Big Phyl's Ashes

A Wonderful, Absorbing Story of 20th Century Canadian Womanhood. 'Big Phyl', shines forth as the ideal candidate to represent the wild fluctuations of a life that covered the gamut of 20th century feminine identity, from a working class Presbyterian childhood, to wartime factory worker, and finally single mother of hippies. She is the unforgettable heroine in this excellent, unusual book. Big Phyl's Ashes is a memoir channeled from mother to son a quarter century after death. It is rooted in the Highland Clearances and The Great Hunger, or Potato Famine, in Scotland and Ireland, and covers World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. It is Herstory set in Sudbury, Muskoka, and Toronto.