Review: Heroines don’t play by the rules in these book recommendations

Marsha Lederman, Aruna Dutt and Judith Pereira of The Globe and Mail Arts section recommend reads full of adventure, history and self-discovery with strong female leads.

The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing

By Melissa Bank

There are certain books in your reading history that remain standouts long after that initial, glorious discovery; the stories that leave you feeling changed, inspired, seen. The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank, published in 1999, is one of those books: a smart fictional chronicle of the contemporary female experience. The U.S. author’s debut was a series of linked short stories about protagonist Jane, in many ways a stand-in for Bank. (There’s one exception; a story in which Jane is a peripheral character.) When we first meet Jane, she is a teenager whose idolized big brother brings a girlfriend, an older woman, to the family’s summer home. In the final, title story – an absolute triumph in a book full of them – Jane, grown up and looking for love, reluctantly buys into a highly questionable dating-advice book based on the then-buzzy guide The Rules. The writing is so precise, the characters so knowable, the stories so hilarious and so sad. I devoured this book, read it multiple times and recommended it to anyone who would listen. Eventually, like other favourites, it made its way onto my shelf, where it lived for years next to Bank’s terrific follow-up, The Wonder Spot. On Aug. 2, Bank, who was only 61, died. I was shocked, crushed. It felt like a significant loss: The woman who had dreamed up these stories that had been such good company as I was figuring out my own life. With plans to reread the book over the following weekend, I rescued it from the shelf and opened it up. I sat down for a moment. And we stayed there. I read it in one sitting. Jane lived again. — Marsha Lederman

We Should Not Be Afraid of The Sky

By Emma Hooper

Before the first beats of lyrical prose whisk me away, Emma Hooper’s new historical fiction novel We Should Not Be Afraid of The Sky notes the setting – “(Portugal, Around 180 CE, probably)” – and I know this is the breezy summer read I need to escape to a different time and place, without any heavy world-building.

Nine babies are abandoned by nobility at birth to be raised by peasant families. Five sisters survive. They grow up racing through lemon orchards, working in high heat, dreaming of their long-lost mother – until soldiers abduct them and bring them back to the rich commander, their birth father. Every chapter reveals a different sisters’ journey as they confront long-held secrets, embark on rebellious adventures against the Roman Empire, fall in love and become warriors, mothers, servants or nuns. Their shared theme: They’d rather face death than live a life dictated by others. With touches of the metaphysical, the story is based on little-known saints and martyrs: St. Quiteria, St. Liberata, Marina the Monk, Perpetua and Felicity. Even with themes of death, suppression, separation and starvation, Hooper keeps a sense of lightness and humour. But what really kept me reading was fierce bravery presented in myriad forms, whether it is to run from a life you don’t want, fight back, find a home, or love. — Aruna Dutt

Daughters of the Deer

By Danielle Daniel

Earlier this year I finished Lauren Groff’s excellent Matrix, which explored the life of 12th-century poet and abbess Marie de France, and delivered not just great writing but a queer love story wrapped in the politics of medieval England and France (yes, Eleanor of Aquitaine is in here). So this summer, I went looking for something that would take me back to the ideas underpinning Groff’s novel: How do powerful, creative women navigate a world dominated by men? Luckily, the Eden Mills Writers Festival asked me to interview Danielle Daniel, who shares an ancestral link with the people who inspired Daughters of the Deer, set in 17th-century New France. The protagonist is Marie of the Deer Clan, who marries Pierre, a French soldier, to ensure her people’s survival. Though the prose is spare, it is just as haunting as Groff’s more lyrical language. And Marie’s daughter, Jeanne, who takes over the second half of the novel, has a queer love story, too. — Judith Pereira

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