Grace in Love chronicles Grace MacInnis’s struggles with romance
Grace in Love, a novel by Ruth Latta
Reviewed by Randal Marlin
Grace in Love is a sequel to Ruth Latta’s earlier historical novel about Grace MacInnis as a thirteen year old and her father, J.S. Woodsworth. This time, Grace is twenty-two years old and enrolled on scholarship in a six-month curse in French civilization at the Sorbonne. We follow her through her time in Paris to her government job in Ottawa.
Latta has combined diligent research into the facts of this period, evidenced through archives, including letters and reports of the time, with an imaginative reconstruction of Grace’s likely interactions and introspections. The result is a highly readable, informative account of influences on the career of Grace MacInnis, MP, who became a prominent parliamentary advocate for social equality, particularly regarding women’s rights.
Although this is a novel, the reader absorbs a lot of Canada’s social history, often presented painlessly in the form of dialogue or mental flashbacks in the mind of Grace. The central theme of the book is Grace’s encounters and relationships with different men at different stages of her life. She has to come to terms with her own aims and expectations and has to reckon with how these attachments will fit with a permanent commitment to a partner. Included in this reckoning is an estimate of how likely the other will be to reciprocate such a commitment, with all the necessary adjustments.
The opening scene is her arrival at her place in Paris. “She looked up at the house, saw a lace curtain twitch in a window and a young voice saying, “C’est la Canadienne.”
She then meets Mme De Bussy, who takes in boarders, university students, who interact freely, but the door must be left open if genders mix. The adjustments to life in Paris produce a lot of tensions for Grace.
She would like to be a teacher of French, like her mother, though she doesn’t see herself as having the same level of dedication. Her father, J.S. Woodsworth, a Methodist minister, fell out of favour with his Church when he opposed the “Great War”, as it was then known. A supporter of the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike, he was arrested and briefly jailed. In 1921 he was elected Member of Parliament for Winnipeg North Centre and the family moved to Ottawa.
While Grace studies hard in Paris, she also has something of a social whirl, joining other girls from the Sorbonne at cafes near Boulevards Montparnasse and Raspail. The talk gravitates to free love and then to birth control that was prohibited at the time. They agree that legalization would be necessary for women to reach their full potential.
At one of the gathering spots she becomes smitten by a young man who is “movie star handsome”, Willem Van Aarden, a Dutchman from South Africa. He had recently received a doctorate from the University of London. As Latta describes the scene, Willem smiles at Grace and “every nerve in her body came alive. She began fiddling with her hair.’ He is attracted to her and a roller-coaster of romance begins. She’s all for the fun life in Paris, but hesitates when she finds they have differing values likely to interfere with a permanent good relationship.
Returning to Canada she gets a teaching job but becomes dispirited when her students lack the motivation to learn French. She feels called to a career in social activism. Luckily there is a socialist-minded MP, who has little formal education, and can make use of her talents. Older readers may remember the sophisticated Café Henry Burger where he invites her to dinner. She learns to curb her literary references when she sees he might be embarrassed by not getting them. The two start to move into a new amatory relationship, but Ottawa being what it is, that must be concealed. The two support each other, with both of them becoming eminent speakers who help to transform the very unequal relations between men and women at the time.
The novel is carried along with humour and by evocative references to songs and movies . You get a good sense of the mood of the different characters from Latta’s careful choice of the music they listen to. Though archival documentation is amply provided it sometimes slows the narrative flow. The history of Canada’s left-leaning politics is well conveyed, and that of Grace’s development in particular. All in all, the book is fast-paced, with rich descriptions of France’s countryside and Parisian social life.
Randal Marlin is a professor emeritus of philosophy at Carleton University and the author of many works, including Propaganda and the Ethics of Persuasion.
https://www.glebereport.ca/books-featured-in-october/
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