DOLLYBIRD By Anne Lazurko
Canadian author Anne Lazurko tackles the early 20th century fabric of misogyny with a story that should be a part of all women’s rights movements. Lazurko lives in Saskatchewan, the locale of the story, and that factor enhances the tenability of this richly meaningful novel. Originally published in 2013, this new edition, heralded by excellent cover art, now makes this fine novel available to a larger audience as the women’s rights movement gains strength.
Both atmosphere of locales as well as character development are fine tuned as the novel opens: ‘Crowds of young men milled about the Halifax train station, kissing teary-eyed girlfriends and ducking hugs from worried mothers. I watched the scramble of limbs and luggage and listened to the boisterous talk from a perch on top of my overstuffed suitcase. Some of the men glanced my way, then quickly away again….They were heading west for jobs and excitement. I was heading west because I was pregnant, because my mother insisted I spend nine months in Moose Jaw. In Saskatchewan.’ That is a great curtain opening for the story that follows: ‘Twenty-year-old Moira, the daughter of a Newfoundland doctor, dreams of becoming a doctor herself; but when she becomes pregnant out of wedlock, she is banished to the bleak landscape of southern Saskatchewan in 1906. There, she must come to terms with her predicament, her pioneer environment, and her employment as a “dollybird,” a term applied to women who might be housekeepers, whores—or both. A saga of birth, death, and the violent potential of both men and the elements, Dollybird explores the small mercies that mean more than they should under a vast prairie sky that waits, not so quietly, for people to fail.’
Impressive both as a well-scribed novel and as a mirror on the struggles women faced in that period – and still face today. This is an important literary work – very highly recommended.
