P.E.T: Pierre Elliott Trudeau and his unearthly adventures Jude Waples New York: Avon, 1983 93 pages
E.T. was the summer blockbuster of 1982. I saw it on my twentieth birthday.
Most embarrassing.
At twenty, Pierre Trudeau was very nearly the only prime minister I'd ever known. He assumed the office when I was in kindergarten and stepped down when I was in university, that long stretch being interrupted by 273 days of Joe Clark.
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden Michelle Le Grand and Allison Fay Don Mills: Greywood, 1972
P.E.T. is very much a departure in that it relies on illustrations and actual quotations. The concept is that Pierre Elliott Trudeau is an extra-terrestrial or perhaps one of a race of extra-terrestrials who has/have played havoc throughout the centuries.
I read the last image as a nod to Stanley Burke and Roy Peterson. Those who were twenty or older in the summer of '82 will remember.
Frog Fables & Beaver Tales Stanley Burke and Roy Peterson Toronto: J Lewis & Samuel, 1973
The odd placement of Parliament Hill aside, most striking is the near-absence of humour; it's more mean-spirited than anything.
That's meant to be Margaret Trudeau to the right of Joe Clark.
According to the 26 May 1983 edition of the Ottawa Citizen, Jude Waples was provided the quotations, and found them "scary." "I was careful to make sure none of the quotations weren't used out of context," she told journalist Kathleen Walker.
I'm not convinced, though given current times, I found this one particularly interesting.
Well, the man did attend the London School of Economics.
Like Waples' monster, P.E.T. is an awkward thing. Not all the quotes Avon provided belong to Trudeau. Here Margaret Trudeau's words are given to a horse:
Is it quibbling to point out that some of the quotations are inaccurate?
Perhaps.
There's no way P.E.T. wasn't a rush job. As exploitation product goes, I like it just as much as this strange Montreal MusicWorks single, which somehow went gold in Canada:
P.E.T. isn't quite so memorable, but is it easier on the ears.
Full disclosure: I voted Liberal in 1988. Not sure about 1997.
Object and Access: A slim, trade-sized paperback. Purchased last year for for US$12, the old World's Biggest Bookstore price sticker was a nice surprise. The five copies currently listed for sale online range in price from US$7.99 to US$115.00. Condition is not a factor. I recommend the copy going for US$7.99.
The Library of Parliament, Library and Archives Canada, Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, and five of our university libraries hold copies.
The Black Donnellys Thomas P. Kelley Toronto: Harlequin, 1962 158 pages
Oh you who hail from Ontario Know the tale of the Donnellys Oh Died at the hands of a mob that night Every child and man by the oil torch light — Steve Earle, 'Justice in Ontario' (2002)
Because I hail from Quebec that I didn't know much about the Donnellys until well into adulthood. My introduction came through a work colleague when I was living in Toronto. Together, we made up a very small department in a very large book retailer – so large that it had its own publishing arm.
We were it.
After a few months working together, he suggested we reprint Orlo Miller's The Donnellys Must Die.I nodded in agreement, though Miller meant nothing to me, and I'd never heard of the book. The new edition of The Donnellys Must Diewe ushered back into print sold twelve thousand copies in twelve weeks. Its success led us to consider reviving Miller's next book, Death to the Donnellys. We joked about commissioning a third book to be titled Die, Donnellys, Die!
What Steve Earle refers to as "the tale of the Donnellys" is infused with bloodshed of a sort that we Canadians like to think of as foreign. It begins with the 1842 arrival of Irish farming couple James and Johannah Donnelly in what is today Lucan, Ontario. They had with them a son, who had been named after his father. Six more boys and a daughter would follow, all born on Canadian soil their parents had cleared. The respective births were punctuated by violence and murder. First to be killed was neighbour Patrick Farrell – "John Farrell," according to Kelley – whom patriarch James hit on the head with a handspike. The murderer then hid in the woods, and dared work his fields disguised in his wife's frocks:
Johannah was almost as tall and heavy as her husband; appareled in her clothes, Donnelly was taken for her by those traveling the road and seeing him in the fields, and he was able to get in the seeding. Later, still dressed in women's clothing, he brought in the crops, working with his sons, and did the fall plowing.
Murder by handspike aside, this episode is the lightest part of the Donnelly story. Kelley doesn't do as much with it as I thought he might, though he does go for laughs here and there throughout the book. Poor Johanna receives the brunt:
She looked like and should've been a man; her sex undoubtably robbing the bare-knuckle prize ring of a prospective champion. In later years she sprouted a miniature Vandyke, wore red flannels, and told of never having been "much of a beauty." Her picture proves the words to be an understatement.
In Kelley's account, the matriarch directed many of the misdeeds attributed to her offspring. Beginning in 1855, various members of the Donnelly family were charged with larceny, robbery, assault, and attempted murder, amongst other crimes. The events that most troubled this reader concerned animal mutilation. It all came to an end on February 4, 1880, when a mob descended on the Donnelly farmhouse, beat its residents to death, and set the building alight. They then moved on to the home of second son William Donnelly, where they killed third son, John Donnelly.
Steve Earle is wrong. Not every child and man died that night. There was a survivor in John O'Connor, a hired farm boy, who hid under a bed when the mob broke in. No doubt that mob would've murdered him, too, just as they did Bridget Donnelly, James' twenty-two year-old niece, who was newly arrived from Ireland. No one was ever convicted of the slaughter.
That Kelley records John O'Connor's surname as "Connor" is typical. He made his living as a speedy magazine and paperback writer. He had a reputation as a man who could be relied upon to fill pages in a pinch. The Kelley technique is on full display in this passage:
The writer first heard of the Donnelly feud – bits of it, at least – more than twenty years ago when travelling around the Lucan area. Twenty at the time – ah, my lost youth – the history of Lucan and its violences of bygone years did not interest him. A pair of blue eyes in the nearby village of Exeter, did. Eventually marrying the owner of the eyes, and as time went on, learning more of the feud, it became apparent at last, however, that mere hearsay, a thorough knowledge of the Lucan district or even the tales of oldtimers, would not be enough to write the true story of the Donnellys. Seemingly endless hours of research were and did become necessary – the reading of old files, old newspapers, police and court records, etc.
It's unlikely that the seemingly endless hours Kelley spent researching the Donnellys were many, but they were lucrative. They resulted in "The Donnelly Feud," a 1947 article written for New Liberty Magazine.It was reprinted in his book Famous Canadian Crimes (Toronto: Collins White Circle, 1949) and then reworked as "The Terrible Donnelly Feud" for his next book, Bad Men of Canada(Toronto: Arrow, 1950). The Black Donnellys, which followed four years later, is said to have sold more than a million copies.
The Black Donnellys is not the best place to begin reading about the family and its fate; I recommend The Donnellys Must Die or, better still, The Donnelly Album by Ray Fazakas. Kelley's book is a fun read, but is wholly unreliable – which is not to say that it is without value. What I find most remarkable about the book has less to do with its contents than it does its impact. Sure, those who hail from Ontario know the tale of the Donnellys, but this wasn't always so. I don't doubt that Kelley (1905-1982), an Ontario boy who toured the province with his medicine man father, claims he hadn't heard of the family until "travelling around the Lucan area" at the age of twenty. After they faded from the headlines, very little was written about the Donnellys. Published a full seventy-four years after the bloody events of February 4, 1880, The Black Donnellys was the first book about the family and its fate. It's inaccuracies and – here I'm betting – commercial success encouraged Miller to write The Donnellys Must Die. More than a dozen Donnelly books have followed.
In this way, it is Kelley's greatest achievement as a writer. Would that we could all have such influence. He's owed a debt of gratitude.
Postscript: I left the very large book retailer in 2001, and began writing books that were published under noms de plume. Eight years later, when living in the Ontario town of St Marys, roughly twenty-five kilometres east of Lucan, I was commissioned to write a YA book on unsolved Canadian mysteries. A chapter on the Donnellys – "Who Killed the Donnellys?" – seemed a given. The St Marys Public Library then held seven books on the family, each of which was represented on the shelves by a block of wood bearing its title. Patrons interested in checking out a volume brought the appropriate block to the front desk. This system had been put in place to prevent theft. Object: A paperback original, The Black Donnellys was first published in 1954 by Harlequin. My well-read copy, a seventh printing, was won for $7.50 in a 2009 auction at a St Marys, Ontario, thrift store.
Access:A 2002 Globe & Mail story reported that The Black Donnellys had to that point sold over one million copies in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. I point out that that same article refers to The Black Donnellys as a novel. The only American edition (right) is a 1955 paperback published by Signet. I've found no trace of a UK edition.
The Black Donnellys helped build Harlequin. The original 1954 printing was followed by fourteen others. The last was in April, 1968, long after Harlequin had (otherwise) come to focus exclusively on romances. Subsequent editions have been published by Greywood, Pagurian, Firefly, and Darling Terrace (it's current publisher).
Unsurprisingly, dozens of used copies are listed for sale online. Prices begin at US$2.99.
Easily found in academic libraries, but uncommon in the public. I suggest instituting the St Marys Public Library block system.
Sex and the Single Prime Minister Michael Cowley [Don Mills, ON]: Greywood, 1968
The Naked Prime Minister Michael Cowley [Don Mills, ON]: Greywood, 1969
Ezra Levant soiled himself last month. That in itself isn't noteworthy, except that this ended up being another of those times in which his employers had to come in for emergency clean-up.
What happened was this: On 12 September, Justin Trudeau was meeting at the Markham Hilton when he came upon a wedding party. The groom asked if he'd agree to have photos taken with the bride and bridesmaids. Someone yelled out that Trudeau should give the bride a kiss on the cheek. The Liberal leader asked the newlyweds for their okay, then did just that.
“Look at the photo," Levant shrilled, "a young, beautiful bride half Trudeau’s age – he turns 43 this year. She’s dressed in white, it’s her special day – hers and her groom’s – and Trudeau kisses her. That’s what he does.”
For God's sake, Justin, she's dressed in white! C'mon, man.
"I suppose what you think of this photo depends in part on what you think of weddings and marriages and fidelity and faithfulness," said the twice-married Levant. "If they're no big deal to you, this photo is no big deal, right? The idea of the nobleman of the estate, riding through like in medieval times to deflower whatever maidens he wanted, that's still there in Trudeau."
Never mind that the medieval droit du seigneur is a myth – Levant isn't much good when it comes to history – the man is trying to make a point. The point is this: Justin Trudeau is a son of privilege. He is his father's son. He is his mother's son.
“Both Pierre Trudeau and Margaret Trudeau were promiscuous, and publicized how many conquests they had. They didn’t even pretend to keep their oaths to each other,” said Levant. Justin Trudeau's father "banged anything. He was a slut.” Mom "didn't wear panties."
Watching Levant rant, you'd think we're a land of looney eunuchs. We're not, nor are we nearly so puritanical as the pundit. I think most Canadians would agree that the media have no business in the bedrooms of the nation. Norm Spector will confirm. This is what makes Michael Cowley's Sex and the Single Prime Minister and The Naked Prime Minister so unusual. The 'sixties had something to do with it, I suppose, as did the sudden elevation of a charismatic. single man to the office of prime minister. Images like this attract:
Barbra Streisand doesn't figure in either book, though The Naked Prime Minister does include a rather flattering photo of Her Majesty the Queen.
(cliquez pour agrandir)
I've written about this sort of thing before in reviewing I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, which was also published by Greywood. I noted then that the format owes something to Private Eye; I note now that the word balloons aren't quite so clever.
Here are seven more examples, beginning with a nice shot of the space now occupied by Stephen Harper, and ending with a botched reference to Stephen Vizinczey's In Praise of Older Women.
Ribald? You bet!
Trudeau, père, took Cowley's captions in stride, even going so far as to write the author a polite note of acknowledgement. Trudeau, fils, reacted to Levant's tirade in an entirely different way by boycotting Sun News.
It's perfectly understandable.
Levant has been trying to take down for Trudeau for years. That he's proved himself impotent must surely grate. Given the pundit's history, it comes as no surprise that he'd spread a lie or two about a man's family – or even a couple on their wedding day:
I’m pretty sure I can guess what her groom would say, or her groom’s family, or her own father and mother. Justin Trudeau thinks he’s in the movie Wedding Crashers, that sex comedy where slutty men go to weddings uninvited to bed the maids of honour, but even they had enough class to give the bride herself a pass. I’m not saying Trudeau got sexual with this bride. I’m just saying he invaded a personal intimate day.
Of course, Justin Trudeau did nothing of the kind. The person who invaded the couple's "personal intimate day" was Ezra Levant.
Covered in his own filth, the Sun News Network's loudest voice has yet to apologize to anyone... not even the young bride dressed in white.
Bonus:
Emperor Haute Couture, Margaret Sullivan, 2011
The naked prime minister (no sex).
Objects and Access: Surprisingly sturdy staple-bound books, 64 pages in length, I bought both last year from a London bookseller. Price: $3.00 each.
Several copies of Sex and the Single Prime Minister and The Naked Prime Minister are listed for sale online. They range in price from US$3.83 to US$29.95. Condition is not a factor.
As might be expected, few Canadian libraries hold copies. Sex and the Single Prime Minister can be found in the Parliamentary Library.
A businesswoman, a journalist, a pioneering radio broadcaster and something of a daredevil, Claire Wallace was a remarkable woman with a remarkable story. How curious then that this, her only book, should have etiquette as its subject. The press release tucked into my copy provides something of an explanation:
In her continuous search for stories on Canadiana, Author [sic] Wallace came against a problem. There were no up-to-the-minute reference books on Canadian manners. Etiquette seemed out-dated and stuffy. That's how the idea for this new book was born.
I venture to say that etiquette, by its very nature, always seems out-dated and stuffy. And the claim – implication, really – that this or any reference book is up-to-the-minute borders on false advertising. That said, Mind Your Manners remains a useful little book in that it provides a clear picture of acceptable and exemplary behaviour in the Canada of the early 'fifties. I write here of the days of double weddings, visiting hairdressers and afternoon dress gloves; a time when a polite divorcee (as Miss Wallace was) would make no mention of her failed marriage "except legally and in conversation to personal friends."
Mind Your Manners was indeed "the first Dictionary [sic] of Canadian etiquette" – here the copy doesn't lie – though I think those in the know would have deferred to DeBrett's. Would Lady Eaton have consulted a 50¢ paperback sold only at newsstands?
Really, Mind Your Manners is as much about dreams as it is about place cards. In this more egalitarian post-war world, one might be invited to dine with a duke, mightn't one? Best to know the proper form of address – and let's not forget the Duke's daughter, his eldest son's daughter, his eldest son's eldest son, his eldest son's younger son, his eldest son's wife, his younger son and his younger son's wife. Miss Wallace covers all these possible encounters, along with eventualities like this one:
Mind Your Manners sold out its initial printing, returning to press just two months after release – a rare reprint in Harlequin's first decade. In 1960, the guide was reborn as the awkwardly titled Canadian Etiquette Dictionary. "COMPLETELY NEW" trumpets the cover, while the interior quietly informs that the guide was originally published as Mind Your Manners. Both statements mislead. No, the book is not "COMPLETELY NEW", but it is updated and does feature a previously unpublished section on travel etiquette. Miss Wallace revised the book a third time for a 1967 edition, titled simply Canadian Etiquette, issued by Winnipeg's Greywood Publishing. The guide appeared again in 1970, with an "up-to-date" travel section, even though its author was two years dead.
Back to 1953.
I admit to being thrown by the dedication in Mind Your Manners: "To Our Parents...".
Our?
Turn the page and we find the Foreword: "A book like this could never be written by two women alone..."
Two?
The other woman is Joy Brown*, who is credited as editor on the cover and title page. It's true that Brown was a writer – Night of Terror (1950), one of Harlequin's earliest titles, is hers – but did she actually pen any of these entries... or is it that Miss Wallace was just being overly polite?
Object and access: With cheap glue and cheap paper, typical of early Harlequin's, the book isn't exactly designed to reference use. This may explain why so few copies are listed for sale online. Uncommon, though not dear, it usually lists for $8 or so. Mind Your Manners is held by the Toronto Public Library, the Royal Ontario Museum and a handful of our academic libraries. I bought my copy – inscribed – last week in a London, Ontario thrift store for 33 cents.
* The wife of Jock Carroll, Joy Brown was better known as Joy Carroll, author of Soul's End (1974), Satan's Bell (1976) and a handful of other "popular priced paper backed books".
It was ten years ago today that Pierre Trudeau died. Does he haunt us still? I suppose so, though his influence has diminished... as has the country's. Let's face it, the man never encountered a reception like this from last week:
Enough.
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden is a sequel of sorts – "a study in public seduction" from the same publisher that four years earlier told us "how pierre elliott trudeau seduced canada with the lights on". Readers of Private Eye will be familiar with the content: a photo with wacky word balloon. This one looks like it could have come from the magazine's 18 December 1970 issue (cliquer pour agrandir).
You get the idea. The picture sets the theme, mixing politics with personality, casting Trudeau as Casanova.
The pseudonymous authors, apparently "two very political and disillusioned housewives", pitch some pretty varied attempts at humour. At times they venture into sensitive territory...
... before descending into jokes one would not dare make today.
There are no knee slappers here, though political types will be interested in the photos, most of which I've not seen elsewhere. Thumbing through the thing I caught myself ignoring the captions, returning in time to catch this:
Poignant and prophetic, n'est ce pas?
Object and Access: A 64-page staple-bound paperback. Ten copies sit on university library shelves, with a further two at Library and Archives Canada and the Toronto Public Library. A half-dozen copies are listed online at between US$4 and US$10. One Winnipeg bookseller has pulled away from the pack, asking US$25 (and adds US$12.25 shipping when three bucks will more than cover it).
A writer, ghostwriter, écrivain public, literary historian and bibliophile, I'm the author of Character Parts: Who's Really Who in CanLit (Knopf, 2003), and A Gentleman of Pleasure: One Life of John Glassco, Poet, Translator, Memoirist and Pornographer (McGill-Queen's UP, 2011; shortlisted for the Gabrielle Roy Prize). I've edited over a dozen books, including The Heart Accepts It All: Selected Letters of John Glassco (Véhicule, 2013) and George Fetherling's The Writing Life: Journals 1975-2005 (McGill-Queen's UP, 2013). I currently serve as series editor for Ricochet Books and am a contributing editor for Canadian Notes & Queries. My most recent book is The Dusty Bookcase (Biblioasis, 2017), a collection of revised and expanded reviews first published here and elsewhere.
