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1979 Leacock Medal - True Confections


1979 Leacock Medal Winner

True Confections  

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This interview is with Sondra Gotlieb, author of True Confections: Or How My Family Arranged My Marriage, a memoir-style novel that won the Leacock Medal for Humour in 1979.  The story traces the life of a girl from her Sweet 16 birthday party to her marriage a couple of years later.  Set in 1950s Winnipeg, it talks a lot about teenage preoccupations with clothes, boys, and food. It also mirrors Sondra's own marriage to the Harvard-Berkeley-Oxford educated lawyer and the former Canadian Ambassador to the United States, the late Alan Gottlieb. Sondra was a published cookbook writer by the time she wrote True Confections, which was her first novel. Later, she contributed to MacLean's and Chatelaine magazines before starting her popular columns in the Washington Post. Over her career, she also produced articles for Saturday night, the New York Times, and the National Post.

DBD
I think anybody who reads True Confections wants to ask is to what extent was the book autobiographical?


Sondra Gotlieb (SG)

Oh, yes.  Well, I did write about growing up in North Winnipeg, and it seemed to play a big role in my imagination, or life or whatever. And, and there was a lot of emphasis on food.


DBD

Was food a big part of your growing up?

 

SG     

Yes.  My mother was a stay at home (mother). She was always in the kitchen cooking. And I mean, to the extent that one would never say women do these days - was baking, cooking? You know.

  

DBD

I know that prior to True Confections, your main literary claim to fame was a very successful cookbook. Do you recall what motivated you to write the book?

 

SG

Food !  

I guess I grew up in a family that concentrated on food. And when I started to fear, I would love to write something. And I thought maybe I could do restaurant reviews. And I started with that. And my husband and I, we used to go to restaurants that I would write reviews for newspapers and things like that. And, and that's where it all started. And then I wrote a recipe book, a couple of recipe books, and then True Confections came out of that.

 

DBD

So that's interesting, because it has the tone of being a very personal book and talking about your marriage or a marriage at least.

  

SG

I married at 18, and I knew my husband really for 10 days. I met him, and he took me out for about 10 days and then he went back to Oxford. And he said, you know, maybe we'll get married after you finish your university. Well, I didn't to do my Christmas exams, they were looming. I just really didn't want to go into the exams. And I said, Well, if you want to marry me, you’d better come back from Oxford at Christmas and get married then.

 

DBD

So that does echo a bit of the book.

 

SG

Yes, I put that in my book? (Laughs) because I have no idea why I said that. I barely knew him. So, we basically I knew him for 10 days before he left. And then he came back a week before the wedding. So that was the extent of time I spend with him.

 

DBD

So you did conclude the book by saying you spent the next few decades getting acquainted.

 

SG

Yes, well he's dead now.

 

DBD

I'm very sorry. It was just last year, right?


SG

Yeah, just last year, and we're about 63 years. Yeah, yeah.

 

DB

Yeah, wow, so it did it did work out.

  

SG

Yes, a very happy marriage. (Laughs) I barely knew him. And it worked out very well.

  

DBD

I have to say it was sad to note your daughter’s very sad passing – she was about the age you were at the time you were writing the book?

 

SG

Yes. My daughter My eldest Yeah.


DBD

One question I guess that I should pose is to what extent did winning Leacock medal help you?

 

SG

It helped me get published a little bit, you know.  I was so happy at getting the prize. And my friends and I, we went on some kind of trip. We went from Orillia and went across the border. And I must say we had a wild time. We went to the dinner and then we stayed overnight. We had a lot of fun. That’s all I remember.

 

DBD

Yeah, I think the Leacock banquet has been a launchpad for a lot of fun and parties over the years.

 

SG
Yes.  I think we had liquor in the trunk. Then we went across the border. I mean, I remember that weekend so well. No, I was very happy to get it. I wrote other books. My son says not as good as that one. It did give me a step up, it really did. It was hard to get that one published. And because all I had done was restaurant reviews before.

 

DBD

One other question I would ask is if you were aware of the degree to which the Leacock medal had not been given to woman writer for many years prior to you're getting it? I think initially there was a few women who won it, but then there was like 25 years before you won it.

 

SG

Well, I mean, women's movement was just beginning to hit the times, because I had no ambition to do anything when I got married. I just wanted to follow my mother's footsteps.

 

DBD

We're all grateful that you expanded your circle beyond that

 

SG

I think my husband was very helpful, very helpful. He was very, very supportive of me writing and he was happy. He was terribly happy when I won the Leacock Medal.

 

DBD

Well, again, condolences and thanks a lot for doing this.

 

SG

Okay, thank you very much.