S is for Short Story

The Crooked Golfers
Frank L. Packard

I know of 182 short stories by Frank L. Packard, but there could be twice that number. Here one month, gone the next, they appeared in the magazines of his day, most never to be republished. Even the small percentage that found second life in books are decades gone – which makes The Crooked Golfers all the more special. A chapbook, it features a previously unknown short story discovered by Packard scholar JC Byers at Library and Archives Canada.

Evidence indicates that "The Crooked Golfers" was written late in life… perhaps very late; Packard was not in the habit of dating his work. Appended to the typescript is a note dated 4 April 1942, but the hand is not his, the author having died nearly seven weeks earlier.

It would seem that efforts to sell the short story failed. If true, this says something about the changing market because "The Crooked Golfers" is typical of the writing that brought this son of Lachine riches through the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s. Its characters would've been familiar to Packard's readers. The first we meet is Milord, a criminal mastermind who moves with equal ease amongst the gentry and downtrodden:

Milord was a linguist. He spoke two languages – English and East Side – both fluently. By reason of long arduous training his English was charming, his voice cultured, a delight to his auditors; but East Side was his native tongue…

Partner in crime Nippy shares nothing of Milord's sophistication and affectation, but he is a crack hand a safe cracking. Their victim is Josiah P. Heatherington, he of the New York Heatheringtons, who "unmoved by the upward march of fashion in the general direction of Riverside Drive, still lived, as his fathers had lived before him, in one of the aristocratic mansions on Washington Square."

Nippy and Milord gain access to Heatherington's home by way of a basement window and have just opened the library wall safe when footsteps are heard in the hallway. Milord extinguishes his flashlight, leaving Nippy to scoop out the contents in darkness. Their escape is made easier by the fact that Josiah P. Heatherington and companion are "pleasantly 'lit up'" on "illicit liquor". True professionals, the criminal pair run madly off in all directions, then meet up at a unsavoury speak-easy. That Nippy has the loot proves there is honour among thieves.

The close call is the closest yet, causing Milord to again consider his future:

   "Time to quit," said Milord laconically.
   "Oh!" ejaculated Nippy – and grinned. "It listens like I heard dat before."
   "You have," returned Milord quietly; "but you've heard it for keeps this time. And it isn't only just because I'm afraid of getting caught sooner or later, either, though to-night has sort of forced a showdown. All my life I've wanted to associate with gentlemen and be one of them myself. I'm going to now – and so are you."

Unsigned certificates to the Wallapootimie Golf Club in hand, stolen from Josiah P. Heatherington's wall safe, the pair travel to Florida intending to make themselves over as honest gentlemen. Though that which transpires will come as a shock to readers unfamiliar with the sport, it is by parts fun, funny, and very much in keeping with the sense of morality that runs through Packard's work.

The Crooked Golfers serves as a good introduction to Packard's work. The size of same I leave for JC Byers to discover.

There be riches. Milord would tell you as much.

Object and Access: A 34pp stapled chapbook featuring the short story with a handy chronological listing of Packard's thirty-one books. Copies were handed out gratis at Mr Byers' talk on Packard at the February 2013 meeting of the Ottawa Book Collectors. I've yet to see any come up for sale.

Related post:

A Post-Victorian Christmas (w/ Frank L. Packard)

The Poetic David Montrose

From Ottawa comes a new chapbook of hard-boiled epigrams drawn from the writings of one of our finest noir writers. The words this time belong to David Montrose, whose three Russell Teed mysteries – The Crime on Cote de Neiges, Murder Over Dorval, The Body on Mount Royal – were the first reissues in the Véhicule Press Ricochet Books series.

A limited edition of 25 copies, it follows last year's In The Darkness. Both are the work of J.C. Byers, who has produced what are by far the most elegant treatments of Canadian noir. An Easy Place to Die was printed with a Vandercook SP-15 press on St Armand Old Master, and features fourteen epigrams. My favourite comes from Murder Over Dorval, Montrose's second novel:

     She was a water dryad,
     And she came
     Dripping crystal sparks of light
     From the lake,
     And it was getting brighter,
     And that was good.

Montrealers will appreciate this:

     I couldn't sleep.
          Maybe
          because of the heat.
     It was hotter than hell.
     It was hotter than a fundamentalist
          thinks hell is.
     It was hotter than it had ever been
          before anywhere else in the world.
     It was almost as hot
          as it had been
          in Montreal
          last August.

Also included is a brief biography of David Montrose – Charles Ross Graham – in which Mr Byers considers Teed's misadventures:

Over the course of three novels Russell Teed's investigations taint him as a result of his contact with the criminal underworld. By the time the stories have ended he has been beaten, often, humiliated, and robbed. He has also seen strangers, friends, and lovers killed. He has nearly been killed and he himself has killed more than once, sometimes quite viciously.

"A Private Dick's Disturbing Descent into Darkness", I titled my piece on Murder Over Dorval. As the novels progress, the once upstanding McGill grad fairly comes apart. "The bottle becomes a refuge and it is easy to image Teed disappearing into it", writes J.C. Byers. "Indeed, one can hardly imagine an alternate fate."

Too right. He's done.

Those wishing to obtain copies of An Easy Place To Die may contact the publisher through Wollamshram's Blog.

Update: Back from the Ottawa Small Press Book Fair, Cameron Anstee has posted more photos of An Easy Place To Die. "My favourite purchase of the fair," says he.

Related post:

The Poetic Martin Brett

Faith, Philanthropies and Verse for Air Raid Victims

Montreal in Verse:
     An Anthology of English Poetry by Montreal Poets
[Leo Cox, ed]
[Montreal]: Writers of the Poetry Group of the Canadian Authors Association, Montreal Branch, [1942]

A fundraiser in aid of the Queen's Canadian Fund for Air-raid Victims in Britain, this little chapbook of was published sixty years ago this month. Just in time for Christmas.

The Second World War looms large in these pages, but is dwarfed by Mount Royal.

(cliquez pour agrandir)

Thirty-two poets contribute thirty-two poems, and the hill that gives Montreal its name features in nearly half. I think the explanation may be found in the contributors' addresses. You won't find A.J.M. Smith, A.M. Klein or Leo Kennedy in these 48 pages, with few exceptions this is the verse of the city's privileged. And of this group, no one enjoyed greater status and comfort than Amy Redpath Roddick, whose family names kick off poetess Mildred Low's contribution, "Children of the McGill Campus":

Roddick and Redpath and old McGill,
Who, being dead, are living still,
How does it meet your kind intent
The way your benefice is spent?

Lady Roddick herself can't avoid same:

Six decades on, it's impossible to read this verse without thinking of F.R. Scott's "The Canadian Authors Meet" and the poets "measured for their faith and philanthropics". The good folks at Poetry Quebec have made a similar observation. That said, I'm not about to throw Montreal in Verse on the scrap heap. If anything, it reminds me of how much there is to explore of our literary past. Contributors Stella M. Bainbridge, Lily E.F. Barry, Warwick Chipman, Leo Cox, Lorraine Noel Finley, John Murray Gibbon, Christine L. Henderson, A. Beatrice Hickson, W.J King, Alice M.S. Lighthall, William D. Lighthall, Mildred Low, Margaret Furness MacLeod, Martha Martin, Dorothy Sproule, Jean Percival Waddell, Robert Stanley Weir and Margaret Ross Woods all had titles to their names, but I've yet to pick up even one of them.

Researching these names I discover that John Murray Gibbon once wrote a universally praised, yet entirely forgotten novel entitled Pagan Love (1922). Then there's R. Henry Mainer, whose Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road (1908) centres on a hard-as-nails widowed Upper Canadian tavern owner.

The most intriguing is A. Beatrice Hickson, whom Canada's Early Women Writers tells us not only founded and ran a school for "misdirected and wayward" girls, but "painted figurines which were unique in design and costume and whose popularity outran her ability to produce them."

In language and theme, Miss Hickson – she never married – stands apart from her polite and proper fellow poets:

Before reading this slim volume of verse I'd never heard of Leo Cox, who wrote these charitable lines in his Editor's Note:

As in all anthologies, quality and style vary considerably, but all the pieces possess in common a strong love of Montreal, of her history and infinite charm. These verses are a loving tribute from sensitive citizens.

Apparently Macmillan published a collection of Cox's verse in 1941. Must track it down. I'll pass on his  Story of the Mount Stephen Club.

Object: A nicely produced, staple-bound chapbook in red paper wraps, this copy comes to me from my father. The pencilled correction to Amy Redpath Roddick's poem is in an unknown hand. Dare I hope that it is the work of Lady Roddick herself?

The 1 May 1943 edition of the Gazette reports that nearly one thousand copies of Montreal in Verse had been sold, contributing $200 to the Queen's Canadian Fund. The selling price was 25¢.

Access: Not found in even one of our public libraries – those wishing to borrow a copy should look to our universities. Two copies are currently listed for sale online, the most expensive of which ($45) is dedicated and signed by contributor Jean Percival Waddell.

The Poetic Martin Brett

Cast your eyes on what is surely the most elegant Douglas Sanderson item. Printed with a Vandercook SP-15 press on St. Armand Old Master Rideau paper, In The Darkness is the work of J.C. Byers.

Mr Byers gives us extracts from four of Sanderson's Martin Brett novels "presented so as to highlight the poetic elements of noir novels."

The above, drawn from the opening of Hot Freeze, is a favourite, but the one that really got to me comes from The Darker Traffic:

This was a night
When I needed a friend,
In case I opened my eyes
In the darkness
And had nothing
     intimate and
     familiar and
     trivial
To talk about,
To make me stop
     remembering
That the little kid
With the big eyes
Was dead.

In The Darkness was produced in an edition of twenty numbered copies. I'm told that this is just the first in a series and that the hard boiled epigrams of David Montrose are next.

Those hoping to add a copy to their library can contact J.C. Byers through Wollamshram's Blog.

The photographs do not do it justice.

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.

The Retired Reverend King on Abolishing Death

A new Canadian Notes and Queries arrives bringing another Dusty Bookcase sur papier. This one, a bit longer than usual, focuses on that old odd bird Basil King's spiritualism.  Eternally fascinating.

Seth's superhero cover compliments an appreciation of Alvin Schwartz by Devon Code, my old dining parter Shaena Lambert contributes a new short story and Michel Basilières reviews The Sister Brothers. Steven W. Beattie, Marc Bell, Alex Boyd, Michael Bryson, Mark Callanan, Kerry Clare, Emily Donaldson, Aaron Gilbreath, Alex Good, Philip Marchand, John Martz, David Mason, K.D. Miller, Tara Murphy, Shane Nelson, Tina Northrup, Patricia Robertson, Christian Schumann, Kenneth Sherman, Zachariah Wells and Nathan Whitlock add to the goodness. But let me draw attention to Mike Barnes' contributions: an essay and The Reasonable Ogre, a Biblioasis chapbook featuring a new short story with illustrations by Segbingway.

Produced in an edition of 450 copies as a collectible for subscribers of CNQ. My copy's #149.

Information on subscriptions to Canadian Notes & Queries can be found here.