Who Wrote The Double Hook?

One evening in the winter of 1958–59, while I was engaged in MA studies in English at the University of Toronto, I attended a meeting of the Graduate English Club. On entering the room, I soon became aware of a tiny middle-aged woman with a deeply wrinkled face, dressed in a turtleneck sweater and half-screened by cigarette smoke. (I recall at the time thinking that she looked like a female Robert Frost.) I no longer remember the lecturer or his subject, my attention having been fixed continually on this amazingly charismatic figure. At the first opportunity I asked a friend more familiar with the city and the university who she was. “Oh, that’s Sheila Watson” came the reply; “she’s about to publish a novel.”

And who, you may ask, was Sheila Watson? Mention her name nowadays to those who rely on literary awards and best-seller lists, and you will probably be met with a blank stare. But direct the question to any serious Canadian writer, and the response is likely to...