Town Life : Main Street and the Evolution of Small Town Alberta, 1880-1947

Annotation In the prairies, the small town rests comfortably in our memories as a setting of childhood innocence, good neighbours and stability. By following the development of "Main Streets" in nine Alberta towns, Wetherell and Kmet present a detailed record of a largely vanished way of life In an entertaining re-examination of Rudy Wiebe's major novels, Penny van Toorn presents a completely new way of reading one of Canada's foremost contemporary writers. She analyzes Wiebe's struggle to control the "socially contested territory" of language, and identifies the principles that underlie his complex narrative structures. Along the way, she addresses broader issues such as the White writer's semiotic control over Native Peoples; theories of historiography; and questions pertaining to authority, appropriation, hybridity, translation, orality, and audience - all matters of particular relevance to Wiebe and other writers who have multiple cultural and linguistic affiliations. Drawing on Wiebe's manuscript materials, her own interviews with him, and background information concerning Mennonite doctrines, history, and political values, Dr. van Toorn creates a fresh context in which to read Wiebe's novels, and gives the first real answer to his own famous question " Where is the voice coming from?" By following the development of 'Main Streets' in nine Alberta towns, this title presents a record of a largely vanished way of life.