Gowdy, Barbara 1950-

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Gowdy, Barbara 1950-

PERSONAL:

Born 1950, in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Education: Attended York University and the Royal Conservatory of Music.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

CAREER:

Writer and educator. Lester & Orpen Dennys Publisher, managing editor, 1974-79. Has taught creative writing at Ryerson and the University of Toronto and has worked as an interviewer for the TVOntario program, Imprint. Previously worked in musical theatre and the securities industry.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Marian Engel Award, 1996, for body of work by a Canadian woman writer; Order of Canada.

WRITINGS:

Through the Green Valley, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1988.

Falling Angels, Soho Press (New York, NY), 1990.

We So Seldom Look on Love: Stories, Somerville House Publishing (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1992, Steerforth Press (South Royalton, VT), 1997.

Mister Sandman: A Novel, Somerville House Publishing (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1995, Steerforth Press (South Royalton, VT), 1997.

The White Bone: A Novel, Metropolitan Books (New York, NY), 1999.

The Romantic: A Novel, Metropolitan Books (New York, NY), 2003.

Helpless: A Novel, Metropolitan Books (New York, NY), 2007.

Contributor of short stories to anthologies, including Best American Short Stories, 1989; The Girl Wants To, 1993; The New Oxford Book of Canadian Short Stories in English, 1995; and Penguin Anthology of Stories by Canadian Women, 1998. Author's books have been published in foreign languages, including French, German, Dutch, and Norwegian.

ADAPTATIONS:

Short story "We So Seldom Look on Love" was adapted as the film Kissed, 1996.

SIDELIGHTS:

Barbara Gowdy is a Canadian novelist who, according to a biography on the Northwest Passages Web site, "has earned an international reputation for her uncanny ability to [create] characters who are abnormal to the extreme while at the same time presenting them in a sympathetic and moving manner." Gowdy, who often focuses on unconven- tional families, first broke onto the writing scene with her conventional novel Through the Green Valley, about Irish peasants of the eighteenth century. "My first published book … is a serious historical novel devoid of anything risky," noted the author in an interview on Bookreporter.com. "It's very earnest, very sensitive. Fortunately, it's out of print."

Gowdy's next novel, Falling Angels, departed from convention and brought her wide critical attention. A dark comedy, the novel tells the story of three sisters in suburbia living in an eccentric family. The sisters, Norma, Lou, and Sandy, must deal with their dysfunctional parents, including a mother who may have killed an earlier child by dropping her into Niagara Falls and a father who builds a bomb shelter and forces the family to live in it for two weeks. The novel opens in 1969 after the mother's death, which may have been an accident or a suicide. A Publishers Weekly contributor referred to the novel as "scrupulously and evocatively wrought."

Gowdy's next book, We So Seldom Look on Love: Stories, contains eight stories featuring disturbed and macabre characters. The title story tells the tale of a young woman who finds sexual fulfillment with corpses. In another story, a woman who takes up painting begins to masturbate daily in front of a window for a neighbor who has been spying on her. Kate Wilson, writing in Entertainment Weekly, noted: "This is no horror show, but a gentle, detailed … survey of unusual lives." New Statesman & Society contributor Laurence O'Toole wrote of the collection: "There are so many good things to say about this writer from Canada, with her unencumbered prose, her density of ideas, her joyous weirdness."

Mister Sandman: A Novel is a novel about a musical prodigy, Joan Canary, who miraculously does not seem to grow old and who never speaks, probably due to an accident when she was dropped on her head as a child. Joan is an illegitimate child brought up by a couple who are closeted homosexuals. In a review of Mister Sandman for Booklist, Joanne Wilkinson called the novel "a surreal narrative permeated with sex, spirituality, and humor." Entertainment Weekly contributor Rhonda Johnson referred to the novel as "one of the strangest—and most heartwarming—paeans to family ties you'll ever read."

In The White Bone: A Novel, which Library Journal contributor Carolyn Ellis Gonzalez called "masterfully crafted," Gowdy presents the story of an African family of elephants as told by the elephants themselves. The elephants Tall-Time, Mud, and She-Swaggers reveal the difficulties of their lives in the sub-Sahara and of the bonds with their family that rivals any human family's mutual love. "If Gowdy is writing a polemic for animal rights, she doesn't betray good story-telling to get there," noted Linda Tiessen Wiebe on the Watershed Book Café Web site. "Her characters are vivid but not sentimental. The dialogue is full of humour and wit." Library Journal's Richard Oloizia called the novel "an unconventional, empathy-inducing work."

The Romantic: A Novel tells the story of a romance between Louise Kirk and Abel Richter, which begins when Abel's parents move next door to Louise, where she lives with her father since her mother has abandoned them. Louise, who becomes pregnant, believes Abel is the love of her life; she cannot see Abel's fatal flaws. Kristine Huntley, writing in Booklist, called The Romantic "a sad, beautiful examination of a lonely woman and her attempts to find unconditional, unwavering love." In the New Statesman, Amanda Craig wrote: "Gowdy's compassion lights up even her most minor characters."

Gowdy presents a literary thriller with Helpless: A Novel. Nine-year-old Rachel Fox, whose beauty elicits comments from strangers, goes missing. The culprit is an admiring next-door neighbor, Ron, who convinces himself that Rachel is being abused and so kidnaps her and hides her away in his basement. "Gowdy cleverly makes us wait for the kidnapping we know is coming, forcing us to watch as Ron moves closer and closer, like a shark circling its prey," wrote Chelsea Cain in the New York Times Book Review. A blackout gives Ron his chance, and soon he and his girlfriend, Nancy, are justifying their actions as Ron and several other characters from the novel recount their stories. Nicholas Dinka, writing on the Toronto Life Web site, noted that the novel "continues another Gowdy tradition: the quest for understanding, even of the unspeakable." Booklist contributor Joanne Wilkinson commented that the author "reins in her surrealistic side in the service of a more conventional plot, and the result makes for absorbing reading."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Artforum International, summer, 1998, Carol Anshaw, "Odd Lot."

Belles Lettres: A Review of Books by Women, spring, 1994, Laurie Muchnick, review of We So Seldom Look on Love: Stories.

Booklist, March 15, 1997, Joanne Wilkinson, review of Mister Sandman: A Novel, p. 1225; September 1, 1997, review of Mister Sandman: A Novel, p. 64; May 15, 2003, Kristine Huntley, review of The Romantic: A Novel, p. 1644; February 1, 2007, Joanne Wilkinson, review of Helpless: A Novel, p. 31.

Books in Canada, December, 1989, review of Falling Angels, p. 30; October, 1992, review of We So Seldom Look on Love, p. 34; February, 1993, review of We So Seldom Look on Love, p. 14; February, 1993, Gordon Lockhead, "Looking on Love: Barbara Gowdy's Unflinching Gaze Discerns That Which Is Specifically and Authentically Human," p. 14; September, 1995, review of Mister Sandman, p. 26; April, 2003, review of The Romantic, p. 5; April, 2003, Linda Morra, "Love unto Sickness: Subverting Romance," p. 5; April, 2006, T.F. Rigelhof, "Gravel, Glass and Gut: The Fiction of Barbara Gowdy," p. 16; March, 2007, T.F. Rigelhof, "More about Good Than Evil," p. 4.

Canadian Book Review Annual, 1995, review of Mister Sandman, p. 168; 1998, review of The White Bone: A Novel, p. 183; 2003, Sarah Robertson, review of Romantic, p. 166.

Canadian Literature, autumn, 1997, Julie Beddoes, review of Mister Sandman, p. 132; winter, 2004, Marta Dvorak, "Abelard and Hell-Louise."

Chatelaine, April, 2007, Nathalie Atkinson, "Stranger Than Fiction: Helpless Barbara Gowdy's Bold New Novel, Explores Every Mother's Worst Nightmare," p. 25.

Descant, spring, 2006, Steven Heighton, "Points of Faith: An Interview with Barbara Gowdy," p. 17, Cheryl Cowdy Crawford, "‘The Bomb Is Only a Metaphor Now’: Barbara Gowdy's," p. 64, Neta Gordon, "Barbara Gowdy and the Sanctity of Love," p. 72, Sally Hayward, "Going into the Family Closet: Difference and Disability in Barbara Gowdy's Mister Sandman," p. 82, Deena Rymhs, "In Search of the Missing Link: Finding the Narrator in Barbara Gowdy's The White Bone," p. 90, "Gravel, Glass and Gut: The Fiction of Barbara Gowdy," p. 99, Mary Newberry, "Filming Gowdy," p. 107, Catherine Bush, "Elephants," p. 155, Catherine Gildiner, "What Happened to the Falling Angels?," p. 156, Marni Jackson, "The Feral Side of Fiction: Reading Barbara Gowdy," p. 158, and Natalie Onuska, "Instructions in the Art of Narratological Acrobatics and Life: Short Fiction Workshops with Barbara Gowdy," p. 162.

Entertainment Weekly, September 17, 1993, Kate Wilson, review of We So Seldom Look on Love, p. 84; April 18, 1997, Rhonda Johnson, review of Mister Sandman, p. 62; March 23, 2007, Tina Jordan, review of Helpless, p. 67.

Flare, July, 1997, Loucas Kleanthous, "My Lunch with—Barbara Gowdy," p. 100.

Guardian (London, England), June 23, 2007, Joanna Briscoe, review of Helpless.

Independent (London, England), June 17, 2007, D.J. Taylor, review of Helpless.

Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2003, review of The Romantic, p. 255; January 15, 2007, review of Helpless, p. 40.

Lambda Book Report, April 1, 1998, Jeannine DeLombard, review of Mister Sandman, p. 22.

Library Journal, March 1, 1990, Lauren Bielski, review of Falling Angels, p. 116; April 1, 1997, Robin Nesbitt, review of Mister Sandman, p. 125; October 1, 1997, review of Mister Sandman, p. 156; May 15, 1999, Carolyn Ellis Gonzalez, review of The White Bone, p. 126; October 1, 1999, Richard Oloizia, review of The White Bone, p. 160; March 1, 2003, review of The Romantic, p. 119; February 15, 2007, Beth E. Andersen, review of Helpless, p. 113.

Los Angeles Times, April 29, 2003, "Book Review; Abandonment Fractures a Girl's Fragile World," p. 12.

Maclean's, November 9, 1992, Victor Dwyer, review of We So Seldom Look on Love, p. 119; November 6, 1995, John Bemrose, review of Mister Sandman, p. 81; December 9, 1996, "Presented: Barbara Gowdy," p. 17; September 14, 1998, review of The White Bone, p. 56; August 28, 2000, "From Novelist to Zombie," p. 47; November 19, 2001, "Gowdy in the Wild," p. 114; November 11, 2002, "Diversions: Barbara Gowdy," p. 89; February 10, 2003, Brian Bethune, "Things We Do for Love: Barbara Gowdy Regards Old Terrain in a New Way," p. 46; December 29, 2003, review of The Romantic, p. 87; March 5, 2007, Kenneth Whyte, "Little Girls Know about Sex and Men's Interests. We Did—We Got Paid in Candy for Letting This Man Touch Our Bums," p. 16.

New Scientist, June 12, 1999, review of The White Bone, p. 45.

New Statesman, June 30, 2003, Amanda Craig, "Novel of the Week," p. 55.

New Statesman & Society, August 6, 1993, Laurence O'Toole, review of We So Seldom Look on Love, p. 40.

New Yorker, August 11, 1997, review of Mister Sandman, p. 79.

New York Review of Books, April 10, 1997, review of Mister Sandman, p. 54.

New York Times, July 9, 1990, Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, review of Falling Angels, p. 15.

New York Times Book Review, May 27, 1990, Melissa Pritchard, review of Falling Angels, p. 14; August 11, 1991, review of Falling Angels, p. 28; May 11, 2003, Claire Dederer, "My Boyfriend's Back," p. 16; June 1, 2003, review of The Romantic, p. 20; December 7, 2003, review of The Romantic, p. 69; April 29, 2007, Chelsea Cain, "Rescue Me," p. 11.

Paragraph Magazine, summer, 1993, Debra Martens, "Flesh Made Word: Body and Soul in the Works of Barbara Gowdy."

Publishers Weekly, February 9, 1990, Sybil Steinberg, review of Falling Angels, p. 45; July 12, 1991, review of Falling Angels, p. 64; June 14, 1993, review of We So Seldom Look on Love, p. 61; January 6, 1997, review of Mister Sandman, p. 61; March 31, 1997, review of We So Seldom Look on Love, p. 68; November 3, 1997, "Shadow Man," p. 51; March 22, 1999, review of The White Bone, p. 69; March 17, 2003, review of The Romantic, p. 50; February 26, 2007, review of Helpless, p. 55.

Quill & Quire, October, 1989, review of Falling Angels, p. 23; August, 1992, review of We So Seldom Look on Love, p. 19; August, 1995, review of Mister Sandman, p. 24; February, 1996, review of Mister Sandman, p. 38; October, 1998, review of The White Bone, p. 35; February, 1999, review of The White Bone, p. 42; January, 2003, Gerald Hannon, "Perfectly Normal," profile of author.

Room of One's Own, winter, 1998, review of White Bone.

Saturday Night, September, 1992, Robert Hough, review of We So Seldom Look on Love, p. 14.

Spectator, May 1, 1999, Byron Rogers, review of The White Bone, p. 36.

Times Literary Supplement, December 1, 1995, review of Mister Sandman, p. 12; June 21, 1996, review of Mister Sandman, p. 23; May 14, 1999, Margaret Walters, review of The White Bone, p. 22; December 3, 1999, Joyce Carol Oates, review of The White Bone, p. 7.

Tribune Books, April 27, 1997, review of We So Seldom Look on Love, p. 8; April 27, 2003, review of The Romantic, p. 1.

United Church Observer, July-August, 2003, Beverly C.S. Brazier, review of The Romantic, p. 36.

University of Toronto Quarterly, summer, 2003, Maria Jesus Hernaez Lerena, "‘The Business of Invoking Humanity’: Barbara Gowdy and the Fiction Gone Stray."

Women's Review of Books, July, 1997, Barbara Levy, review of Mister Sandman, p. 36.