At Face Value spins the tale of John White, a trusty Tory backbencher in Canada's post-Confederation Parliament who was unusually sympathetic to women and Indigenous communities. Hewing closely to the archival record, it nevertheless diverges on one crucial point, reimagining White as a woman named Eliza McCormack.In this Canadian take on Moll Flanders, Don Akenson constructs a past in which people felt free to live in the gender of their own choosing,...