The Work of Her Hands

Plynn Gutman’s memoir takes the reader on a lyrical journey of her French Canadian grandmother’s life, spanning the 20th century, from a maple farm in Quebec to a family homestead on the Canadian prairie, an all but arranged marriage to an illiterate man, survival of the Great Depression, the challenges of raising a handicapped child and the displacement she experienced after leaving the Saskatchewan farm. In this collection of remembered, imagined and imagined-to-be-remembered stories, Gutman looks through the lens of her grandmother’s recipes to reflect on a past way of life, the rhythm that sustained her and an entire generation of courageous and creative women who lived close to the land and learned to adapt, in the midst of great hardships, with dignity and pluck.