Gail Scott

First published in 1987 in Canada, and only being published in the U.S. this year, Heroine was an interesting and contradictory and exuberant read for me. In a way it made me sad--it's an elegiac read, for the way a 30+ year old feminist novel reminds me that so little has changed...that what looks like social progress in the present is often just a good patch that we happen to be living through, before the conservative forces return. In another way it exhilarated me, because it's formally show more still so new and it reminds me of how writers constantly find new ways to express the inexpressible, and to overcome the limitations of language. Highly recommended. show less

I think it's important to keep in mind, as you attempt this book, that it was written for a very particular kind of reader, during a time of intellectual revolution. This era saw the rise of blockbuster authors like Stephen King, but post-modernism, with its emphasis on deconstruction, was also flourishing, and this feminist novel must have been very much in keeping with that aspect of literary culture. Gail Scott gets an extra star for fighting the good fight--although the narrative is show more tough, indeed, and often difficult to appreciate, let alone enjoy.

Following the story of Heroine, set in post-70s Montreal, is not like following a thread--more like studying the shards of something to piece together the whole. The result is not a complete, shining world nor a "satisfying arc," but rather just enough of an assemblage to reveal the fragility of what's possible. You see the possibility of beauty in the gritty, grey world of French-Canadian activists clinging to idealistic loves and life pursuits, the possibility of lasting and meaningful human relationship in the intensity of lovers' exchanges, but Scott gives us only enough to reveal that it might all be broken beyond repair.

There's more than a modicum of reason behind Gail Scott's approach and thematic choices. If the heroine is unable to tell her story, it's because women have been denied voices outside the language and patterns formed by a male-dominated culture, and this narrator refuses to tell the "easy" story. I enjoyed musing over the ways in which word choice and storyteling choices become so difficult, if we want to break out of the mainstream dialectic (wow - now that's a word I've not used since college). A difficult text, a static story of feeling trapped between ideals and actualities. show less

Have you ever looked back on your life and thought what-if? Or looked whistfully backwards on events you wish you could relive?

Heroine finds herself in a bit of a crossroads, as the 80s arrive and she alternatively relives and pines for difference in her life, after spending the 1970s alternatively dealing with deep left wing politics in Montreal and her struggle to find love. The story finds itself going forward and backward in time, as her thoughts drift from one place to another. While show more this is a little confusing at first,at the same time it is so true to human thinking that it provides a cover of real intimacy and truth to the recollections, making it seem more nonfiction diary than fictional account.

As anyone who reaches that point in their lives where the life they thought they would live doesn't quite match up with reality, "Heroine" will really speak to you. A very interesting way back in time and in this time of increased divisiveness, seems more important than ever. show less

Goodness, what a glorious, oddly constructed little novel that reads like non-fiction. I loved the rhythm of the language, non-sentences nearly all, and the narrator's flaneur-like wanderings through contemporary Paris. A quirky gem.