Waking Up in the Men's Room: A Memoir

Susan Patrick is a librarian at Ryerson Polytechnical University.

Waking Up in the Men’s Room is a candid and moving story. It is also a
social history of the generation of women who came to adulthood in the
hippy 1960s, found feminism in the 1970s, then pursued careers, raised
families, and dealt with personal setbacks, all the while searching for
their identities.

Macleod’s memoir paints a vivid picture of a life fully lived—some
of it self-destructively. In the book, she recounts her origins in
postwar working-class Glasgow; her family’s emigration; growing up in
small-town Ontario; the exciting sex, drugs, and folk-rock world of
Toronto in the ’60s; her involvement with the Ontario labor movement;
and her relationships with friends, lovers, and co-workers. Her
warts-and-all story details not only her professional accomplishments,
but also her battle with alcoholism and depression. Also included in the
book are interesting sketches of figures from Toronto’s
political/cultural scene and analyses of the writings that helped shape
her political beliefs.

Those who are looking for a book that is both entertaining and
uplifting will find Waking Up in the Men’s Room a very enjoyable read.