Reading Between the Lines: The Diaries of Women

by Betty Jane Wylie

Book by Wylie, Betty Jane

Genres: Writing, Womens, Nonfiction

252 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Betty Jane Wylie is a distinguished non-fiction author and playwright, whose work also includes poetry and librettos. With over thirty-five books and three dozen plays to her credit–published by a wide range of presses – she has written bestsellers, memoirs, self-help studies, belles lettres accounts of women diarists and also of her own Icelandic background, a book about financial planning and even several cookbooks.

She received an Order of Canada in 2003 and has been a writer-in-residence at libraries across the country, Chair of the Canadian Writers Union, and a Fellow of The Bunting Institute at Radcliffe Harvard. A graduate of the University of Manitoba, which granted her an honorary doctorate and collects her literary papers. She is very old.

Reviews

[Erika Nerdypants · Rating 4 out of 5]

Re-read this in November of 2016. It was as lovely, interesting and comforting as the first time around. If you're pondering how a feminist text, detailing the domesticity of oppressed women could possibly be comforting, let me assure you, it is. Despite systemic silencing by the patriarchy, women throughout centuries have found ways, however quietly and unobtrusively, to leave a written record of their presence. Reading their diary excerpts is like finding a secret sorority in an all male club. Not a sorority for Bluestockings mind you. Washer women, midwives and mothers by day, the women profiled here, carved out tiny spaces of time to tell us about weather, work, babies born and old folks passing. You won't find any deep emotional confessions here. The journal entries are frequently full of mundane details, but rich in subtext. The fact that we need to read between the lines to crack the code of imposed silence, renders them only more precious. Wylie gently sets the stage for us to observe ordinary moments in their authors' seemingly forgotten lives. Reading the chapters is like attending a riveting play. After all, family drama has given us some of our most beloved stories and characters. And frankly, I can't think of anything more comforting, than watching women breaking their silence in whatever way they can.

[Elise M · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fantastic collection of private writings, but disappointingly white and heterosexual.