It Stops with Me: Memoir of a Canuck Girl

[...] "The latest: It Stops with Me: Memoirs of a Canuck Girl, by Charleen Touchette. Finally, some solid writing. Touchette is also a gifted visual artist and includes black and white and colour prints of her paintings in the book. As well, she is a curator, an educator, an activist and freelance writer. She has numerous book titles to her name, many with feminist perspectives, others that explore issues of cultural, religious and historical identities. I don't think Touchette and I would be best friends; this woman takes her politics very seriously and for all that she says she loves to laugh and enjoy life, her childhood was so bleak, violent and confusing, that it takes very bit of her sane self to keep the tortured self from imposing permanent depressions and mental and physical dysfunctions of all sorts. That said, I have huge admiration for someone who has done as much as this woman has done, and succeeded in so many areas. I also admire someone who, as a young adult, chose a resoundingly sane and loving man with whom to share her life and make a family. If anyone could be forgiven for having chosen an unkind life partner, it would be Touchette. And yet she bypassed entirely the common pattern of abused children growing up to choose abusive partners. Now that's a person who somehow protected her absolute core of sanity - against all odds. It was a lovely and at the same disturbing read. My only criticism is the odd coyness about revealing the extent of her father's sexual abuse. She builds up the tension in this regard again and again - in the art work and in the prose - but never flat-out says that she was raped, although this is intimated. Likewise, she often repeats that the time was not right to tell her parents about the abuse (that would be tell her mother and confront her father) and the reader is left to guess that she never did tell them directly, but did show the art work around the country and beyond, and of course publish the memoir. Again, you feel as the the entire book is building towards a showdown with the father - and yet this never occurs. Mind you, I don't blame her for avoiding/putting off a showdown. The father remains a right prick throughout her life, for all that his violent ways tone down with age. It's just that the story feels strangely climax-less - especially for a book that builds towards a climax almost from the first page. All of which makes me sad. It seems that no matter how successful Touchette is, how brilliantly she has created and maintained a happy and healthy family life of her own, her fear of her father still dictates major decisions in her life. There are too many points I end up guessing about. Did she decide the pain of confrontation was not worth whatever good and liberating feelings she might receive back? Did the love she had for her mother get in the way of confronting the father? Was her mother's role in the abuse (pretending it didn't happen, looking the other way, blaming Touchett

An autobiography of a spunky Franco-American woman from Woonsocket, Rhode Island gives cultural storytelling multi-generational appeal. Too many Franco-Americans (with ancestral roots in French-Canada) are quickly amalgamating into the mainstream of American culture without writing their special family stories. Fortunately, Charleen Touchette, a Woonsocket, Rhode Island writer and artist now living in New Mexico, puts both of her pleasingly creative talents together in "It Stops With Me: Memoir of a Cannuck Girl". Touchette writes about her Franco-American roots by relating simple, often bittersweet and even brutal experiences growing up as a typical French Catholic girl in Woonsocket and later as an accomplished artist. Moreover, Touchette energizes her autobiography's prose with a series of original black, and white and color print blocks. In other words, "It Stops With Me" expresses Touchette's Franco-American creativity using prose accentuated by her surprisingly cutting edge original art describing absorbing coming of age experiences. Her journey from a parochial Franco-American into her adult life is fraught with opportunities, along with unexpected harsh challenges. Her life is ordinary in some ways but hardly a nostalgic cake walk. "It Stops With Me" is at its best when Touchette looks back and elevates normal Franco-American experiences to familiarities we can identify with. For example, she describes cooking with her "Ma Tantes" or getting ready to receive First Holy Communion at Woonsocket's Eglise Précieux-Sang (Church of Precious Blood). Discord arises at a young age. Growing up as a French Roman Catholic girl is an underlying theme. Touchette's typical childhood is without the benefit of feeling safe at home, as she depicts in one of her portraits of a "Not a Picture Perfect Family". Rather, Touchette's absorbing life story endures familial stress, social and personal conflicts, even leading to physical ailments, which haunt her into adult years. Touchette's hard hitting narrative is set apart from others of the modern autobiographic genre by the intimate and complicated relationships she shares with her family. Delving even deeper into her private spiral are the intense personal investigations Touchette undertakes with regard to her sad relationship with her father. Nevertheless, in spite of the particular circumstances, it's typical of Franco-Americans to harbor deep attachments for their relatives and parents regardless of obvious flaws, shortcomings or even family violence. Female family role models are especially strong in Touchette's life. "Although my Maman was a devout Catholic, she was a strong supporter of my right to freedom of expression," writes Touchette. In fact, her female relatives were outraged when Touchette even considered not going to college after high school. In her Woonsocket Franco-Americans world, Touchette writes about how curious it was to be singled out for college when no other woman in

I had an opportunity to meet the author, Charleen, at a B & B on Amelia Island in February 2005. I purchased her book and was lead into her amazing childhood and adulthood. A book that was impossible to put down or forget about. This book will make you think about your own childhood. Unfortunately Charleen was brought up with poor parenting but lucky enough to be born with wonderful skills and talents. I finished her book all too soon but will re-read it another time.

It Stops With Me: Memoir Of A Canuck Girl is the autobiography of artist, writer, curator, educator and activist Charleen Touchette. Narrating a life steeped in traditions of both French Canadian and Indian cultures, but also darkened by the legacies of anger, alcoholic rages, and violence, It Stops With Me tells of one woman's journey from girlhood to motherhood, to being debilitated by an illness that compels her to face the dark memories of her past. A captivating and sober memoir of a difficult and varied life.