An Expo 67 Murder Mystery?

So Long at the Fair

Janet Gregory Vermandel

New York: Dodd, Mead, 1968

186 pages

Canadian publishers really messed up with Expo 67; McClelland & Stewart, Macmillan, Ryerson, and Copp Clarke published nothing related to the fair. Swan, so small a paperback house that it is pretty much forgotten today, sought to cash in with Instant French, its penultimate title.

Meanwhile, newspapers, magazines, and news agents seized the opportunity by publishing guides to the fair. MacLean-Hunter's official guide is by far the most common, followed by Bill Bantey's Expo 67, published by the Montreal Gazette.

American book publishers were far more savvy, giving us a memoir (Expo Summer), a work of pornography (Sexpo '69), and this novel of suspense.

So Long at the Fair was Janet Gregory Vermandel's debut. She shares something with memoirist Eileen Fitzgerald and pornographer Charles E. Fritch in being American. That she actually lived in Montreal sets her apart. The publisher's author bio (right) is one of the most unusual I've ever read.

I like it.

Vermande would go on to write five more novels, most of which were set in Montreal. She eventually returned to the United States and her home town of Buffalo, dying in 2002 at age 79, another victim of Alzheimer's.

The first sentence of So Long at the Fair shook me cold:

"Good-by, Brian."

Brian is narrator Lisa Bentham's ex-fiancé. They'd worked together at a Buffalo advertising agency until office gossip of his affair with a lithe, blonde co-worker reached her ears. Seems everyone knew but her. So Long at the Fair begins with Lisa, all of twenty-two, flying off to Montreal for a fresh start. 

Why Montreal?

Lisa preferred Paris or New York, but her mother did not approve. Montreal was a neat compromise. Mrs Bentham insists that her daughter room with Victoria Lester, niece to a bridge partner, until she finds her footing. And so, Lisa's journey from Buffalo to Montreal ends with a walk through a polished marble lobby lit by crystal chandeliers.

Victoria's apartment is luxurious and spacious – more than enough room for a guest – which is surprising for a woman who does occasional work at a temp agency. She and Lisa have known each other since childhood, but were never quite friends. After some awkwardness, they spend the evening catching up. The next morning Victoria heads off to work, leaving her guest alone to explore a foreign city.

Lisa returns in late afternoon to an empty apartment, waits for Victoria, gives up, makes herself an omelette, and then turns in. She's awoken after midnight by the sound of someone moving about the apartment. When she calls out Victoria's name all goes quiet.

It's not her.

Lisa next sees Victoria at the city morgue.

Maybe New York wasn't such a bad idea, Mrs Bentham.

So Long at the Fair features two murders, an attempted murder, an assault, break-ins, extortion, and various other crimes committed by seven different characters, not all of whom are connected – and yet, Montreal comes off rather well. Vermandel, clearly loved her adopted city, and has her heroine share the love by treating her to evenings out at Altitude 737, La Bonne Femme, and La Reserve in the Windsor Hotel. The Buffalo gal makes her way with surprising ease. Jobs are plentiful. The afternoon Lisa quits her first job, with printer Ross-Fairchild, she's hired as a secretary at the Expo 67 Administration and News Pavilion.

Publisher Dodd, Mead positioned So Long at the Fair as a "story of murder and romance, set against the fabulous background of Montreal's Expo '67." Certainly "background" – as opposed to "backdrop" – was intentional. The novel takes place in January 1967, ending with the fair still three months away. Set during the planning of Expo, it's to Vermandel's credit that she captures something of the excitement that until now I'd read about only in old newspaper and magazines.

Leave it to an American expat.

Trivia: As "Murder at Expo 67," a condensed version appeared in the October 1967 issue of Cosmopolitan (the subject of next week's post). 

Object: A typical Red Badge Mystery in that it is a cheaply produced hardcover. In this case, the boards are blue. The jacket is by Alan Peckolick, best-known for the GM logo.

I purchased my copy earlier this year from a bookseller located in League City, Texas. Price: US11.75.

Access: A few copies are listed online. At US$7.41, the least expensive is described as being in good condition. Seems a bargain.

The most expensive – £31 – is the UK edition published in 1968 by Herbert Jenkins as Murder Most Fair. 

Not sure about the title, but I do prefer its cover to the American.

There has never been a Canadian edition.

There have been two translations, the earliest being the German Kastanien aus dem Feuer (1968), which was followed by the Dutch Het rode paspoort (1969).

Neither cover depicts a scene found in the novel. Of the two, I like Het rode paspoort more, but only because it imagines a Montreal that has never existed.

Sadly, there has never been a French translation.

What is wrong with us?

Related posts:

Summer of a Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name

A McGill Student's Mild Summer of Love

The Little People of Expo 67

A McGill Student's Mild Summer of Love

Expo Summer
Eileen Fitzgerald
Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 1969

Eileen Fitzgerald's Expo Summer began forty-seven years ago – 28 April 1967 – with the opening of the World's Fair. Mine began the very same day. I was four years old, living with my parents and little sister in suburban Montreal; the author was a second-year McGill student who had just moved into a flat in the city's downtown. I'm fairly certain that our paths crossed.

Expo Summer? Fitzgerald's memoir begins with the solstice more than fifty-five days in the future, yet she manages fewer than 163 pages, a good deal of which have to do with events that occurred in March, during which time she lived in residence at the university's Royal Victoria College.

"Bubbly", says the Province. I wonder what other adjectives they used. The Gazette went with "good":

16 August 1969

Eileen Fitzgerald was not of Montreal, but Eastchester, New York. Her writing in Expo Summer suggests a sheltered life lacking in inquisitiveness. I quote from the pages in which the author and her two girlfriends hunt for off-campus accommodation:

We wandered out of the Guy Street station somewhat lost, since at that time our world in Montreal didn't stretch much further west than Mountain Street.

Now, I point out that Guy is only two stops from McGill. Guy Street itself is just eight blocks west of the university campus. The trio find a flat on Mackay, which is invariably referred to – thirty-two times – as "MacKay Street". The Décarie is "DeCarie" and Cedar Avenue is "Cedar Street". The author's flatmates, Lyn and Gate, are just as clueless:

No one knew the exact location of Place Bonaventure except that it was a Metro stop, so we took the Metro from McGill east to the Berri-de Montigny [sic] transfer, and then back west on the other line until we found ourselves in Bonaventure station. Clearly, it was going to be a lively night.

Expo 67 aficionados, of which I am one, will recognize Place Bonaventure as the venue in which François Dallegret held his pre-Expo Super Party, which featured Lothar and the Hand People, Suzanne Verdal, Tiny Tim, and the Blues Project.  Juan Rodriguez wrote a very good piece on the event here, but Eileen Fitzgerald's is much more succinct:

They finally did show up on the roped-off stage, which looked like a little boxing ring rising out of the crowds of teenyboppers, costumed hippies, young sophisticates and just passers-by. But by the time we had tuned in to their sound sufficiently to tune out the steady roar of the hall, they had already finished playing and had hurried toward the periphery of the Salle Bonaventure.

You really can't expect much by way of observation from a person who doesn't know the name of the street on which she lives.

It's always a mistake for a reviewer to criticize a book for not being what he wanted it to be, but  Doubleday did deceive:

A COLLEGE GIRL TELLS US HOW IT WAS AT THE GREATEST WORLD'S FAIR EVER

Expo Summer doesn't have a whole lot to do with Expo 67. Fitzgerald worked there for a bit selling postcards, and she did visit a few pavilions, but this book is more about getting that first apartment, hassles with Hydro Québec, friends crashing on couches and making meals on a budget. I have my own stories, each every bit as interesting as Fitzgerald's – some more! –  but none worth writing down.

She attaches herself to a band called the Service Entrance, I think because she has something going on with one of the guitarists. For a couple of dozen pages I thought this might lead to something interesting. The band shares the bill one night with Tim Buckley at the New Penelope, but it ends up as their only Montreal gig. Author and guitarist don't so much as kiss.

Still, it's a memorable summer:

A Swiss chocolate ice cream bar stood right across the way from a Brazilian counter where they sold flavors of sherbet which no one who wasn't a Brazilian had ever heard of before, and we couldn't decide what to get, or forget them all and have Dutch ice cream. Seymour had black raspberry, and I had banana, and Lyn had pineapple rum. Mat volunteered to try the Dutch chocolate across the way. And they all were great.

I too ate sherbet at Expo, and though four, had tasted pineapple rum.

The critics rave:

Young Miss Fitzgerald is a student at McGill University and golly, didn't she just practically drool to be in Montreal at Expo time. With her friends Lindsay (the moneyed one) and Gate (no one ever called her Mary) Eileen shares an apartment, works off and on at an Expo postcard palace, and pals with Mat, Josh, Eric, etc., students who were hoping to make a go with their electric rock group, the Service Entrance. Discouragement, and Mat cuts out, but there's a zoomy offer at the close and Mat returns. An occasional cut-up and jolly jape — sneaking into Labyrinth; copping a swim in an alien pool by hopping a rooftop; and the gosh-awful day when Lindsay's mother visits and discovers a boy or two in the bedroom (all innocent as a cub den). Eileen, bless her busy little pen, is undoubtedly the only member of her generation who admits to putting on a "gay summer frock." Dull as dishwater and pure as the drivelling snow.

— Kirkus, 3 July 1969

About the author:

A bonus: Not by Suzanne Verdal, but about her.

Object and Access: A slim hardcover in black and brown boards, my Fine first edition copy was bought in January from a bookseller in Woodbury, New York. At US$20, I did well. As of this writing, just one first edition – price-clipped, Near Fine – is listed for sale online (C$25). After that, you're left with a lone book club edition (US$15), and two less than pristine copies of the uncommon Curtis paperback (C$4 and US$4 – take your pick).

Toronto has the only public library to carry a copy. Eleven of our university libraries come through. Expo Summer is not to be found at  the author's alma mater.

Related post:

The Little People of Expo 67

Related plea:

All these years later, I'm still looking for a copy of Winston Smith's Sexpo '69 (North Hollywood: Brandon House, 1969).

C'mon, someone's gotta have a copy.

In Praise of Older Women

Love Affair with a Cougar

Lyn Hancock

Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 1978

Related post:

To the Lighthouse!