My last film at this year's Hot Docs was
The Mystery of Mazo de la Roche, a trademark NFB film blending archival footage with reenactment. I've been interested in de la Roche since living in Lorne Park, where my daughters went to Whiteoaks Public School, on Mazo Crescent and our street Greenoaks was around the corner from Whiteoaks and Jalna Avenue. Mazo de la Roche had lived in the area briefly but was not forgotten.
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| Mazo de la Roche |
de la Roche
is the best-selling Canadian author ever, selling millions of books in
multiple languages around the world. The novels
Jalna series and
The Whiteoaks of Jalna started the series and de la Roche fed the public's appetite for more books with ten more books.
Mazo
de la Roche was a very private person, not exactly eschewing the
spotlight, but revealing little either in interviews or in her vague
autobiography. From the director's comments at the Q&A, it sounds
as if this biography was what I would call 'content free'. Her
lifelong companion, Caroline Clement, was an orphaned cousin who had
been adopted by her parents at an early age. Their relationship was
characterized as a 'Boston marriage', a term usually applied in the case
of lesbian relationships.
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