Review of Looking Back: Canadian Women's Prairie Memoirs and Intersections of Culture, History, and Identity by S. Leigh Matthews

Authors

Lori Ann Lahlum, Minnesota State University, Mankato

Date of this Version

Fall 2011

Citation

Great Plains Quarterly 31:4 (Fall 2011).

Comments

Copyright © 2011 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska.

Abstract

In Looking Back, Leigh Matthews, a literary scholar, argues that memoirs written by white, English-speaking women who settled in western Canadian prairie communities have been "lost or ignored" and have received little "critical attention from both historians and literary critics." These published accounts of the Euro-Canadian "prairie settlement project" or "homesteading project," terminology used throughout the book, allow Matthews to assess the "Prairie Woman," the stereotypical image of the white, English-speaking female settler, against the more nuanced and diverse experiences of the "prairie woman" who actually migrated to the region. These memoirs, Matthews asserts, both "confirm and challenge cultural images of the Prairie Woman." They also contest the masculine settlement narrative while at the same time remaining a part of the broader English colonialist narrative.