In 1971, the editor at House of Anansi press received a stack of fancy bond paper in a jewelry box tied with a ribbon, with instructions to “throw the pages into the air and arrange them as they fell”. While this book did arrive at my doorstep bound as most books, this introduction to the book (by said editor) entranced me to this novella. 

Passing Ceremony is gothic at its best -- a series of vignettes of the attendees at a wedding, where the bride has a reputation and the groom is gay, and none of the attendees really want to be there in the first place. The bride’s father is there from Mexico his a new wife younger than the bride and a new baby. An elderly grandparent feels like people are trying to kill her. A man is trying to find some new woman to pick up, while another woman thinks about her lover. One man is looking forward to seeing if his dom could meet up later (if she’s not busy). All around the scenery of a wedding and reception that is literally only being done for the image of it.

I loved this book and the concept. While I’m sure slicing it out of its binding and tossing it around would create an excellent story, the organization of each vignette is creeping towards the end of what most people think is a joyous day. Instead, we see mockery, pain, misanthropy, unrequited love. Although, it does seem like the bride and groom do truly care for each other as friends, and this was a tiny life raft in a book of social turbulence. 

Its a quick read, and certainly one that can be picked up and put down at a whim. Helen Weinzweig has such a gift for capturing the desperate malaise of women trapped by society in the 70s. Basic Black With Pearls captures it rather differently, but both are excellent works of Canadian feminist fiction that should be on any Canadian’s - or feminist’s - reading list.