Adrienne Clarkson’s beginnings—her family escaped from Japanese-occupied Hong Kong in 1942—were a harbinger of the drama that would echo through her life. After growing up in Ottawa, and studying in Toronto and France, she launched a successful CBC television career that lasted nearly three decades.

Then in 1999, Clarkson returned to Ottawa to become Canada’s twenty-sixth Governor General—an office she transformed through her commitment, style, and compassion. Travelling thousands of kilometres to small communities in Canada and abroad, Clarkson reached out to Canadians everywhere, particularly to the North’s Aboriginal population. She also met with international figures from Queen Elizabeth to Nelson Mandela and Vladimir Putin, and hosted foreign dignitaries—including one whose entourage had to be dissuaded from sporting loaded pistols inside Rideau Hall.

Clarkson forged a unique bond with the military in her position as Commander in Chief and travelled to Kosovo, Bosnia, the Arabian Gulf, and twice to Afghanistan to visit Canadian troops. Her determination to invest meaning in all her official actions created controversy at times, whether it was refashioning Rideau Hall into a real home and showcasing it for the public, or including writers and artists on state visits. Clarkson reflects on some of the behind-the-scenes machinations with a close-up view of how politics sometimes works.

Heart Matters is more than a public life remembered. It chronicles an astonishing journey through triumph and turmoil. The always poised Clarkson reveals that life was not as smooth as it appeared, and with remarkable candour and poignancy, she reflects on the heartaches of her earlier years—her beautiful but troubled mother, the death of an infant, a divorce, and the estrangement from her two daughters and their later reunion.

Insightful and inspiring, Heart Matters is an extraordinary work by an extraordinary Canadian.

Published in French by Éditions du Boréal.

"A memoir of Clarkson’s interesting and distinguished life"
—The Globe and Mail

"...Adrienne Clarkson has blazed like a comet through our national consciousness."
"...Clarkson’s affecting tale is more than a rags-to-riches story. It’s a story of race and assimilation and the ascendancy of feminism, with many moving lessons about grit, determination and never looking back."
"Clarkson didn’t just raise the bar during her tenure as Governor General; she sent it catapulting skyward."
"In the end, she gave us an impossibly audacious idea of ourselves, and it was one that we could never have imagined on our own."
—Chatelaine

"...Adrienne Clarkson is a fine writer..."
"...Canada’s 26th, and probably best, governor general."
"...is a fine book."
"By any standards, it could only be a fascinating narrative..."
"Clarkson is bright, articulate and engaged."
"...filled with tasty morsels, tidbits of quality gossip."
"Enveloping it all is her careful, polished prose, studded every now and then with a ripe observation." "...finely crafted reminiscence..."
"...wonderful smorgasbord..."
"Heart Matters is the story of an immigrant. It is the story of a pioneering woman in a man’s time and place. It is a fascinating look at life behind the TV cameras and, later, behind the doors of Rideau Hall. It is a sweet love song to cultural diversity and to the impossible dream that is Canada."
"...it is a kind of injunction, an ambitious nudge toward the moral imperative Clarkson suggests might make us all a bit better."
"Surprising, insightful and lovingly shaped...a passionate reminder of all those things in life that matter most."
—The Ottawa Citizen

"That Clarkson grew up to be a stoic, gracious, stylish over-achiever seems inevitable once we are acquainted with the circumstances of her childhood."
—The Star Phoenix