Remembering Sean Kelly

Sean Kelly is the first writer I got to know and love. Together we witnessed Alexis Nihon's burning ashes, survived Hurricane Bob, questioned Martin Luther and Brian Mulroney, and wondered over Henry Kissinger's soul. I mention none of this in today's Globe & Mail.

Sean died last month.

The greatest Canadian humorist of his generation, he would've enjoyed the typo.

Reading Writing About Richard Rohmer

Lieutenant-General Richard Rohmer's commanding countenance graces the cover of the new issue of Zoomer, just now hitting the stands. A cover boy at 98, his appearance owes something to Her Majesty's Platinum Jubilee. In the corresponding article, "A General Fit for a Queen," Ian Coutts writes of Rohmer's decades-long relationship with our monarch, his life, his various careers, and his bestselling thrillers.

I'm honoured to have been interviewed for the piece. An elementary school discovery, Richard Rohmer was my very first favourite Canadian author. Eight years ago, with pals Chris Kelly and Stanley Whyte, I resolved to read every single one of his books. We very nearly succeeded. The blog Reading Richard Rohmer documents our adventure. 

Richard Rohmer hasn't published a new book since 2007's Ultimatum 2. And so, I was excited to read this in Ian's article: "As we wind down the interview, Rohmer hands me the dazzling, fiery abstract cover design for the non-fiction book he is working on, about high air temperatures in the Rockies and melting permafrost."

How's that for a teaser?

Long live the queen!

Long live the general!

Related posts:

Resolved to Reading Richard Rohmer

Still Reading Richard Rohmer. Is Alice Munro?
Recycling Richard Rohmer

Richard Rohmer Recycles (Again)

Of Thucydides, Themistocles and Richard Rohmer

Chasing Down a Thriller Writer's Hidden Verse
Pornography Dressed Up as a Cautionary Tale
Learn to Write the Richard Rohmer Way
The Brexit Fix-It

The Prince Classics Robert Barr (Monsarrat mentioned)

 

A brief follow-up to last week's post on One Day's Courtship and The Heralds of Fame.

Prince Classics is new to me, but has quickly become my favourite print on demand vulture. I have it to thank for the introduction to Dutch artist Jac Mars (1919-1992), whose illustration graces the cover of its edition of this Robert Barr novella.

"One Day's Courtship" first saw print in syndication; The Detroit Free Press, for which the author had once worked, was one of the newspapers that paid for the privilege. Set in nineteenth-century Quebec, the novella starts out as social commentary, moves to adventure, and ends as a love story. Jac Mars' illustration, which first appeared in the April 1962 edition of Woman's Realm, has nothing to do with Barr's story. There are no embraces, but one can imagine. My wife, a thirty-year veteran of the fashion industry, informs that the clothing is all wrong, and finds equal fault in Prince Classics' bind-up of "One Days Courtship" and Barr's 1894 novel In the Midst of Alarms:

To those who prefer In the Midst of Alarms on its own, Prince Classics can provide. The image they use, W.T. Brenda's Woman Riding Zebra, first saw print on the cover of Life (30 November 1922).

I remind that In the Midst of Alarms is set in 1866 and concerns the Fenian Raids across the Niagara River into what is today southern Ontario.

No zebras figure.

Longtime readers may remember my disappointment with In the Midst of Alarms. Barr is shaping up to be one of those writers who run hot and cold with me. I didn't think much of One Day's Courtship and The Heralds of Fame (1896), but remain enthusiastic about Revenge!(1896), The Unchanging East (1900), and The Triumphs of Eugène Valmont (1906). Prince Classics offers an edition of the last of these three: 

Don't know about that cover. Valmont looks like a down-on-his-luck gumshoe, whereas Barr describes our hero as "dressed in elegant attire, as if he were still a boulevardier of Paris." Here's Valmont, as depicted in the frontispiece of the first edition:

And then we have Prince Classics' pairing of The O'Ruddy (1903) and The Red Badge of Courage (1895). The latter is familiar to millions as Stephen Crane's great novel of the American Civil War. The O'Ruddy is the novel Crane was writing when he died. Robert Barr picked up his fallen pen and finished the novel. 

I've yet to read The O'Ruddy or The Red Badge of Courage, and so step out on a limb in describing the cover of Tekla (1898) as the most incongruous amongst Prince Classics' Barr offerings. A historical romance it's set in the thirteenth century.

Of all Barr books offered by Prince Classics, the one that most tempts is A Woman Intervenes (1896), but only because it recycles a painting by Tom Dunn. 

It was commissioned for the Pocket Books edition of Nicholas Monsarrat's The Story of Esther Costello.*

I'm getting on, but am not so old as to be familiar with the bibliography of Nicholas Monsarrat. It turns out that The Story of Esther Costello was the author's follow-up to The Cruel Sea. When published, in 1952, the novel caused some pearl clutching. Five years later, The Story of Esther Costello was adapted by Hollywood in a film starring Joan Crawford and Rossano Brazzi. From what I understand, the synopsis Wikipedia editor Sky Captain provides is equally applicable to the novel:

With her marriage to womaniser Carlo Landi (Rossano Brazzi) in ashes, wealthy and childless Margaret Landi (Joan Crawford) finds an emotional outlet in patronizing a 15-year-old deaf, dumb, and blind Irish girl named Esther Costello (Heather Sears). Esther's disabilities are the result of a childhood trauma and are psychosomatic rather than physical. As Costello makes progress with Braille and sign language, she is seen as an example of triumph over adversity. Carlo gets wind of Margaret's new life and re-enters the scene. He views Esther as a source of cheap financial gain and arranges a series of exploitative tours for her under a mercenary manager Frank Wenzel (Ron Randell). One day when Margaret is absent from the Landi apartment, Carlo seduces and rapes the now 16-year-old Esther. The shock restores the girl's sight and hearing. When Margaret learns of her husband's business duplicities and the rape, she consigns Esther to the care of a priest and a young reporter who loves her (Lee Patterson). Margaret then kills Carlo and herself.

Good God.

The Vancouver Sun
4 December 1957

If the November 1896 review is anything to go by, Barr's A Woman Intervenes isn't nearly so unpleasant:

I'm keen on reading one of the two.

You can guess which.

* My thanks to Jim Stephenson for identifying the Avati painting. Thanks also to my old pal Chris Kelly, who suggested the former had been used to illustrate a book titled Backstage: My Life with Clarence Darrow, the Amnesiac, and the Red Ladder. Coffee up my nose.

Related links:

Double Fantasy

Getting to the Fenian Raids

A Conceited, Entirely Likeable Private Detective

The Unexpected Robert Barr
Through the Unchanging East with Robert Barr
Women of the Unchanging East

Criminal Notes & Queries

The most recent number of Canadian Notes & Queries – The Crime Issue – arrived last week in our Upper Canada rural mailbox. I was honoured to serve as Guest Editor. It was a pleasure putting it together, though I must admit that the heavy lifting was done by regular editor Emily Donaldson.

As always, Seth's provides the front and back covers. Tell the truth, do you not see yourself in one of his mugshots?

In The Landscape, Seth shares an undated, uncredited insert from The Weekend Magazine – which, as he notes, was itself an insert.

"What’s Old," our regular salute to reissues, coupled with offerings from the country’s antiquarian booksellers features Austin Clarke's When He Was Free and Young and He Used to Wear Silks (Anansi, 2021),  Carmine Starnino's Dirty Words: Selected Poems, 1997-2016 (Gaspereau, 2021), a new translation of Markoosie Patsauq's Hunter with Harpoon (MQUP, 2021). Windsor's Juniper Books offers The Executioners (Harlequin, 1951) and French for Murder (Fawcett, 1954), two old Brian Moore pulps that the late author's estate has kept out of print.

The Guest Editor’s Note, in which I recall childhood trauma brought on by a speeding ticket, is followed by the issue's Dusty Bookcase. This one is unusual in that the volume covered, Grant Allen's fin de siècle novel An African Millionaire, is not only in print, but is a certified Penguin Classic. We all remember studying it in high school, right?

Adam Sol and Manahil Bandukwala provide verse.

The issue's features begin with "Sin City," Will Straw's look at Police Journal, the post-war Montreal crime tabloid that anticipated Allô Police.

In "A Requiem for Skid Row," Amy Lavender Harris writes about a Toronto that has fallen to condos, but lives on in the works of Juan Butler, Austin Clarke, and Hugh Garner.

Novelist Trevor Ferguson (aka John Farrow) writes of his encounters with the criminal element in  "Fringe Elements."

Dedicated readers will remember my interest in the mysterious Kenneth Orvis (aka Kenneth Lemieux), author of Hickory House, The Damned and Destroyed,  Cry, Hallelujah!, and four other novels. You may even remember my 2016 plea for information about the man. Imagine my surprise in discovering that former 39 Steps frontman Chris Barry – whom I've seen onstage in Montreal and onscreen in Hannah and Her Sisters – is the mystery man's nephew.  Chris' "Uncle Ken, We Hardly Knew Ye: Kenneth Orvis’ Nephew Surveys the Writer’s Life, Hustles, and Mysterious Disappearance" helps fill in the gaps.

In "Vale of Fears," Monika Bartyzel looks at the influence of a 1935 murder on the fiction of Phyllis Brett Young, our most unjustly neglected novelist.

Jennifer Hambleton disturbs with "Shut Out: How University Libraries are Increasingly Limiting Public Access.

David Frank writes on the relationship between Jack London and all but forgotten Canadian socialist Wilfrid Gribble.

Chris Kelly looks at Blue City, the 1986 adaptation of the 1947 Ross Macdonald novel of the same name. You remember it, right? Judd Nelson and Ally Sheedy starred.

No?

This GIF may refresh you memory.

I intrude again with an interview with Danny McAuley of Brome Lake Books in Knowlton, Quebec.

David Mason's Used and Rare column concerns book thieves and a revelation about a certain famous author.

In the North Wing - selections from the Lost Library of CanLit Graphic Novels -  Nathan Campagnaro adapts Thomas King’s DreadfulWater.

We've also got a new short story from Caroline Adderson, “All Our Auld Acquaintances Are Gone.”

At a time when newspapers and magazines are slashing space devoted to book reviews, we buck the trend with:

Bruce Whiteman on Erin McLaren’s Little Resilience

Rohan Maitzen on Anna Porter’s The Appraisal and Deceptions

Laura Cameron on Amanda LeDuc’s The Centaur’s Wife 

Brett Josef Grubisic on Michael Melgaard’s Pallbearing 

Alex Good on Pasha Malla’s Kill the Mall 

Paige Cooper on Carrie Jenkins’ Victoria Sees It 

Dancy Mason on Patricia Robertson’s Hour of the Crab 

James Grainger on Andrée A Michaud’s Mirror Lake

Emily Donaldson on Sarah Berman’s Don’t Call it a Cult

The Shelf Talker belongs to The Bookshelf in Guelph. Catherine Bush's Blaze Island is one of their four titles.

As always, we finish off with Stephen Fowler's Exhumations. His pick this issue is Writing Thrillers for Profit: A Practical Guide by Basil Hogarth (London, Black, 1936), a volume that once belonged to "a recently deceased author of detective novels." Stephen suggests that it may have been a "joke gift." I'm betting he's right.

The CNQ Crime Issue can be purchased through this link.

It's a steal.

Resuming Richard Rohmer: A Plea for Help

Four years ago this month, I set out to read every book ever written by Richard Rohmer.

It wasn't my idea.

My old pal Chris Kelly came up with the challenge, mutual old pal Stanley Whyte joined in, and we were off. Not only were we going to read Rohmer's entire bibliography, we were going to do it within the year!

We're still at it.

Our mistake was that we remembered Rohmer's years as a bestselling author, but ignored the decades in which he was not. We'd assumed his books would be plentiful, accessible, and cheap. Why, mere days before we began, I picked up his 1989 thriller Red Arctic for a buck in a Perth, Ontario bookstore.

What I failed to recognize is that it was the first copy I'd ever seen. I haven't come across another since. I didn't know that Red Arctic had come and gone in only one printing, and had never made it to paperback. As a kid, Rohmer mass markets were everywhere. I bought mine at the second closest drug store to my home, but I could've just as easily bought them at the closest. It has been over three decades since Rohmer was last published in mass market.

Rohmer's Ultimatum was the bestselling Canadian novel of 1973, but my local library doesn't have a copy; in fact, the St Marys Public Library doesn't have anything by Richard Rohmer. Its helpful staff did all they could in providing inter-library loans.

Stanley had access to slim holdings offered by McGill and Concordia, but these only went so far. He resorted to ordering one book directly from the publisher. It took several months to arrive.

Chris, who lives in California, had the hardest time of it.

Despite the challenges, we tackled sixteen titles in our first year, and wrote about each in a blog: Reading Richard Rohmer. Visitors will see that we slowed to eight in the second year. In year three, we tackled two: Raleigh on the Rocks and Ultimatum 2. Last year, our reading was Rohmerless.

I began 2018 determined to finish reading Richard Rohmer. We're four books shy:

• Practice and Procedure Before the Highway Transport Board (1965)
• The Royal Commission on Book Publishing (1972)
• The Building of the CN Tower (2011)
• The Building of the Sky Dome/Rogers Centre [sic] (2012)

The first two are held at the University of Western Ontario's D.B. Weldon Library. As reference material, they're not to be checked out, but I'm willing to suffer as many hours as it takes in that butt-ugly, brutalist building.

Such is my willpower and dedication that I plan to read all four, despite reservations concerning Rohmer's authorship of Practice and Procedure Before the Highway Transport Board and The Royal Commission on Book Publishing. Sure, they appear in his bibliographies, but like Rohmer's claims about taking Rommel out of the Second World War, I have doubts that he played so great a role.

I look forward to being proven wrong.

Remarkably, the most recent titles are more difficult to find than half-century-old government reports. After many, many months, I've finally managed to get my hands on The Building of the CN Tower, but The Building of the Sky Dome/Rogers Centre is proving even more elusive. And so, I ask anyone with a copy to contact me.

Please.

Four years is an awfully long time.

Related posts:

Resolved to Reading Richard Rohmer

Still Reading Richard Rohmer. Is Alice Munro?
Recycling Richard Rohmer

Richard Rohmer Recycles (Again)

Of Thucydides, Themistocles and Richard Rohmer

Chasing Down a Thriller Writer's Hidden Verse
Pornography Dressed Up as a Cautionary Tale
Learn to Write the Richard Rohmer Way
The Brexit Fix-It

Resolved to Reading Richard Rohmer

What does a well-travelled, physically fit, non-smoker with exemplary personal hygiene do as a New Year's resolution? I don't know about you but over the next twelve months I'm going to read every book in Richard Rohmer's bibliography. What else is there?

Joining me on this  journey are my old pals Chris Kelly and Stanley Whyte. We'll be writing about what we find, sharing observations and analyses, at Reading Richard Rohmer. You'll also find seemingly unrelated stuff about Ben Bova, bulldozer eating and the dearth of thrift store porn.

Why Rohmer, you ask? Why not, say, Arthur Hailey? Well, so much of Rohmer's writing, particularly his thrillers, has to do with the country's oil and gas resources. Pretty hot topic, right? Besides, Hailey wrote only ten books (and only Overload had anything to do with energy).

Remember, that's Reading Richard Rohmer.

Next year, Thomas B. Costain!