Recognizing Norman Levine

The new issue of Canadian Notes & Queries landed in my mail box on Friday – a few days late owing, I suspect, to an ill-tempered sorting machine.

My heart sank... until I discovered that everything had arrived intact. Now I boast: "officially repaired". How special is that!

I always look forward to Canadian Notes & Queries, but this issue was more eagerly anticipated than most. Its focus is Norman Levine, a writer who has never received anything close to the attention he deserves. Happily, this issue goes some way in redressing the deficit, with:

"Kaddish (A Sketch Towards a Portrait of Norman Levine)"
by John Metcalf
"All the Heart is in the Things: Mapping Levine-land" by Cynthia Flood
"Chasing Norman: A Book-collector's Memoir" by Philip Fernandez
"Remembering Norman Forgetting" by T.F. Rigelhof
"Fiction, Faction, Autobiography: Norman Levine at McGill University, 1946-1949" by Robert H. Michel

and

Ethan Rilly's adaptation of Canada Made Me, episode six in his "The North Wing: Selections from the Lost Library of CanLit Graphic Novels"

Much more modest, my contribution covers correspondence between Levine, Jack McClelland and Putnum's John Huntington relating to Canada Made Me.

Further riches are found in a new short story by Lynn Coady, poetry by Mathew Henderson and a piece of creative non-fiction by my old pal Andrew Steinmetz.

You'll also find my review of Fraser Sutherland's Lost Passport: The Life and Words of Edward Lacey.

And finally, there's this issue's limited edition collectable, Signal to Noise, an excerpt from C.P. Boyko's forthcoming collection Psychology and Other Stories.

My copy is number 159.

The collectables are only for those with subscriptions.

You know you want one.

Here's the link.