't know Bethune'saccomplishments, this is a godsend. It's clearly written, chocked withinformation, and might even be a welcome addition to many school libraries.An informational gem. ... Read more

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The tragic victim of a drowning accident at age three, Audrey Santo of Worcester, Ma. now lives confined to her bed. Visit the home of the miraculous, where dozens of statues have wept tears of oil or blood - where five Eucharistic miracles have occurred. Most importantly, the life of this silent, suffering, victim soul gives testimony to life in a culture of death. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Another Sign for our Times
In the annals of religious/spiritual history, many such souls have existed. One has only to look (and not very hard) to find many, many people in whose lives the miraculous has occurred with regular frequency. It is unfortunate that in the 20th & 21st centuries, this is seen by so many as 'impossible' or delusional.

An inspiring book that should make the open-minded pause and reflect, and perhaps discover others throughout history whose lives bear similar testament.

Thought Provoking; Raises Many Theological Questions
I read this book several years ago and found it, overall, to be enriching. The previous reviewer takes a cynical view, and that is understandable. The story told in the book is incredible and certainly very out of the ordinary. But unlike the previous reviewer I found it to be heartening and life affirming, despite the tragic story of the little girl.

The essential question it raises--besides the question of the validity of the miracles mentioned in the book--is this: Does suffering have any value? Can suffering and tragedy fit within the concept of a loving God? In the Christian philosophy the answer is a resounding YES. If Christ's suffering was redemptive, then cannot anyone's suffering have some redemptive value? In other words, can someone's sense of love and faith and compassion be raised by bearing witness to the suffering of others? I believe God allows suffering in part because it can heighten our spiritual growth in ways that less painful methods do not always achieve. In mundane examples, devoted parents sacrifice for their children. They give up certain things for the sake of their children--and are usually better off for it. All of us have observed some news report about some person who sacrifices him or herself for a nobler cause or for another person. When we hear such stories, how do we feel? We usually feel a heightened sense of goodwill and possibly love. To me it is very possible that some "victim souls" exist so that their suffering strengthens the spirituality and faith of others. Perhaps Audrey Santos is one such soul.

Further, even if her life seems meaningless by secular standards (she is unable to achieve anything on her own, she is unable to experience pleasure, she has no control over her faculties, and so on) her life is not meaningless on the level of its imapct on others. And by caring for her, her caretakers may benefit. The giver and the receiver both receive.

In all, a fascinating story that asks deep theological questions about the meaning of suffering and the aspects of God. And it just might make you appreciate all you have despite whatever losses or sufferings you may have endured.

Five Stars... For Showing How Desperate and Morbid We Are
This was the book that finally made me decide to leave the Catholic Church once and for all. How any intelligent human being can have the slightest respect for a God that supposedly gets kicks out of the senseless sufferingof a child is beyond me. It's these bizarro concepts of God that give anykind of religion a bad name and confuse people far more than they ever helpthem. This book is a prime example of the utter morbidity and diseasedspirituality of any religion that feeds off guilt, shame, andsado-masochistic impulse. After reading of how statues and communion wafersbleed and "sacred oils" run down the walls, one can only laugh indisbelief. Those are the corniest miracles, straight out of some lamefreakshow. How the Audrey people can even believe in such a stupid conceptof God is very sad. This book is very very sad. It typifies a desperationthat should not present, and the parents of this child should be locked up.Pure nuts. The Catholic Church should be ashamed of itself in this day andage(or any age, for that matter). The poor little child was the victim of asenseless accident--that's all. It happens throughout the world every dayto thousands, and people survive such tragedies with human love andperseverance, not with plastic statues that weep blood and olive oil.Further, what kind of people traipse to this girl's bedside, believing thatGod will take their illnesses and sufferings and load them"mystically" onto this child's body as a prelude to theirmiraculous healings? How demeaning! How selfish and pathetic and desperatecan you get? This poor little kid is no saint, no mystic, and nowonderworker. She is a V-E-G-E-T-A-B-L-E. People that flock to her aredeluded and need to volunteer their time at some viable social outreachprogram AND take some classes in reality. sad. This book was verydisturbing. Our world needs to educate itself if humans are ever going toovercome the scourges of deception, ignorance, and emotional illness.People are way wrong to glorify false, third-rate parlor tricks &phenomenon instead of LOVE--the only miracle the world needs. What aninsult to intelligence. What an insult to God. ... Read more

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Each year Americans as a whole waste nine million hours searching for misplaced items. That's 375,000 days of time that could be spent in other ways.As you make New Year's resolutions to get organized, "50 Ways to Leave Your Clutter" will help you stick to your resolutions all year long. Written by organizing expert, Audrey Thomas, it is an easy-to-digest, spiral-bound book with fifty ideas designed to be implemented over the course of one year, which allows long-term habits to form.The book is filled with simple, manageable steps to gain control of all types of clutter, including what to do with piles of paper and mail, overflowing email, the Tupperware cupboard and other kitchen surprises. In addition, Thomas offers loads of time and space-saving tips for every area of the home and home-office. ... Read more

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Better than nothing, but not by much
As a weary veteran of the clutter wars, I wondered if this book might give me a week-by-week incremental approach to cleaning up my act.It doesn't.In fact, its content is little more than you might find in a longish women's magazine article, and truly is just a list of 50 helpful hints, mostly not new ones.Its spiral binding gives the illusion of something more useful, but it's really not.
If you truly have no clue where to start in clearing out the mess, you might find this book helpful.Otherwise you will be as disappointed as I was. ... Read more

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Word count: 3012. ... Read more

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These striking, colorful posters, selected from the more than one thousand housed at Indiana University’s Black Film Center/Archive, graphically illustrate the artistic and thematic range of racial representation in the American film industry from its early days through the present. Chosen for their value as cultural artifacts, they combine art and commerce and are richly imbued with historical and social meanings that continue to engage and inform. The earliest posters, such as the one from pioneering black filmmaker Oscar Micheaux, represent truly independent productions. That crop of "race movies," dating from the late 1920s through the early 1940s, targeted a black audience hungry for respectful images of themselves. In Hollywood films, however, black life was often presented in contorted and narrowly defined ways, reflective of America’s racial morass. Yet as a whole, the posters managed to capture the artistry, if not the full range, of black performance.

Many of these posters appear in the touring exhibition "Imaging Blackness: Film Posters from the Black Film Center/Archive." Since they were originally produced as ephemera that would follow the distribution of the film and return to the studio, it is surprising that so many early posters featuring African Americans are still in existence. This collection includes some of the rarer examples.

In addition to their relative merit as commercial art, the posters are visual cues to the social construction of race in our society as revealed by that most potent dream merchant, the Hollywood film industry. Designed to catch the eye, they also offer a window into the history of race relations in the 20th-century U.S. In his foreword to the collection, filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles notes the evolution of how blacks were portrayed in the posters. Ever so slowly, he writes, "you begin to see a few black faces minus the shovels and trays." These incremental changes are notable because they show the long, slow, and continuing struggle of blacks to alter racial perceptions—as well as reality—in the film industry. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A fascinating approach to film history
"Imaging Blackness: Race And Racial Representation In Film Poster Art" is compiled, edited, curated and presented by Audrey Thomas McCluskey (Associate Professor of African-American and African Diaspora Studies). Professor McCluskey draws upon her years of experience and expertise when she was formerly the director of the Black Film Center Archive at Indiana University to present a series of movie posters for the 'race movies' that were a part of cinematic history from the late 1920s through the early 1940s when African-Americans were largely barred from mainstream Hollywood productions (except for stereotypical roles as maids, butlers, and comic relief characters), necessitating independent and small budget productions featuring African-American casts. Posters were a widespread means of advertising and promotion, designed to persuade members of the public to buy a ticket and see the film publicized by the images depicted in the poster material. "Imaging Blackness" shows the steady evolution of how African-American men and women were pictured on those posters in incremental changes that paralleled the discrimination and slow progress of change of the broader American culture. A fascinating approach to film history that accords with vigorous academic standards of scholarship, "Imaging Blackness" is an especially recommended addition to academic and community library African-American Studies and American Film History reference collections and supplemental reading lists.

A Must Have!
A must have for any collection of film and African American book collection. ... Read more

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Richard Pryor is an American icon whose name evokes irreverent humor, social critique, and a perplexing degree of self-agonized genius. This anthology captures in one volume the spirit, zest, and cultural impact of Pryor's complex artistry. Audrey Thomas McCluskey has assembled insightful essays from a broad range of scholars, social critics, writers, filmmakers, and other established and emerging commentators on American culture. Although a celebration of Pryor's genius, the book approaches the subject with a critical sensibility that provides insight into his work to reveal how he simultaneously highlighted and embodied prominent narratives of race, gender, and social conditions in America in ways that continue to enlighten and entertain. ... Read more