Showing posts with label King (Basil). Show all posts
Showing posts with label King (Basil). Show all posts

02 January 2025

The Nine Best Canadian Novels of the 1920s


In my twenties, the 'twenties – by which I mean the 1920s – seemed the height of art, film, decadence, glamour, and romance.

I'm not sure I was wrong.

The decade also saw the the height of the novel, though perhaps not in Canada. My CanLit profs assigned works by Mazo de la Roche, Frederick Philip Grove and Martha Ostenso. How they paled beside Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Forster, Hemingway, Joyce, Wharton, and Woolf! But then, what might one expect from a country of a mere nine million?

Time has passed, during which I've come to recognize that the keepers of the canon have messed up in so very many ways. 

As we're now half-way through the 2020s, I present this list of the nine best Canadian novels of the 1920s. Not one of the authors received so much as a passing mention in my CanLit courses.

By no means definitive, I've limited the list to nine titles because I've yet to read Douglas Durkin's The Magpie (1923) and They Have Bodies (1929) by Barney Allen (Sol Allen). From what I know of the two, it's likely that at least one would round out a top ten. I'll be making a point of reading both this year and will keep you informed. But for now:

The Thread of Flame
Basil King
New York: Harper, 1920

In the aughts and tens of the last century, King topped American bestseller lists with The Inner Shrine, The Wild Olive, and The Street Called Straight, though his two best books date from the twenties. This one involves a man who lost his memory whilst fighting in the Great War, but don't let that put you off.

The Empty Sack
Basil King
New York: Harper, 1921

The best King novel of the nine I've read, this involves the Folletts, transplanted Nova Scotians living comfortably in New York City until the aging patriarch is let go by his employer. The drama that unfolds has less to do with the economic devastation than it does the struggles in adapting to a post-Great War world.
The Wine of Life
Arthur Stringer
New York: Knopf, 1921

In his time, Stringer was dismissed as a writer with an eye on the market. This work, an outlier, was inspired by his ill-fated marriage to statuesque Gibson Girl Jobyna Howland. It's Stringer's most literary novel as evidenced by the fact that it was rejected by his usual publisher Bobbs-Merrill only to be picked up by Alfred Knopf. 

The Hidden Places
Bertand W. Sinclair
Toronto: Ryerson, 1922

A novel about a veteran of the Great War written by a man who never served, The Hidden Places can seem absurd at times, and relies too much on coincidence, but it is interesting for its damning indictment of the treatment of men who returned from the conflict scared and disfigured.
Pagan Love
John Murray Gibbon
Toronto: McClelland &
   Stewart, 1922

The most cutting Canadian novel of the decade, it has three targets: the self-help industry, corporate culture, and gender norms. Criticisms of the first two bring insight, but that of the last makes Pagan Love one of the most intriguing Canadian novels of the twentieth century. 

"Cattle"
Winnifred Eaton
New York: Watt, 1924

A late career novel written by a Montrealer of Chinese and English parents who'd achieved fame by passing herself off as a Japanese princess. Eaton's final years were spent on an Alberta ranch belonging to her husband, inspiring this violent, disturbing novel set in cattle country.

The Land of Afternoon
Gilbert Knox [Madge
   Macbeth]
Ottawa: Graphic, 1924

Scandalous in its day, something of a head-scratcher in ours, The Land of Afternoon provides further evidence that romans à clef tend to age poorly. There are biting satirical sketches, but who are the models? Even then, I expect few outside Ottawa had a clue. 
Blencarrow
Isabel MacKay
Toronto: Allen, 1926

The last novel from a writer who never shied away from unpleasant topics: drug addiction, child abduction, worker exploitation, racism, mental illness. Domestic abuse and its effect on a wife and daughters permeate this one, yet it is not a message novel.  


All Else Is Folly: A Tale of
   War and Passion
Peregrine Acland
Toronto: McClelland &
   Stewart, 1929

The great Canadian novel of the Great War. Written by one who was there, it is highly autobiographical and would've been banned had the author's father not been so well connected. Praised by Ford Maddox Ford and Frank Harris.

A century later, two are in print. They were not when I first read them. In fact, all nine had been out of print since the early 'thirties. Ten years ago, I played a part in reviving All Else is Folly as part of Dundurn's Voyageur Classics series.


Winnifred Eaton's "Cattle" was reissued in 2023 by Invisible Publishing. It was reviewed at the Dusty Bookcase here back in 2014.


If given the opportunity to bring another back, I'd chose John Murray Gibbon's Pagan Love. It is the most remarkable, unconventional, and challenging Canadian novel of the decade.

Or is that They Have Bodies?

I aim to find out.

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18 December 2023

The Globe's Best Books of 1923: 'Canadian Authors Can Be Read With Pleasure, Profit and Pride'


The Globe, 10 December 1923

Three men feature on the first page of the 1923 'Recent Books and the Outlook,' the 'Globe 100' of its day. The first, Paul A.W. Wallace, is recognized for his debut, Baptiste Larocque: Legends of French Canada. The second man, W.J. Healy, wrote Women of Red River, which was "arranged and published under the Women's Canadian Club of Winnipeg by Russell, Land, and Company." Norris Hodgins, the third, was recognized for Why Don't You Get Married.

All three are Canadian and all three are new to me.

I've been following the Globe's century-old lists of best books for nearly a decade now, and so think I know what to expect. There will be a dour pronouncement – in this case, "there is a dearth of outstanding books, especially novels, at the present time" – which will, in turn, be counterbalanced by something of a positive nature:

Under the 'More Canadiana' banner are books by Americans LeRoy Jeffers, Charles Towne, John M. Clarke, Charles W. Stokes, Paul Leland Haworth, and Briton Wilfred Grenfell. The final ingredient in this messy mix is George King's self-published Hockey Year Book. Its inclusion marks the first ever mention of the sport in 'Recent Books and the Outlook.'

I can't imagine how much it would fetch today. 84 Victoria Street itself is worth a bloody fortune.

Despite the flag waving, Canadian writers don't fair all that well in the Globe's 1923 list, accounting for just 46 of the 196 titles featured. As in 1922, poets dominate: 

Ballads and Lyrics - Bliss Carman
Selected Poems - W.H. Davies*
Morning in the West - Katherine Hale
Flint and Feather - E. Pauline Johnson
The Complete Poems of Archibald Lampman
Shepard's Purse - Florence Randal Livesay 
 The Miracle Songs of Jesus - Wilson MacDonald
The Complete Poems of Tom MacInnes
The Songs of Israfel and Other Poems - Marion Osborne
The Garden of the Sun - A.E.S. Smythe
The Empire Builders - Robert Stead
Woman - Albert Durrant Watson

That's twelve titles! From a nation of nine million! The Globe informs that the rest of the world produced just five collections of note!

For the second year running, we have the inclusion of The Complete Poems of Archibald Lampman, of which there is no record. And so, for the second year, I'll suggest that what is being referred to is The Poems of Archibald Lampman, first published in 1900 by George N. Morang. As Ryan Porter notes, the collection enjoyed several reprints. Still, I see no evidence of a new edition in 1923, never mind 1922. I'll say the same of E. Pauline Johnson's 1912 Flint and Feather. There was a new edition of Robert Stead's The Empire Builders, which just happens to be the only poetry title I own.


Curiously, Wilson MacDonald's The Song of Prairie Land is singled out for mention in the introduction to the poetry list, yet only his The Miracle Songs of Jesus makes the cut.

Our non-fiction writers fare the worst with just four of the fifty titles listed. I don't have a copy of even one, though I am interested in the Marjorie Pickthall, "a memorial volume edited by Helena Coleman," which does not seem to exist.  

Our writers of fiction don't fare much better, contributing just eight titles to the list: 

The Gaspards of Pine Croft - Ralph Connor
Lantern Marsh - Beaumont S. Cornell
Why Don't You Get Married? - Norris Hodgins
The Happy Isles - Basil King
When Christmas Crossed the Peace - Nellie L. McClung
Emily of New Moon - L.M. Montgomery
The Viking Heart - Laura Goodman Salverson
Spirit of Iron - Harwood Steele

There were twenty-one Canadian works of fiction on the 1922 list.

Here are some that made it:

And here are some that did not:

Frank L. Packard's The Four Stragglers is at the bottom of the pile, Stephen Leacock's Over the Footlights is at the top. Between the two is Winnifred Eaton's "Cattle" – or is it Cattle? – which may just be the best Canadian novel of 1923. 

The Gaspards of Pine Croft, which I've not read, is one of my $2 Connors.  

I've long been on the lookout for Beaumont S. Cornell's lone novel Lantern Marsh because it's set in a thinly disguised Brockville, Ontario, which is where I do my weekly grocery shopping.  

Basil King's novel The Happy Isles is praised as the best since his 1909 breakthrough The Inner Shrine. I do like it, but nowhere near as much as The Empty Sack (1921).

I was once engaged to a woman who knew a woman who had been engaged to Harwood Steele. 

And so it goes.

* Correction: Roger Allen writes, "Are you sure the dozen poets are Canadian? The W.H. Davies nearly everyone thinks of - still in print - is the author of The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp. He only became a poet because he lost a leg jumping on a train in Canada and had to go back to Britain, but that doesn't make him Canadian."

He's correct, of course. I can't explain the error, though it might have something to do with a bottle of Canadian Club sent by an aunt as an early Christmas gift. 

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02 November 2023

Abraham's Bosom and the Great Change of Life



Abraham's Bosom
Basil King
New York: Harper & Brothers, 1918
54 pages

A short story masquerading as a novella, Abraham's Bosom first appeared in the March 30, 1918 edition of The Saturday Evening Post. Its publication nearly coincided with Germany's devastating spring offensive, which resulted in more than 862,000 Allied dead and wounded. 


Abraham's Bosom begins in a doctor's office. Berkley Noone, first rector of St Thomas, is told that he is suffering from the very same rare disease that had afflicted organist Ned Angel. A "near-sighted fellow with a limp," Angel had trained the choir of St Thomas for forty years – "without salary" – only to be dismissed by Noone after sharing his diagnosis.

Abraham's Bosom frontispiece.
The organist died two months later.

After receiving his own diagnosis, Noone walks about the city a bit before taking to his death bed. As he lies dying, the reverend reflects upon on his marriage and children. Wife Emily hovers about, propping him up in what she insists are the most comfortable positions. Their five children, whom he considers disappointments, visit from time to time. All are present during his final moments as the reverend gazes somewhat vacantly at an engraving of his favourite painting, William Homan Hunt's The Light of the World. His eyes see the lantern glowing brighter and brighter until it outshines the afternoon sun.

It takes time for Noone to recognize his passing. He'd expected an instant in which his soul would "tear its way out of his body and he should be thrust, a naked, quivering bundle of spiritual nerves, before angels and archangels and principalities and powers, and a God whose first question would be that which was put to Cain: "What hast thou done?"

Instead, he's met by Ned Angel.

As a story, Abraham's Bosom is much shorter than it appears. The diagnosis, wandering, and death bed scenes are brief; the better part of the book involves theological discussion as Angel sets Noone straight on things theosophical and what the reverend may expect now that he has passed through the "great change." It was followed six months later by King's far superior Going West, which concerns a ghostly journey shared by German and American soldiers who have killed each another in battle. 


Both are products of the author's growing interest in spiritualism, sown in Flanders and other bloody fields. In this respect, he was far from alone amongst bestselling authors – Arthur Conan Doyle, for example – but he did stand out as a popular Anglican minister who challenged church doctrine. Reverend King did not believe in death, rather the continuance of life. In Reverend Noone's case, as with everyone, there is no sudden tearing of the soul from the body, rather a gentle imperceptible "great change."


That term – "great change" – features three times in the text, and on the first of three different dust jackets Harper used to sell book (above). I suspect King himself wrote its words. Note the second paragraph:
This story will bring Comfort and Consolation to many who are in trouble of mind about the Hereafter.
In the Hereafter, as King believes it to be, those who have passed through this great change see things with different eyes. Berkley Noone sees his wife and children as themselves but themselves glorified:
Emily was again the dryad of their youthful days; but a dryad with ways of light and tenderness he had never known her to possess. Each of the children was bathed in the same beautifying radiance. He knew them – and yet he didn't know them. All he could affirm of them exactly was that his doubts and worryings and disappointments on account of them were past. He felt what Angel had just been telling him, that he was waking from some troubled dream on their behalf.
Noone's familial relationships will continue. As with the soldiers in Going West, he will be able to visit and even communicate. 

If anything, Reverend King's The Abolishing of Death (1919), an account of his experiences communicating with nineteenth-century chemist Henry Talbot – but not really – would've brought further comfort and consolation to the greiving.

Knowing the date of composition, some nine months before the Armistice, what struck me most about Abraham's Bosom is its disconnect from the Great War.  The conflict, which plays such a part in his novels  The High Heart (1917), Going West (1918), The Thread of Flame (1920), The Empty Sack (1921) is not so much as mentioned. Or might it be that the allusion is subtle? Here's Ned Angel:
"How are the Children of Dust making use of the knowledge they've gained during the last fifty years of their counting? Is it to help one another? Is it to benefit themselves? Is it to make the world happier, or more peaceful, or more prosperous? Haven't they taken all their new resources, all their increased facilities, all their approximations to Truth, all their approaches to God – the things which belonged to their peace, as Jesus of Nazareth called them – and made them instruments of mutual destruction? Aren't they straining their ingenuity to devise undreamed-of methods for doing one another harm?''
I write this nine days short of the 105th anniversary of that Armistice. 

Object and Access: My copy, which is in pretty rotten shape, was purchased seven years ago as one title in a box containing twenty or thirty old Canadian books. Price: $20.

The frontispiece featuring afflicted organist Ned Angel is one of four Walter H. Everett illustrations commissioned for The Saturday Evening Post. Interestingly, no matter the placing, all depict scenes and from the first third of the story. This image, with caption from the opening pages of the story, appears at on the final page of its Post debut:

The "timid, wild-eyed nymph of a thing who had incarnated for him all that was poetry in the year when he was twenty-eight" is Reverend Noon's wife. She's a cutie!

Online booksellers list copies beginning at five American dollars, but they'll demand a further US$30 or US$35 for shipping. Some have dust jackets, some do not. The one you want to buy is offered by a Massachusetts bookseller who promises an inscribed copy at US$75.

All claim to be offering the first edition, but as I've discovered, there are at least three variants.

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23 October 2023

Whither the Canadian American Bestseller?


Earlier this month, I tried to sell a friend on Basil King, as is my habit. I mentioned that in 1909 his novel The Inner Shrine outsold every other book in the United States, adding that he very nearly repeated that accomplishment the following year, and again the year after that. In this regard, King bested fellow Prince Edward Islander L.M. Montgomery, who never once made the annual top ten.

The annual top ten?

I refer here to lists compiled by The Bookman and Publisher's Weekly. The former cobbled together the first in 1895, the year Scotsman Ian Maclaren's Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush was all the rage. It didn't take long for a Canadian to appear. In 1896, Gilbert Parker's The Seats of the Mighty placed third, blocked from the top spot by Francis Hopkinson Smith's Tom Grogan and A Lady of Quality by Frances Hodgson Burnett, which I'm sure you've all read.

Gilbert Parker – later, Sir Gilbert Parker – was a publisher's dream. Scribner's 1912 twenty-four volume Works of Gilbert Parker is a beautiful thing. The more expensive editions come with a tipped in handwritten autographed letter.


And there was more to come! In 1914, Sir Gilbert's The Judgement House ended up as the republic's fourth best-selling book.

Parker is one of eight Canadians to hit the American year-end top ten. What follows is a year-by-year list  of those authors and their titles, beginning with Parker's The Seats of the Mighty. Some may question the inclusion of Saul Bellow and Arthur Hailey. My position on both men is simple. Saul Bellow was born in Lachine, Quebec. He was a nine-year-old when his family left Canada for the United States. Arthur Hailey immigrated to this country after the Second World War and became a Canadian citizen.

Long-time Toronto resident John Irving's The Hotel New Hampshire, which placed second in 1981, is not included because it wasn't until 2019 that he became a Canadian citizen.

W.H. Blake's translation of Louis Hémon's Maria Chapdelain, which in 1922 was the eighth bestselling book in the United States is excluded. Though the novel has been described as a "a classic of French-Canadian literature," Hémon was French, not French-Canadian. His visit to this country lasted months, not years. My late friend Michael Gnarowski argued that Hémon would've become a citizen had he not been struck and killed by a train whilst walking the tracks outside Chapleau, Ontario. On this we disagreed.

1896

#3 – The Seats of the Mighty by Gilbert Parker

"A Romance of Old Quebec" with cameos by Wolfe and Montcalm, The Seats of the Mighty was the only Parker novel to been adopted as a New Canadian Library title. It's available today through Wilfrid Laurier Press.


1901 

#4 – The Right of Way by Gilbert Parker

#4 – The Right of Way by Gilbert Parker

A Montreal melodrama involving amnesia, murder, drinking, romance, and false identity, I raced through The Right of Way last year. Recommended.

Two spots down from Parker – at #6 – we find The Visits of Elizabeth, the debut novel by one-time Guelph girl Elinor Glyn.

1902

#4 – The Right of Way by Gilbert Parker#6 – The Right of Way by Gilbert Parker

The Right of Way again, and why not! It's a hell of a story, as evidenced by the fact that it was adapted for Broadway. Hollywood took it on three times!




1907

#2 – The Weavers by Gilbert Parker

"A Tale of England and Egypt of Fifty Years Ago," this one concerns a young Quaker who brings the Gospel to the Land of the Pharaohs. Must admit that each time I see this title I hear "Goodnight, Irene." 


#9 – The Doctor by Ralph Connor [Charles W. Gordon] 

I've not read this Connor, but Ron Scheer did. Sadly, Ron is no longer with us. I miss his scholarship and astute criticism. Happily, his blog survives. Ron's review of The Doctor is a fine example of his work.


1908

#10 – The Weavers by Gilbert Parker

The Weavers again, yet unlike The Right of Way, this one never made Broadway, nor was it adapted by Hollywood.

Seems an opportunity.




1909 

#1 – The Inner Shrine by Anonymous [Basil King]

Reverend King's sixth novel, The Inner Shrine was the year's literary sensation. I think that much of the interest had to do with questions over authorship. Did it come from the pen of Edith Wharton? Henry James? How about the daughter of Willian Dean Howells?

 

1910
#3 – The Wild Olive by the author of The Inner Shrine [Basil King]

Publisher Harper maintains the mystery.

I once described The Wild Olive as the best Basil King novel I'd ever read. Ah, but that was seven years ago and I was so young; The Empty Sack and The Thread of Flame are even better.


1912

#2  – The Street Called Straight by the author of The Inner Shrine [Basil King]

Shortly after The Street Called Straight was published, Reverend King revealed himself as the author of all three books. He continued to have success commercially, but his books never again appeared in the year-end top ten.


1913

#4 – The Judgement House by Gilbert Parker

Lesser-known today – but then isn't Parker himself? – The Judgement House is set against the backdrop of the Boer War. Apparently, a femme fatale features. You can bet I'll be ordering a copy!
1918

#7 – The Major by Ralph Connor [Charles W. Gordon]

One of Connor's Alberta novels, as expected, it was heavily influenced by the Great War. Germans and their country's imperialist aspirations don't come off nearly so well as settlers establishing themselves on the Prairies.



1919

#5 – The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land by Ralph Connor [Charles W. Gordon]

A Great War novel, complete with horrors. The author served as Chaplain in the 43rd Cameron Highlanders. I have more to say on this in an old post on New Canadian Library intros.



1927

#5 – Jalna by Mazo de la Roche

The book that launched the longest running series of novels in Canadian history. Sixteen in total! 







1928

#9 – Jalna by Mazo de la Roche

Jalna. Of course, Jalna. Do not get me started on the CBC's disastrous The Whiteoaks of Jalna, which at age ten served as my introduction to the works of Mazo de la Roche, and nearly killed my interest in Canadian literature.




1931

#8 – Finch's Fortune by Mazo de la Roche

Interestingly, Finch's Fortune is the third volume in the Jalna saga; Whiteoaks of Jalna, the second, failed to make the year-end top ten.

 



1933

#7 – The Master of Jalna by Mazo de la Roche

The last in the series make the year-end top ten, which is not to say that Jalna was abandoned by the reading public. The surprisingly brief de la Roche Canadian Encyclopedia entry reports: "Jalna novels have sold 9 million copies in 193 English- and 92 foreign-language editions."
 

1945

#3 – The Black Rose by Thomas B. Costain

The Black Rose sold over two million copies. I learned this courtesy of The Canadian Encylopedia's entry on Costain, which is even shorter than de la Roche's!

More anon.


#9 – Earth and High Heaven by Gwethalyn Graham

The author's second and final novel, I've made the argument that its success had a paralyzing effect. Earth and High Heaven was to have been a film starring Katherine Hepburn, but Gentleman's Agreement, which deals with similar material, put an end to all that.


1946

#8 – The Black Rose by Thomas B. Costain

The Black Rose is a historical novel about a young Saxon's adventures in thirteenth-century China. I'm not much taken by the idea, but millions were. To be frank, I'm much more interested in the Hollywood adaptation starring Orson Welles, Tyrone Power, and Cécile Aubry, but not so much that I've seen it.

1947

#2 – The Moneyman by Thomas B. Costain

Apparently, Thomas B. Costain wrote four unpublished historical novels in high school, one of which focussed on Maurice of Nassau, Prince of Orange. The Moneyman takes as its inspiration the life of Jacques Couer, royal banker to Charles VII of France.


1949

#7 – The High Towers by Thomas B. Costain

One of two historical novels Costain set in what is now Canada; the other being Son of a Hundred Kings (1950). It was through my father's copy of the 1950 Bantam paperback edition that I was introduced to Costain. and so I share its cover and not Doubleday's bland and predictable jacket illustration.
 

1952

#1 – The Silver Chalice by Thomas B. Costain

Here Costain enters Lloyd C. Douglas territory with the tale of Basil of Antioch, a sensitive silversmith who is commissioned to decorate the chalice used by Christ in the last supper.




1953

#2 – The Silver Chalice by Thomas B. Costain

The novel continued to sell, but I wonder whether Costain missed the opportunity to write a sequel inspired by the burial of the Holy Grail on Oak Island by the Knights Templar.




1955

#9  – The Tontine by Thomas B. Costain

Book of the Month Club copies once littered every church rummage sale. The same might be said of many BOMC selections, but what set The Tontine apart was that it was published in two volumes, meaning that there were twice as many seemingly identical books. I never managed to pair volumes one and two. 

1957

#9 – Below the Salt by Thomas B. Costain

New to me, Below the Salt marked a bit of a departure for Costain. It relies on the theory of reincarnation, linking a modern-day senator (American) to a thirteenth-century serf (English).




1964

#3 – Herzog by Saul Bellow

How to explain Herzog's presence? It was awarded the National Book Award, but so had The Adventures of Augie March, and so would Mr. Sammler's Planet, and they didn't make the year-end top ten.





1965

#3 – Herzog by Saul Bellow

In my first year of university I found a very nice first edition in dust jacket. I've carried it from home to home ever since, but it was only in putting this piece together that I saw the face in the cover.

That perfect font is so distracting.

#8 – Hotel by Arthur Hailey

In Hailey's bibliography, Hotel follows In High Places (1962), a political thriller centred on challenges both domestic and international faced by Canadian prime minister James McCallum. Hotel doesn't sound nearly so interesting, though it did inspire a 1967 feature film and the ABC prime time soap of the same name starring James Brolin. 


1968

#1 – Airport by Arthur Hailey

The novel that spawned Airport, Airport 1975, Airport '77, The Concorde - Airport '79, Airplane!, and Airplane II: The Sequel,  Airport was the second Canadian novel I ever read. I think there were some sexy bits, but I'm not sure. If they existed, they weren't so memorable as the stuff in Harold Robbins' The Carpetbaggers.


1971

#1 – Wheels by Arthur Hailey

A novel set inside the Detroit auto industry. Interestingly, the ten-hour five-part 1978 NBC mini-series starring Rock Hudson and Lee Remick is set in the 'sixties. It's a period piece, though you wouldn't know it.  




1975

#2 – The Moneychangers by Arthur Hailey

The idea of a novel centring on banking, finance and investing doesn't sound nearly so interesting as one about a sleek and powerful car, which may explain why The Moneychangers failed to land at #1. It was kept from top spot by E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime. 


1979

#3 – Overload by Arthur Hailey

Here the author whose previous novels were set in the hospitalty industry, the aviation industry, the automotive industry, and the banking industry, presents a 512-page novel focussed on a California utility company.

There will be brownouts!


And that's it.

Arthur Hailey went on to write three more novels: Strong Medicine (1984), The Evening News (1990), and Detective (1997). All were bestsellers, but not so much that they dominated the bestseller lists. He died in 2004, the eighth and last Canadian to have written a book that landed in the year-end top ten.

Between 1896 and 1979 eight Canadians wrote twenty-seven novels in the annual list of top American bestsellers. Six of the twenty-seven titles appeared two years running. These figures are impressive, until one realizes that all happened within an eighty-three-year span, and that it's been forty-three years since any Canadian writer has done the same. Margaret Atwood? Not even The Testaments. Life of Pi didn't make the cut, nor did The English Patient.

Why is that?

All my theories have fallen flat.

Any ideas?

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