The Book of Eve

Deborah Dowson is a children’s librarian in Pickering, Ontario.

Eve leaves her comfortable, secure middle-class marriage of 40 years to
make it on her own. Choosing to be free of people and things, she
survives by living on a social security allowance and the money she
receives selling scavenged goods to a pawnbroker. She finds a cold, dark
basement apartment in Montreal and spends the winter snowed in. It is
there that she begins the process of recovering her self. As spring
arrives, a new love enters her life.

This moving story of a woman’s struggle for selfhood and independence
is written with wit and honesty, and without mushy sentimentality. First
published more than 20 years ago, it remains a classic. Unfortunately,
this shabby paperback edition, with its blotchy print and translucent
pages, does not do it justice.