Mazo de la Roche

by Heather Kirk

In 1927, Mazo de la Roche was an impoverished writer in Toronto when she won a $10,000 prize from the American magazine Atlantic Monthly for her novel Jalna. The book became an immediate bestseller. In 1929, the sequel Whiteoaks also went to the top of bestseller lists. Mazo went on to publish 16 novels in the popular series about a Canadian family named Whiteoak, living in a house called Jalna. Her success allowed her to travel the world and to live in a mansion near Windsor Castle. Mazo created unforgettable characters who come to life for her readers, but she was secretive about her own life and tried to escape the public attention her fame brought.

Genres: Biography, Canada, Nonfiction

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Craig Rowland · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first thing that struck me about Mazo de la Roche: Rich and Famous Writer by Heather Kirk was its subtitle: of all the ways to describe the author, why choose that? It then dawned on me shortly after I started reading that this was really a juvenile biography, as it was peppered with imaginary scenes from the author’s childhood, including verbatim conversations. I loathed the preponderance of exclamation marks–an unfortunate yet common sight in juvenile literature–which is never a good thing in adult nonfiction. Who was Kirk’s targeted reading audience? One look at the author’s own website answers this question:

“This fun-to-read book is aimed at high-school students in Grades 10 to 12 and at adults who want a quick introduction to de la Roche. As well as conveying new facts about de la Roche, the biography entertains and informs with dramatic scenes that read like a novel.”

So there you go. I still feel that Kirk was talking down to the students, as I would have placed the target audience at the junior high school level. Yet still, if her aim was to introduce especially young people and adults to de la Roche, then I commend her.

Kirk published her book in 2006, ten years after Thirty-Two Short Views on Mazo de la Roche, which she credited in the section on consulted sources. I didn’t find much difference between these books aside from the selection of photographs Kirk used and the dramatic reenactments and dialogue from de la Roche’s past. It was a speedy read on account of the short paragraphs and voluminous invented quotations. Having just read a similar biography on the author certainly helped me race through this one.