by Jane Rule
There are those to whom I feel immensely grateful for a variety of reasons: Marilyn R. Schuster, the scholar who kindly had her own research assistant look up some details for me with respect to the dating of the manuscript and who provided thoughtful and provocative questions along the way; Gary Kuchar, for asking his assistant to copy some documents from the University of Victoria archives on my behalf; Tony Power, the head archivist at Simon Fraser Archives; Jean Matheson and Janet Murray of Library and Archives Canada, both of whom helped to provide a digital copy of the image on the cover of this book; Jessica Schagerl and David Anderson, friends and scholars who read over and provided feedback about the afterword and who assessed its accuracy and readability; Janice Braun, the associate library director at Mills College, for answering so expeditiously some inquiries about persons who worked at the college at the time Rule attended; Vicki Williams and Karl Siegler of Talonbooks, both of whom were responsive to my initial proposal to publish this manuscript; Karl Siegler, for his thorough editing of the afterword; Ann-Marie Metten, a goddess in the field of copy-editing who worked with me through the decision to render changes to the Omitted Text section and whose eagle eyes caught so many of my typographical errors; Greg Gibson, a fine proofreader and production editor; and my dear and loyal friends, and my supportive and loving family, who have dealt so patiently with me as I deferred visits with them to complete the transcription and preparation of this manuscript. Now that this book is ready for publication, I am making a promise in print to spend more leisurely time with you—at least for a little while, before I move on to my next research project.
About The Authors
Jane Rule was born in New Jersey in 1931 and came to Canada in 1956, where she later taught at the University of British Columbia. Her first novel, Desert of the Heart (1964), in which two women fall in love in 1950s Reno, Nevada, was successful as a 1985 feature film titled Desert Hearts.
Rule emerged as one of the most respected writers in Canada with her many novels, essays and collections of short stories, including Theme for Diverse Instruments (1975). She received the Canadian Authors Association best novel and best short story awards, the American Gay Academic Literature Award, the U.S. Fund for Human Dignity Award of Merit, the Canadian National Institute for the Blind’s Talking Book of the Year Award and an honorary doctorate of letters from the University of British Columbia.
In 1996, Jane Rule received the George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award for an Outstanding Literary Career in British Columbia. She passed away in 2007.
Linda M. Morra holds a PhD in Canadian literature from the University of Ottawa. She teaches at Bishop’s University and lives in Montreal. Morra is the editor of the critically acclaimed Corresponding Influence: Selected Letters of Emily Carr and Ira Dilworth. She is currently working on a monograph in which she explores Canadian women writers’ self-agency and textual integrity in relation to the publishing industry in Canada.
The cover of Taking My Life shows an original portrait of Jane Rule painted by her friend and lover Ann Smith during a stopover visit on Jane’s return from England. The portrait is signed “Ann Hibbard Burnham Smith / October 6, 1951” and elicits the following comment from Rule: “Of the three portraits she did of me, it is the most successful, in colour while the others were charcoal, my jacket bright with autumn colours, a clear autumn sky behind me. My face is brown from the Mediterranean sun, thin, the mouth full and bright, the eyes dark, watchful.” Majorca, “Georges Sand and Chopin country,” had been good to the young Rule.
All photographs, with the exception of the frontispiece, are used with permission of the Jane Rule Estate, courtesy the Jane Rule Fonds, University Archives, University of British Columbia. The archival photographs were scanned and digitally restored to remove damage and the effects of aging.
Frontispiece photograph is used with the permission of Alex Waterhouse-Hayward.
Other Books By Jane Rule
FICTION
Desert of the Heart*
This Is Not for You
Against the Season
Theme for Diverse Instruments*
The Young in One Another’s Arms
Contract with the World
Middle Children
Outlander
Inland Passage
Memory Board
After the Fire
NON-FICTION
Lesbian Images
A Hot-Eyed Moderate
Loving the Difficult
*Available from Talonbooks
Copyright © 2011 by Estate of Jane Rule
Afterword copyright © 2011 by Linda M. Morra
Talonbooks
PO Box 2076
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V6B 3S3
www.talonbooks.com
First printing: 2011
The publisher gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts; the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund; and the Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit for our publishing activities.
No part of this book, covered by the copyright hereon, may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic or mechanical—without prior permission of the publisher, except for excerpts in a review. Any request for photocopying of any part of this book shall be directed in writing to Access Copyright (The Canada Copyright Licensing Agency), 1 Yonge Street, Suite 800, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5E 1E5; Tel.: (416) 868-1620; Fax: (416) 868-1621.
Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada
ISBN 978-0-88922-728-6
