Always Someone To Kill The Doves: A Life of Sheila Watson

Spring 2005

Paperback 368 pages

Non-Fiction

Crafted from archives, interviews, memories, and bankers’ boxes of papers sent to the author during the years before her death, Always Someone to Kill the Doves: A Life of Sheila Watson, is the portrait of a woman shaped by her times, by her turbulent marriage, by the clarity of genius, and by the moral sense of her Catholic upbringing. With the gentle touch of an old friend, Flahiff provides a poignant insight into the woman, the westerner, and the writer. Best known for the modernist novel, The Double Hook, and her part in creating the literary magazine White Pelican, Watson’s life was as rich and complex as her finest literary creation.

“Sheila Watson entrusted Fred Flahiff with her ‘life,’ and he proves worthy of the trust. We have a double treat here: at last we get to read Watson’s Paris journal of 1955, and Flahiff’s responsible account of her time on earth. She made the right choice when she sent him her letters and journals and manuscripts. Sheila Watson’s writing is immeasurably important to our culture, and a challenge to anyone who would try to place it in that context. This is a book we have needed on our shelves.”

—George Bowering