Apparently, being a Canadian is really great ? us Canadians already knew that. But Margaret Wente, the red, white and blue native who wrote An Accidental Canadian: Reflections on My Home and (Not) Native Land, wasn’t aware of this fact until she set foot on Maple Leaf turf — and now, she never wants to leave.

Wente moved here because her mother married a Canadian. She loved Toronto because “it was a good place to reinvent yourself.” Margaret Wente describes her decision to make a home on this side of the border quite succinctly: “After I finished university in the States…I had the biggest decision of my life: Canada or the United States? The U.S. was in a dark phase, torn apart by the awful politics of Vietnam. Canada was in a good phase, newly vibrant, cosmopolitan, open to the world. It was a no-brainer. I chose Canada.” She put down roots here and as a result, become one of Canada’s most favoured columnists.

But along with her star journalist status, currently commenting on whatever it is she feels like for the Globe and Mail on a daily basis, Wente is also a keen observer and a great comedian (if she wanted to quit her day job, I would bet my entire four years’ tuition on the fact that she could make a splendid career out of stand-up, but I myself would prefer she stays put as a journalist, thank you very much ? because this way she can seek answers and crack jokes). With a collection of her most popular Globe and Mail columns, of course revolving around the common themes of life and living, plus a personal narrative which tells her own story about how she came from being Uncle Sam’s little girl to the beaver’s best friend.

In this satirical story of how a young girl living in the U.S. of A. became a hockey-loving camper, Wente shines. She connects with Canadians and sparks interest with chapters like I Was Conrad Black’s Boss and I Married a Retrosexual. If you?re a regular Wente reader, you know that her columns headlines are only a sneak peek into her creativity, so for those of you who have never heard of Margaret Wente until this very moment, once you?re finished reading this review, zip over to the nearest corner store and buy the Globe and Mail. Then, read her column ? it’ll be most refreshing, I promise.

Trust me, if you’re a Canadian and proud of it, you should really read this book. She makes it her goal to articulate exactly what everyday life is for the average Canadian, while shedding light on the lifestyles of the more fortunate and prestigious and sympathizing with those who count their pennies. She’s a humanitarian with a great sense of humour, if you ask me. Millions of Canadians from the sun-soaked and sandy beaches of the west to the salmon-covered shores of the east make her column in the Globe and Mail their very first read of the day, and in this book, she proves why. Wente?s got a quintessential way with words. By candidly discussing her own mortgage headaches, marital squabbles and weight struggles, her readership not only feels at home with her, but her ramblings of honesty encourages them to be okay with the little things that we sometimes find trivial and not to sweat the small stuff, but instead, to embrace it.

She’s downright hilarious, witty and impressingly accurate about certain elements of being a Canadian, even though she hasn’t always been one. In this book, she’s got something to say about everything Canadian; she refers to hockey as “just a lot of goons bashing at each other. Half the time you can’t even see the puck” because after having grown up in Chicago, she never really got the hang of hockey; she mentions how Pierre Elliot Trudeau was more than just a politician but also Canada’s own JFK, the only prime minister to actually have groupies, standing outside of buildings, waiting for him to come out, begging him for his autograph; she sounds a bit bitter about country living, maybe it’s because she wasn’t one of the baby boomers who migrated and found a comfortable place to call home in the straw-hilled, manour-smelling villages of Canada — “Those irritating baby boomers are at it again, snatching up the very same land their great-grandpas and grandmas happily abandoned for a better life in town.” But all in all, her observations come together and make perfect sense. And as I flip the pages of this book more and more, I sympathize with her ‘accidental canadianship’, but I also get closer and closer to coming to terms with the fact that the definition of being Canadian is really what you make of it ? whether you base it on your love for hockey, or you make a point of having a maple leaf swaying in the wind on your front lawn.

The geese may migrate for the winter, but I stay here and enjoy the crisp air and disabling snowfalls of Canada for more than half the year. Frost-bite isn’t fun and neither is digging yourself out of a storm, but I’m a Canadian, so somewhere deep down, I love it. Reading Wente’s book has made me appreciate my country more and more, and I hope it does the same for you, if you choose to read it. She openly reflects on our country and on comments on our ways of navigating through the 21st century, and on the small pleasures and big questions in life. It’s an inspired collection of wise and witty writing, wherein she tells her story of her girlhood in a Dick-and-Jane town, a Wonder Bread suburb of Chicago, and discusses her early career, marriage and her life today as a chronicler of Canada and Canadians.

Author: Margaret Wente
Genre: Autobiography/Humour






Related Stories: