My conversation with Joanna Braniff about Brian Moore's early pulp novels – part of last month's Lonely Passions: Brian Moore Centenary Festival – is now available online.
We discuss Moore's Montreal years, his work at The Gazette, the plots of all seven pulps, and how writing things like French for Murder helped bring about Judith Hearne, The Feast of Lupercal. and The Luck of Ginger Coffey.
Oh, and there's also a bit about Moore's work with Hitchcock.
Lili St Cyr is mentioned.
Very enjoyable interview, Brian.
ReplyDeleteI wonder, though, if you don't paint a bit too rosy a picture of race relations in late 1940s Montreal. Sure, Jackie Robinson was able to rent a place without a problem, but according to Morley Callaghan's The Loved and the Lost, there still some hotels and bars that excluded Blacks, and the description of the club based on Rockhead's Paradise is frank about racial boundaries there. And Linda Leith has just reprinted Mairuth Sarsfield's No Crystal Stair, set in the same period, and that book also make it clear that the situation was far from ideal, even if it was better than in many US cities.
Thank you, Patrick. Looking back - through the wonder that is YouTube - I see that I made a bit much of the Black experience in Montreal. I've certainly been witness to discrimination in my day. It's funny you mention Jackie Robinson. I remember thinking of him when I made my comment. The excuse I offer is that I was speaking off the cuff. I would never have committed such a statement to print.
DeleteSpeaking of print, I don't think much of Callaghan as a chronicler. This opinion has everything to do with That Summer in Paris, a self-aggrandizing, false, and fanciful work of the highest order. Callaghan wasn't a Montrealer and knew little about the city. That said, I don't doubt there were hotels and bars that excluded Blacks. Hell, there would be today, if the law allowed.
Now if only I'd known... I love Brian Moore.
ReplyDeleteAnd now I will bookmark your blog, because I seem to have lost the bookmark. Quite a few of the bloggers I followed have quit, and I'd better to take care to the living, hadn't I? I went to a bloglist posted at one of my old blogs. All but one have given up, even deleted their blogs.
So am glad to see you're still writing it, as well as your books.
Excellent post, and will come back for the videos later.
You're very kind, Kat. I look forward to your posts, invariably reading each in bed with my morning coffee.
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