Geneva's Scrapbook:

The Art of Piecing Together a Life

Joanne Pocock

$16.95

With Geneva’s Scrapbook, Joanne Pocock recollects her coming-of-age years living in the rural Eastern Townships during Quebec’s politically turbulent ’70s and ’80s. Her stirring memoir is an artful blending of research, spiritual pilgrimage and love song.

Joanne Pocock’s memoir tells of her personal voyage piecing together the forced migration of a Quebec minority and moves us to reflect upon the ongoing making of displaced peoples. We should thank Ms. Pocock for passing-on challenging questions concerning our patterned past and our humanity.

—Richard Evans, founding president of Quebec Anglophone Heritage Network and current Board Director.

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How to describe growing up rural and Anglophone in Quebec’s Francophone nationalist heyday? How to honour the Scottish womenfolk who came before, and their contribution to families, culture, communities? How to make sure that all English-speaking Quebecers are better known and understood? Joanne Pocock does all this, and describes how she learned to do so, in Geneva’s Scrapbook. Part frank memoir, part profound sociological enquiry, this is a moving, important book.

—Lorraine O’Donnell, PhD, Research Associate, Quebec English-Speaking Communities Research Network, Concordia University.

Joanne’s insight into the rural character and sense of connection among Eastern Townshippers sheds light on the enduring vitality of these resilient minority language communities. Geneva’s Scrapbook is beautifully written with images and smells that conjure the warmth of a country kitchen.

Sharon McCully, Publisher, The Record

With Geneva’s Scrapbook Joanne Pocock has written an engaging coming-of-age story about a young woman seeking to understand herself by investigating her ancestors and their homelands. The author’s observations on the sovereigntist movement’s success and its impact on Quebec’s diminished English-speaking minority are illuminating, disturbing, thought-provoking and highly pertinent.

—Guy Rex Rodgers, Director of Waves of Change. A Story Beyond Language, English Language Arts Network