Review
IN MY OWN NAME
by Maureen McTeer
Random House Canada, 312 pp.
I wonder how many men and women my age (30) have even heard of Maureen McTeer, and would they – could they – be interested in the autobiography of a Canadian political wife? Yet consider this:
Long before Hillary Rodham Clinton successfully ran for the U.S. Senate, Maureen McTeer was quietly redefining the role of the political wife in Canada. Yes, McTeer is married to former prime minister and two-time Tory leader Joe Clark. And yes, her memoir exudes all the faithful devotion (and, occasionally, righteous indignation) we expect political wives to exhibit on behalf of their husbands’ careers. But McTeer, born in 1952, challenged social protocol and, in her words, "became a feminist before it was fashionable." In 1973, in the face of vicious public outcry, McTeer kept her surname when she married Clark and chose to pursue her own career. As well as being a wife and mother, she became a lawyer and advocate for equality, lecturing in Canada and abroad on public-policy issues related to health care, education, institutional reform and reproductive technology. Her transformation is apparent in the titles of her books: Residences: Homes of Canada’s Leaders, Parliament: Canada’s Democracy and How It Works, and Tough Choices: Living and Dying in the 21st Century.
This mid-life memoir demonstrates a dedication to and passion and sacrifice for politics that seem lacking in my generation. Its early chapters capture an ambitious and quintessentially Canadian childhood. Raised by Irish-Canadian parents just east of Ottawa, McTeer’s political awareness was shaped by her mixed Protestant-Catholic ancestry, combined with her father’s battles to enroll his English-speaking children in a French school.
Her first brush with feminism at age 12 – when her father told her, "Girls don’t play in the NHL" – and her inspiring encounter with the Queen Mother after an unsettling society luncheon provide spare yet powerful insights into McTeer’s character. At times, however, the memoir fails to capture its author’s human side, conveying the raw and often painful experiences of public life with the ordered semantics of a lawyer. Expressions of fury and anger in one paragraph abruptly change to silver-lining statements in the next, keeping the author in control and the reader at a distance.
Many readers will find entertainment, even catharsis, in McTeer’s blunt criticisms of her political rivals and detractors. Others will, of course, take umbrage. Ironically, these criticisms – which paint realistic but unflattering pictures of Canadian political life – may undermine McTeer’s appeal to younger generations:
"What is so disquieting about contemporary politics is how static it is, how reluctant to change, how slow to respond to new realities," she writes. "That is the real reason why young people are not voting and older citizens grow more cynical about politics and more detached from the essential process of democracy…. Politics must be made relevant again."
The best one can hope for this memoir is that it rouses a few of us to interest, if not to action.
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