Mad, bad, and dangerous to know

is how Victorian society dismissed Emily Carr. Lewis DeSoto, a painter and novelist, sees Emily Carr as a woman in search of God, freedom, and the essence of art.

Her quest to be an independent woman and a modern artist takes her from the studios of Paris to deep inside the remote Native villages of the West Coast forests. It is a lifetime journey of almost mythic proportions in which she struggles to define not only herself but also her country.

A creator of extraordinary power, a seeker of mystical truth, a woman of unusual courage, Carr is revealed as one of those unique individuals who articulate the symbols and images by which Canada knows itself.