In my twenties, the 'twenties – by which I mean the 1920s – seemed the height of art, film, decadence, glamour, and romance.
I'm not sure I was wrong.
The decade also saw the the height of the novel, though perhaps not in Canada. My CanLit profs assigned works by Mazo de la Roche, Frederick Philip Grove and Martha Ostenso. How they paled beside Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Forster, Hemingway, Joyce, Wharton, and Woolf! But then, what might one expect from a country of a mere nine million?
Time has passed, during which I've come to recognize that the keepers of the canon have messed up in so very many ways.
As we're now half-way through the 2020s, I present this list of the nine best Canadian novels of the 1920s. Not one of the authors received so much as a passing mention in my CanLit courses.
By no means definitive, I've limited the list to nine titles because I've yet to read Douglas Durkin's The Magpie (1923) and They Have Bodies (1929) by Barney Allen (Sol Allen). From what I know of the two, it's likely that at least one would round out a top ten. I'll be making a point of reading both this year and will keep you informed. But for now:
The Thread of Flame
Basil King
New York: Harper, 1920
In the aughts and tens of the last century, King topped American bestseller lists with
The Inner Shrine,
The Wild Olive, and
The Street Called Straight, though his two best books date from the twenties. This one involves a man who lost his memory whilst fighting in the Great War, but don't let that put you off.
The Empty Sack
Basil King
New York: Harper, 1921
The best King novel of the nine I've read, this involves the Folletts, transplanted Nova Scotians living comfortably in New York City until the aging patriarch is let go by his employer. The drama that unfolds has less to do with the economic devastation than it does the struggles in adapting to a post-Great War world.
In his time, Stringer was dismissed as a writer with an eye on the market. This work, an outlier, was inspired by his ill-fated marriage to statuesque Gibson Girl
Jobyna Howland. It's Stringer's most literary novel as evidenced by the fact that it was rejected by his usual publisher Bobbs-Merrill only to be picked up by Alfred Knopf.
The Hidden Places
Bertand W. Sinclair
Toronto: Ryerson, 1922
A novel about a veteran of the Great War written by a man who never served,
The Hidden Places can seem absurd at times, and relies too much on coincidence, but it is interesting for its damning indictment of the treatment of men who returned from the conflict scared and disfigured.
Stewart, 1922
The most cutting Canadian novel of the decade, it has three targets: the self-help industry, corporate culture, and gender norms. Criticisms of the first two bring insight, but that of the last makes Pagan Love one of the most intriguing Canadian novels of the twentieth century.
"Cattle"
Winnifred Eaton
New York: Watt, 1924
A late career novel written by a Montrealer of Chinese and English parents who'd achieved fame by passing herself off as a Japanese princess. Eaton's final years were spent on an Alberta ranch belonging to her husband, inspiring this violent, disturbing novel set in cattle country.
Macbeth]
Ottawa: Graphic, 1924
Scandalous in its day, something of a head-scratcher in ours, The Land of Afternoon provides further evidence that romans à clef tend to age poorly. There are biting satirical sketches, but who are the models? Even then, I expect few outside Ottawa had a clue.
Blencarrow
Isabel MacKay
Toronto: Allen, 1926
The last novel from a writer who never shied away from unpleasant topics: drug addiction, child abduction, worker exploitation, racism, mental illness. Domestic abuse and its effect on a wife and daughters permeate this one, yet it is not a message novel.
All Else Is Folly: A Tale of Stewart, 1929
The great Canadian novel of the Great War. Written by one who was there, it is highly autobiographical and would've been banned had the author's father not been so well connected. Praised by Ford Maddox Ford and Frank Harris.
A century later, two are in print. They were not when I first read them. In fact, all nine had been out of print since the early 'thirties. Ten years ago, I played a part in reviving
All Else is Folly as part of Dundurn's Voyageur Classics series.
Winnifred Eaton's
"Cattle" was reissued in 2023 by Invisible Publishing. It was reviewed at the Dusty Bookcase
here back in 2014.
If given the opportunity to bring another back, I'd chose John Murray Gibbon's
Pagan Love. It is the most remarkable, unconventional, and challenging Canadian novel of the decade.
Or is that
They Have Bodies?
I aim to find out.
