Deep Currents

W.J. Keith is a retired professor of English at the University of Toronto and author A Sense of Style: Studies in the Art of Fiction in English-Speaking Canada.

This is an unusual biography in many ways. First, one might expect it to
be specifically focused on Roderick Haig-Brown, the well-known
fisherman, writer, conservationist, magistrate, public speaker, and
broadcaster; but it also chronicles the life of Ann Elmore Haig-Brown,
wife, mother, school librarian, devout (but not rigid) Catholic, and
participator in countless good causes, both local and further afield.
Moreover, this is, as the introduction states, “a very personal
biography,” not least because its author is the eldest of
Haig-Brown’s four children. It is also an intimate narrative, not of
“the Haig-Browns” but of Roddy and Ann.

Another unusual feature needs to be mentioned. Valerie Haig-Brown bases
her book on the numerous letters written by her parents to her, to her
siblings, and to each other. These tell of everyday incidents, which are
conveyed to us as they were related—friends visiting, birds seen,
Roddy’s latest writing and fishing experiences, Ann’s domestic
chores and committee work. Surprises come as surprises, with all the
suddenness of life itself. Thus we learn Roddy died in his garden
instantaneously, without warning, of a heart attack, and the plain,
factual account of this event closes a paragraph that began with reports
of Vancouver meetings and a birthday dinner. Once one gets used to this
effect, it is both satisfying and endearing.

Modern biography tends to concentrate on the unconventional, the
exceptional, the sensational. Not so here. Despite Roddy’s fame as one
of Canada’s most respected and elegant writers of nonfiction (more
appreciated outside rather than inside the universities, alas), his
daughter concentrates on life rather than on literature, and the book
commemorates two interesting, socially responsible, and admirable human
beings governed by possibly old-fashioned or even outmoded standards of
duty and decency. Readers are invited to share in a family’s fortunes,
with all the attendant achievements, failures, satisfactions, and
frustrations. We close the book feeling as if we were saying farewell to
friends. It is a heartening and deeply refreshing experience.