Television Man is Crazy

The one hundred and twelfth issue of Canadian Notes & Queries arrived in our rural mailbox yesterday afternoon. A beautiful thing, wrapped in a cover by Seth, I've been dipping in and out. I read Michael Holmes' remembrance of Steven Heighton first.

It was followed by Ken Norris's interview with Bruce Whiteman.

This evening, I'll be reading 'My Year of Mycorrhizal Thinking' by Ariel Gordon, whose daughter shares something with my own as a fan of Hannibal. Ariel, her daughter, and mine, will appreciate this photo taken in our kitchen not eight days ago.

This issue's Dusty Bookcase column focuses on Jeann Beattie's Behold the Hour (1959), which in my opinion ranks with Ralph Allen's The Chartered Libertine (1954) as one of the two best novels set early days of Canadian television.  

I'm not aware of a third.

Northrop Frye praised Allen's novel. Do I praise Beattie's?

Read and find out! Subscriptions can be purchased through this link.

Other contributors to this issue include:

Carolyn Bennett

James Cairns

Andreae Callana

Preeti Kaur Dhaliwai

Stephen Fowler

Susan Glickman

Alex Good

Brett Josef Griubisic

Graeme Hunter

Kate Kennedy

Rohan Maitzen

Darcy Mason

David Mason

Roderock Moody-Corbett

Shani Mootoo

Ian Clay Sewall

Rudrapiya Rathmore

Richard Sanger

Natalie Southworth

Kevin Sprout

Did I mention subscriptions can be purchased through this link?

Related post:

Baseball in Panties, of Course
An Old Novel of Misspent Youth

The Dusty Bookcase: Ten Years, 100 Titles

The Dusty Bookcase turns ten today. How is that possible? What was meant to be a six-year journey through the obscure and forgotten titles in my library has turned into something of a career. Is "career" the right word? This blog doesn't pay the bills, but it has resulted in a book, a regular column in Canadian Notes & Queries, and the odd gig with other magazines. It's also responsible, in part, for my position as Series Editor of the Véhicule Press Ricochet Books imprint.

True to the plan, I pulled the plug on this blog the day after The Dusty Bookcase turned six... only to be coaxed back by friends. I was easily swayed. I've enjoyed my time here; The Dusty Bookcase has brought much more than work, and has never seemed like work.

Though I don't see an end to The Dusty Bookcase, posts will be less frequent this year. I owe my publisher two books – and, as they'll pay at least a few bills, I aim to deliver the first. Still, let's see if I can't make it through these:

For this tenth anniversary, I've put together a list of the one hundred books that have brought the most enjoyment on this journey. The very best feature, as do the very worst. And so, Ralph Allen's cutting satire The Chartered Libertine (praised by Northrop Frye) is followed by two of Sol Allen's gynaecologist novels, which are in turn followed by the paranoid delusions of lying, hate-filled bigot J.V. Andrew. What fun!

All are recommended reading. You can't go wrong.

Hey, wasn't blogging supposed to be dead by now?

All Else is Folly - Peregrine Acland (1929)

Love is a Long Shot - Ted Allan (1949)

For Maimie's Sake - Grant Allen (1886)

The Devil's Die - Grant Allen (1888)

What's Bred in the Bone - Grant Allen (1891)

Michael's Crag - Grant Allen (1893)

The British Barbarians - Grant Allen (1895)

Under Sealed Orders - Grant Allen (1896)

Hilda Wade - Grant Allen (1900)

The Chartered Libertine - Ralph Allen (1954)

Toronto Doctor - Sol Allen (1949)
The Gynecologist - Sol Allen (1965)

Bilingual Today, French Tomorrow - J.V. Andrew (1977)

Firebrand - Rosemary Aubert (1986)

Revenge! - Robert Barr (1896)

The Unchanging East - Robert Barr (1900)
The Triumphs of Eugène Valmont - Robert Barr (1912)

Similia Similibus - Ulric Barthe (1916)
Under the Hill - Aubrey Beardsley and John Glassco (1959)
The Pyx - John Buell (1959)
Four Days - John Buell (1962)

A Lot to Make Up For - John Buell (1990)

Mr. Ames Against Time - Philip Child (1949)
Murder Without Regret - E. Louise Cushing (1954)

Soft to the Touch - Clark W. Dailey (1949)
The Four Jameses - William Arthur Deacon (1927)
The Measure of a Man - Norman Duncan (1911)

Marion - Winnifred Eaton (1916)

"Cattle" - Winnifred Eaton (1923)

I Hate You to Death - Keith Edgar (1944)

The Midnight Queen - May Agnes Fleming (1863)
Victoria - May Agnes Fleming (1863)

Present Reckoning - Hugh Garner (1951)
The English Governess - John Glassco (1960)
Erres boréales - Armand Grenier (1944)
Everyday Children - Edith Lelean Groves (1932)

This Was Joanna - Danny Halperin (1949)
The Door Between - Danny Halperin (1950)
The Last Canadian - William C. Heine (1974)
Dale of the Mounted: Atlantic Assignment - Joe Holliday (1956)

Flee the Night in Anger - Louis Kaufman (1952)
No Tears for Goldie - Thomas P. Kelley (1950)
The Broken Trail - George W. Kerby (1909)
The Wild Olive - Basil King (1910)
The Abolishing of Death - Basil King (1919)
The Thread of Flame - Basil King (1920)
The Empty Sack - Basil King (1921)
The Happy Isles - Basil King (1923)

Dust Over the City - André Langevin (1953)
Orphan Street - André Langevin (1974)
Behind the Beyond - Stephen Leacock (1913)
The Hohenzollerns in America - Stephen Leacock (1919)
The Town Below - Roger Lemelin (1944)
The Plouffe Family - Roger Lemelin (1948)
In Quest of Splendour - Roger Lemelin (1953)
The Happy Hairdresser - Nicholas Loupos (1973)
Young Canada Boys With the S.O.S. on the Frontier -
Harold C. Lowrey (1918)

The Land of Afternoon - Madge Macbeth (1924)
Up the Hill and Over - Isabel Ecclestone Mackay (1917)
Blencarrow - Isabel Ecclestone Mackay (1926)
Fasting Friar - Edward McCourt (1963)
Shadow on the Hearth - Judith Merril (1950)
The Three Roads - Kenneth Millar (1948)
Wall of Eyes - Margaret Millar (1953)
The Iron Gates - Margaret Millar (1945)
Do Evil in Return - Margaret Millar (1950)
Rose's Last Summer - Margaret Millar (1952)
Vanish in an Instant - Margaret Millar (1952)
Wives and Lovers - Margaret Millar (1954)
Beast in View - Margaret Millar (1955)
An Air That Kills  - Margaret Millar (1957)
The Fiend - Margaret Millar (1964)
Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk - Maria Monk (1836)
Murder Over Dorval - David Montrose (1952)
The Body on Mount Royal - David Montrose (1953)
Gambling with Fire - David Montrose (1969)
Wreath for a Redhead - Brian Moore (1951)
Intent to Kill - Brian Moore (1956)
Murder in Majorca - Brian Moore (1957)

The Long November - James Benson Nablo (1946)

The Damned and the Destroyed - Kenneth Orvis (1962)

The Miracle Man - Frank L. Packard (1914)
Confessions of a Bank Swindler - Lucius A. Parmalee (1968)
The Canada Doctor - Clay Perry and John L.E. Pell (1933)
Adopted Derelicts - Bluebell S. Phillips (1957)

He Will Return - Helen Dickson Reynolds (1959)
A Stranger and Afraid - Marika Robert (1964)
Poems - Richard Rohmer (1980)
Death by Deficit - Richard Rohmer (1995)

Dark Passions Subdue - Douglas Sanderson (1952)
Hot Freeze - Douglas Sanderson (1954)
The Darker Traffic - Douglas Sanderson (1954)
Night of the Horns - Douglas Sanderson (1958)
Catch a Fallen Starlet - Douglas Sanderson (1960)
The Hidden Places - Bertrand W. Sinclair (1922)
I Lost It All in Montreal - Donna Steinberg (1983)
The Wine of Life - Arthur Stringer (1921)

For My Country - Jules Paul Tardivel (1895)

The Keys of My Prison - Frances Shelley Wees (1956)
Arming for Armageddon - John Wesley White (1983)

Related posts:

Fin
The Dusty Bookcase at 1000

'Snainef spelled backwards is Fenians'

The Passionate Invaders

John Clare

New York: Doubleday, 1965

Had it not been for the nineteenth-century English poet John Clare, I doubt that I would've noticed this novel, found several weeks ago in a London thrift store. The Canadian John Clare meant nothing to me, though he did once serve as editor for a number of Toronto-based periodicals. Here he is in a 1948 advert for Maclean's:

The Ottawa Citizen, 18 February 1948

Just how well Clare practiced his precepts in the short story format I cannot say – there is no collection – but this, his first and only novel, is a great disappointment. Here I admit that I was hoping for another forgotten, entertaining satire like The Chartered Libertine by Ralph Allen (top row, first from the left). Instead, what I encountered was a slight, self-indulgent work. Oh, but the cover held such promise!

All centres on Magnus Dillon, a wise-cracking Toronto magazine editor who is assigned to track down "The Snainef", a group of Canadian terrorists intent on invading the United States. Truth be told, he barely tries. Despite great pressure from his boss, Dillon spends most of his time drinking and thinking about the past.

There's no suspense in this "SATIRIC, RICHLY COMIC SUSPENSE NOVEL"; the author doesn't want us on the edge of our seats, he'd rather we sit back as he recounts the boyish pranks Dillon pulled during his stint in the RCAF. (Clare served as a flight lieutenant during the Second World War.) There's also a lengthy history of our hero's favourite watering hole, an inconsequential four-page letter from a friend, and Dillon's rather dry attempts to explain Canada and Canadians to any and all Americans he encounters. The greater part of The Passionate Invaders passes before protagonist and reader so much as encounter the Snainef.

Throughout it all, the prose coughs, sputters and chokes. Witness the beginning of chapter two:

Gus had driven half the distance from his office to the Carfleet house (he was going to meet his wife at the party – she was diving out with a friend), when it occurred to him that Charlie Carfleet might well be a likely suspect after all.

The author told Scott Young (top row, second from the right) that Doubleday accepted his novel "on sight". Clare further claimed that the publisher asked for no changes: "They didn't lay a glove on it."

Shame, really.

An aside: I can't help but feel that the folks down in New York were hoping for a success along the lines of Leonard Wibberley's The Mouse that Roared and its many spinoffs.

Trivia: The Passionate Invaders cover art is by the late Eldon Dedini, best remembered for his New Yorker and Playboy cartoons.

Object and Access: Found in public libraries across the United States, though only that belonging to the City of Toronto serves north of the border. Rob Ford might just put an end to that. Those looking to purchase this, the first and only edition, will find that Very Good copies start at US$8. Two booksellers from an alternate universe are asking US$75 and US$99 respectively.

Jack Kent Cooke in Extra Innings

Looking into The Chartered Libertine I was surprised – shocked – to find that The Canadian Encyclopedia has no entry on Jack Kent Cooke. In fact, Mel Hurtig's baby contains not even a passing mention of the man. What gives? Yes, he left Canada in 1960... sure, he became an American citizen... but Cooke was a Hamilton boy born and bred. Self-made, before heading south he'd come to own the most listened to radio station in Canada. His Triple-A Toronto Maple Leafs led the International League in attendence. What's more, bucking stereotype, this high school drop-out turned Saturday Night into the best Canadian literary magazine of its day. Robertson Davies was one of his hires.

So, why no entry? Cooke underwrote the first Ali/Fraser fight, built the Los Angeles Forum with his own money and owned of the Lakers, the Kings and the Redskins. I mean, c'mon, the man bought the Chrysler Building.

In Toronto, Cooke was a very powerful man; Ralph Allen, who relied on print media for his livelihood, was brave in taking him on. The reader of 1954 would've had no problem in identifying Cooke as the inspiration for Garfield Smith. Cooke owned CKEY, Smith owns CNOTE; Cooke made the Maple Leafs a success with gimmicks that are similar to those used to sell the Queens d'Amour. Then there are the lesser known things; like his model, Smith has an enviable library and an appreciation of fine art.

Reviewing The Chartered Libertine in the Globe and Mail, William Arthur Deacon displayed a certain caution, complimenting Allen on his use of "imaginary characters". The novel itself features no disclaimer – you know the type: "...any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental." Allen covers himself by having Smith twice mention Cooke as a talented business rival. He also provides no glimpse of Smith's personal life... that is, until the very end of the novel, when he marries between innings in a game against the Cincinnati Barmaids. The bride, Queen d'Amour Honeybear Rodney, served as Smith's male assistant before agreeing to change sex as a publicity stunt to help sell tickets.

Barbara Jean Carnegie Cooke and Jack Kent Cooke, Maple Leaf Park, Toronto, c. 1954

Cooke's own marriages were only a touch more conventional. Where The Canadian Encyclopedia is silent, Wikipedia steps in. The entry is awkward and repetitive, but the facts are spot on:

Cooke's first marriage, his longest, lasted 45 years. He and Barbara Jean Carnegie married in 1934, and were divorced in 1979. Carnegie was awarded what was then the largest divorce settlement in history - $42 million. The presiding judge during the bench trial was Joseph Wapner, who later became famous as the judge on television's The People's Court. Cooke and Carnegie had two sons: John Kent Cooke and Ralph Kent Cooke.

Cooke's second marriage, to Jeanne Maxwell, lasted only 10 months.

Cooke's third marriage, to Suzanne Elizabeth Martin, was even shorter: 73 days. During that brief marriage Martin, age 31, gave birth to a baby girl whom the couple named Jacqueline Kent Cooke. At the time of Jacqueline's birth, Cooke, her father (age 74), was 43 years older than Martin (age 31). Martin in the divorce action sought $15 million from Cooke.

Following Cooke's death, it was revealed that his final wife, Marlene Ramallo Chalmers - a former drug runner from Bolivian who was 40 years his junior - had been cut out of his will. Cooke and Chambers had married in 1990, divorced in 1993 (after she made headlines in May 1992 by accidentally shooting herself in the finger and in September 1993 by driving drunk in Georgetown with a man pounding on the hood of her Jaguar convertible), and remarried in 1995. Chambers filed suit against Cooke's estate and reportedly received $20 million in a settlement reached about a year after Cook's death.

To the good folks at The Canadian Encyclopedia: Please don't make me have to turn to Wikipedia again.

Related post:

Baseball in Panties, of Course

Baseball in Panties, of Course

The Chartered Libertine

Ralph Allen

Toronto: Macmillan, 1954

As a young man I placed Ralph Allen with Thomas B. Costain and Thomas H. Raddall; Canadian writers whose book club editions choked church bazaars, thrift stores and library sales. Raddall, I would learn, was a perfectly fine writer; The Nymph and the Lamp was one of the more enjoyable novels read during my undistinguished university years. And Costain? Well, I could never get through more than a few pages. I didn't touch Allen, which is a pity because The Chartered Libertine is one of the cleverest satirical novels to have come out of this country

Timely and timeless, it concerns attacks on the CBC and its struggle for survival. At the centre is businessman Garfield Smith, "sole owner and president of radio station CNOTE, part owner and business manager of the Toronto Daily Guardian, chief debentures holder and Editor Emeritus of True Blue Revelations Magazine, and non-stockholding past chairman of the board of the rather disappointing Drive-in Dentistry Inc." Smith's newest acquisition is a failing women's softball franchise called the Swansea Lady Slugerettes. He brings the team to Toronto, renames it the Queens d'Amour and clothes the players in new uniforms consisting of "scarlet bodices and long opalescent pantaloons".

No fan of public broadcasting, Smith has been content to limit his attacks to station identification: "This is CNOTE, a station that is listened to and makes money." The trouble begins after the CBC refuses his cash offer to air Queens d'Amour games in place of cultural programming. Working under cover of anonymity he sets out to destroy the broadcaster through the League for the Incorporation of Godly and Humanistic Training (LIGHT), folks who don't much care for Shaw and take great objection to mention of unwed mothers on the radio.

The Globe and Mail, 29 May 1954

There's a good deal of noise, but no culture war. With an eye on the polls, the Conservative-Liberal PM orders the crown corporation sold, thus outmaneuvering the Liberal-Conservative leader who had always hoped to do just that... not that he'd ever let on.

You see, he had a hidden agenda.

Trivia: Robert Fulford, amongst others, has identified the model for Garfield Smith as Jack Kent Cooke.

Object: A nicely bound hardcover, it belonged to my father, a CBC employee.

Access: Easy enough to find in our university libraries. As far as I've been able to determine, there was just one Macmillan printing, and no paperback edition. The book was also published in the United States by St. Martin's – one wonders what American readers made of all that stuff about the CBC and Canadian party poltics. No surprise, I suppose, that one Yankee bookseller is selling the book as a "different kind of baseball novel". There are a few Very Good copies currently listed online in the C$15 to C$20 range. Of these, the real gem is one signed by blurb contributor Northrop Frye. And at only US$19.95! Then we have the sad example of an Ottawa bookseller who asks US$100 – four times more than anyone else – for a jacket-less copy with previous owner's signature. Priced fairly only if that previous owner was Jack Kent Cooke... and features his annotations.

Related post: Jack Kent Cooke in Extra Innings