When her first novel, Desert of the Heart, was published in 1964, Jane Rule’s academic career was threatened because of its content. In that book, a May-December romance between two women unfolds against the backdrop of the Nevada desert.

Times change. Forty years and 12 books later, Rule is considered a pioneering Canadian author and thinker. In Loving the Difficult, a final collection of essays – the author died of liver cancer last November at age 76 – she offers a distinctive perspective on topics from sex and pornography to aging and coping with loss.

The 38 short essays in Loving the Difficult reflect a passion for controversial ideas first honed during Rule’s early days as a columnist for the radical gay journal The Body Politic. Some are as old as 1990, others penned scant months before Rule’s death. Alongside strong words on such issues as state censorship (Rule’s literary works have been seized by Canada Customs), the book reveals facets of the author’s personal life, from life on Galiano Island in B.C., where she was a beloved children’s lifeguard, to her grief at the passing of her partner of more than four decades, Helen Sonthoff, in 2000

In the face of changing tides in gay acceptance, the individualistic Rule remained staunchly opposed to queer nuptials. And though her fiction was known for identity-based themes, she took a dim view of the notion of cultural appropriation. “Robertson Davies may write all he wants about lesbians as long as I may write all I want about men like Robertson Davies,” she declares.

Despite such firm opinions, Rule’s tone is even throughout this book – perhaps too much so. Though her unique worldview may engage the reader, there is too little spark or dramatic tension to her mannered prose. Still, together these essays comprise a sure-handed last memoir of a woman who may have left the world calmly, but certainly not quietly.