The Crack in the Teacup: The Life of an Old Woman Steeped in Stories

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University and an avid outdoor recreationist. She is the
author of several books, including The Mountain Is Moving: Japanese
Women’s Lives, Kurlek and Margaret Laurence: T

In writing her own life story, Joan Bodger reveals the power of stories
while shaping a very personal mythology. Bodger is a Gestalt therapist
who draws strength and healing from stories. As a child, she moved
frequently because of her father’s job in the U.S. Coast Guard. Family
moves included time in England. In each new base, Bodger had a sharp eye
for local and national differences and prejudices. Her sense of humor
thrived on change.

While studying at Columbia University after World War II, Bodger took a
course in storytelling and began to read folklore and anthropology. She
would later suffer depression, marriage breakdown, and the loss of her
seven-year-old daughter. Throughout all this, her love for and interest
in children’s literature thrived and grew. She became a liaison editor
of children’s books at Random House-Pantheon-Knopf and, later, was
involved in starting the Storytelling School of Toronto. Bodger has an
eye for detail and a feeling for the mysteries of childhood and family
life. Recent books include The Forest Family (2001), a powerful novel
for older children.

This “life of an old woman steeped in stories” is also a
fascinating account of one woman’s journey to maturity and fulfilment.
Bodger writes with an engaging sense of irony and wit, a deep love of
narrative, and the ability to shape a good one. The Crack in the Teacup
is an unusual sequence of stories with flair and bite.