Tete a tete, heart to heart mother–daughter relationships on and off the pages of the Elizabeth stories

Abstract

Two women. One text. The Canadian writer Isabel Huggan encounters her Dutch reader and critic Conny Steenman-Marcusse and reacts to what the reader finds in her text. The text under discussion is primarily Getting out of Garten, the final story of Huggan's The Elizabeth Stories (1984). This collection of stories is a Bildungsroman in which Elizabeth Kessler's difficulties of growing up in small-town Ontario, Canada in the 1950s are narrated. The mother–daughter relationship is investigated ON the pages of this text, but gradually the reader and writer explore the mother–daughter relationship OFF the pages, as their initial TETE A TETE (head to head and intellectual) connection through fax and email transforms itself into a HEART TO HEART (emotional) relationship between themselves, the text, their memories and their immediate experiences with their daughters.