SHADOW MAKER

HarperCollins, Toronto, 1996, 1^st pr thus.  ISBN 0-00-638540-0.  Trade soft cover, 447 pages including Acknowledgements, Endnotes, Bibliography and Index.  Very good; light edge and cover wear, binding sound, black & white photo sections, interior clean and unmarked with a bit of rippling to bottom margin edges of a few rear pages.  ‘Eyes outlined with khol, dressed in an embroidered purple tunic and writing of places far away, of magic, of cats and of demon lovers, Gwendolyn MacEwen seemed to many an exotic and mesmerizing presence.  In less than twenty-six years, she published twenty books and became with Margaret Atwood the most celebrated poet of her day.  Yet by forty-six she was tragically dead; many suspected suicide.  In Shadow Maker, biographer and poet Rosemary Sullivan sets out to recover the many faces of Gwendolyn MacEwen, to discover the vulnerability behind MacEwen’s enormous public success.  Brilliant and haunting, this is an extraordinary blend of narrative and meditation, of memory and mystery.’ (from rear wrap)