This novel, The Book of Eve by Constance Beresford-Howe, is often considered a bit of an neglected classic feminist novel. Within the first few pages, we see Eva grow tired of the low-level browbeating she has taken from her husband, Burt, for decades. While there was never much true attraction to Burt (she married him due to the stability he offered and the chance to start a family*), any affection had been worn away by the fact that he unexpectedly became a semi-invalid and retired, and she had to care for him. Despite the fact that she knows she will scandalize the neighbours and her own daughter, she packs a small bag and leaves Burt to his own devices. She has no real idea where to go and asks a taxi driver to take her to a part of Montreal where they have inexpensive rooms for let, and she sets off on a completely new and unexpected path. Such things were just not done in 1973, let alone by a 70 year-old-woman (and pensioner) who had simply had enough.
Every so often, Eva imagines writing a letter to God, sort of standing in for Eve, the mother of all disobedient women. She basically asks for him to understand things from her point of view, though she suspects that He will not be particularly receptive to her story.
Eva spends a good deal of her time trying to figure out how to make ends meet, as her rent takes a huge chunk out of her pension. She makes one half-hearted attempt to get some maintenance funds out of Burt (under Quebec law at that time, even though she had paid a very large part of the mortgage on their house, it was entirely his property) before becoming a bit of a scavenger, taking interesting things she finds to the local pawn shops. Of course, Eva limits her meetings with her son, Neil, who cannot understand her and would be horrified that his mother had essentially become a tramp (in the Chaplinesque sense of the word), though her granddaughter Kim ultimately finds out a bit more about her bohemian way of life and doesn't seem quite as judgmental.
Perhaps the most astonishing turn of events is when she meets one of her fellow tenants, Johnny, who is a bit of a handyman and carpenter and perhaps even an artist at heart. He helps her fix up her room and its stove, and they end up spending a surprising amount of time together. There are certainly flashes of Joyce Cary's Gulley Jimson in Johnny, though Johnny does not appear to be an artist of that calibre.
There are a few other interesting turns of the wheel of fate still to come, but I think I'll stop there before spoiling the book any further. I found The Book of Eve thought-provoking and occasionally exasperating, but usually quite amusing, and I definitely think it deserves to be more widely read.
* And he also caught her on the rebound from a short affair with the principal of the school where she worked.
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