This book explores how Canada is imagined primarily by US writers, and what readers and scholars on both sides of the Canada-US border can learn from these recent depictions by examining a selection of US-authored fiction from 9/11 to the present. The novels ― and occasionally paintings, films, and musicals ― that are the subject of the book provide a deliberately varied set of case studies to probe how US texts, along with works of art produced on both sides of the Canada-US border, uncover moments in Canadian historical and literary studies that have been buried or occluded to protect Canada's self-representation as an exceptional nation.
Author(s): Jennifer Andrews
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 254
City: London
Declaration of Permissions
Preface: Escape to Canada
References
Acknowledgments
Contents
About the Author
List of Figures
Chapter 1: Introduction: Laying the Groundwork: Canada’s (In)visibility
References
Chapter 2: The Missionary Position: The American Roots of Northrop Frye’s Peaceable Kingdom
Frye’s Missionary Zeal
Canada’s Conversion Narratives
Narrating Images
The Quaker Schism
Shifting Representations of Animals in the “Peaceable Kingdom” Series
Changing Versions of the Peaceable Kingdom
Cross-Border Schism
Returning to Frye’s “Conclusion” to his Literary History of Canada
References
Chapter 3: Evangeline’s Revisioning: Reading Ben Farmer’s Post-9/11 Evangeline: A Novel
Acknowledging Traumatic Histories
Longfellow’s Version of Evangeline and Its Legacy
Marketing Acadie: Longfellow and Evangeline’s Canadian Legacy
Farmer’s Revisioning of Evangeline
Evangeline and Gabriel as Refugees
Shifting Depictions of Gabriel
Ingenious Citizenship: Challenging Canadian and American Paradigms
References
Chapter 4: German Internment Camps in the Maritimes: Another Untold Story in P.S. Duffy’s The Cartographer of No Man’s Land
History of the Amherst Interment Camp
Comparing German Immigration in Canada and the US
Canadian Multiculturalism and the Story of Heist
The Role of Simon
An Alternative Voice of Reason and Resistance
The Lessons of The Cartographer of No Man’s Land
References
Chapter 5: Becoming Bird(ie): Exposing Canadian Government Complicity with Forced Adoptions in Christina Sunley’s The Tricking of Freya
Babies and Borders
Unwed Mothers
The Shame Is Ours
Becoming Animal
Animal Transformations
What Is in a Name?
The Hidden Costs of Forced Adoption
Exposing Secrets and Accessing the Power to Heal
References
Chapter 6: Escaping to Canada: Gambling on Northern Salvation in Stewart O’Nan’s The Odds
The White Experience of the US-to-Canada Border Crossings
Indigenous Border Crossings
Cross-Border Criminal Financial Activities and Canadian Immigration Policies
Race, Immigration, and Wealth (for Some)
The Sheltering of White Privilege
The Recession, Housing Costs, and Racism on Both Sides of the Canada-US Border
Moral Failure or Economic Miscalculation?
Fixed Versus Speculative Asset
Sexual Betrayal and Debt
Access to Credit
Financial Precarity: Nowhere to Run
References
Chapter 7: Turning Away, Going West and South: The Receding Promise of Canada in Future Home of the Living God and The Underground Railroad
Canada as a Safe Haven
Places to Hide
The Promise of the Underground Railroad
Canada as (An)other Lie
References
Chapter 8: The Limits of Canadian Exceptionalism: Bowling for Columbine, Come From Away, and Nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up
Canadian Virtuosity in Bowling for Columbine
Celebrating Canadian Exceptionality in Come From Away
Welcoming the (Queer or Black) Stranger
Debunking Canadian Exceptionality in Nîpawistamâsowin: We Will Stand Up
The Reality of Gun Violence in Canada
Searching for “Justice for Colten”
Going South to Seek Justice
References
Index
