Courting Johanna is set in the claustrophobic atmosphere of Huron County, Ontario in the 1950s. Johanna is a dignified Scottish immigrant housekeeper who works for the well-off Mr. McCauley. She looks after McCauley�s granddaughter, Sabitha, whose mother is dead and whose father, Ken, is a deadbeat looking for work out West. When silly, spoiled Sabitha and her younger, but more mature friend Edith�the sensible daughter of an immigrant shoemaker�discover a personal letter Johanna has written to Ken, they decide to ...
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Courting Johanna is set in the claustrophobic atmosphere of Huron County, Ontario in the 1950s. Johanna is a dignified Scottish immigrant housekeeper who works for the well-off Mr. McCauley. She looks after McCauley�s granddaughter, Sabitha, whose mother is dead and whose father, Ken, is a deadbeat looking for work out West. When silly, spoiled Sabitha and her younger, but more mature friend Edith�the sensible daughter of an immigrant shoemaker�discover a personal letter Johanna has written to Ken, they decide to play a trick on her. More out of boredom than cruelty, they begin forging letters from �Ken� to the lonely Johanna, who opens her heart and confesses that before she became his pen pal, she had �only had one friend in my life.� When the semi-fictional correspondence becomes more explicitly romantic, events spiral out of control: Johanna takes off for Gdynia, Sask., with a load of furniture that belongs to Ken - an accusation of theft following in her wake. Based on the luminous short story �Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage� from the Alice Munro collection of the same name, Courting Johanna is a window into the human heart�a tale of loneliness, deception, and redemption.
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