Country of the Heart

Jenifer Lepiano was a writer and drama teacher in Toronto.

Lannie is a university student who is crippled by pain — severe physical pain from her monthly period, and a more diffused but equally humiliating emotional pain inflicted by her father’s abandonment of her after her mother’s death.

Lannie’s story joins with the story of Iris, her aunt and guardian. Iris is the daughter of one wealthy Saskatchewan farmer and the wife of another. She falls into an affair with a proud old rancher, recently widowed and himself near death.

Sharon Butala renders her scenes with almost photographic detail. Her selection is often tough. A nostalgic view of an old-time rodeo is in contrast to the dehorning of cattle on the ranch. But her realism has a soft edge, and the struggles of the two heroines help bring about a thaw in a masculine climate uncomfortable with personal relationship. The stark landscape they are born into is not a barrier to their exploration of the country of the heart.