Pop culture observers cannot escape the Shania Twain phenomenon. Since 1995, the Timmins, Ontario native has achieved five number-one hits and 20 music industry awards. Sexy videos and a high public profile have helped crown Twain as Canada’s latest “It” girl.

As her most recent album heats up retail cash registers across Canada, ECW Press has released On My Way, a slapdash tribute to Canada’s country music queen that reads like a 200- page press release by a record company publicity hack.

Dallas Williams, recently “outed” in the Toronto press as poet Michael Holmes, is the author of On My Way. The clichéd language and plodding, quasi-journalistic narrative make it a chore to read. This book obviously serves commercial rather than artistic impulses.

On My Way could be classified as a business book. It addresses the modernization of marketing strategies within the country music industry in North America as they were applied to making Twain a success. Williams cites Marshall McLuhan, suggesting that Twain is an artist who understands that “the ‘medium’ really is a big part of the ‘message.’” Videos, not touring, furnished Twain’s place on the pop charts.

Significantly, Williams does not provide his reader with insight into the artist beyond her carefully crafted public persona. We discover that she is a Virgo and are provided with an extensive discography. We are not told what motivates her career. Of course, it is difficult for Williams to provide a holistic sense of Twain when his most credible sources are newspaper articles and a record store manager who once played in a band with her.

When controversy does appear in Twain’s life, it is only important insofar as it contradicts her public persona. Rather than challenging that image, Williams consistently supports his thesis that Twain is “a working class hero with the voice of an angel,” even when her actions are ruthless, distant, and calculating.

Her fans will be overjoyed with the hagiographical tone, and the accompanying photographs are amazing, but to paraphrase Twain’s lyrics, On My Way is a tale that “no one needs to know right now.”