The Very Best Reads of 2022: Ladies First

Late last night, as Christmas festivities drew to a close, I pulled Victor Lauriston's The Twenty-first Burr (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1922) from the shelves. It seemed appropriate way to end the holiday. One hundred years earlier, my copy was presented by the author to a woman named Olive Shanks.

I enjoyed the first four of its twenty-eight chapters, but know I won't be finishing the novel before year's end, meaning it's time for the annual Dusty Bookcase recap of best reads, books to be revived, etc.

This was a year unlike any other in Dusty Bookcase history. For the first time, women wrote a majority of the titles; twelve of the twenty-two reviewed here and in the pages of Canadian Notes and Queries.

Sara Jeannette Duncan's A Daughter of To-day and Joanna E. Wood's The Untempered Wind stand well above the other twenty. Both are available in Tecumseh's Early Canadian Women Writers Series, which goes some way in explaining how it is that only male authors feature in my annual selection of the three books most deserving of a return to print:

Philistia
Grant Allen

London: Chatto & Windus,

   1901

It was publisher Andrew Chatto who encouraged Allen to try his hand at fiction. This debut novel, first published in 1884, furthers the author's writing on philosophy,  naturalism, religion, and socialism. Ironically, its ending was spoiled by Chatto's intrusion. 

Whispering City
Horace Brown
Pickering, ON: Global

   Publishing, 1947

A noir thriller set in Quebec City, Whispering City pre-dates Hitchcock's I Confess by five years. Both have their weaknesses. Brown's adaptation of the former – likely the first novelization of a Canadian feature film – improves upon its source material.

Moonbeams from the

   Larger Lunacy

Stephen Leacock
Toronto: S.B. Gundy, 1915

Leacock's legacy suffered a blow this year when McGill announced that the building named in his honour, would be renamed after a venture capitalist who had pledged $13 million to the the university.

It's the stuff of a Leacock story.

As series editor of Véhicule Press's Ricochet imprint, I was involved in reviving Arthur Mayse's 1949 debut novel Perilous Passage. 'Telling the Story,' the introduction provided by the author's daughter, Susan Mayse, is one of my favourite in the series. Reprinted in Canadian Notes & Queries, it can be read through this link.

Recognition this year goes to England's Handheld Press for its reissue of Marjorie Grant's 1921 novel Latchkey Ladies.

I knew nothing of Marjorie Grant or Latchkey Ladies before reading this March 22 review in The Times. 

Finally, sadly, I report that the New Year's resolutions made last December didn't go far:

• I resolved to focus more on francophone writers, yet read just one: Philippe-Joseph Aubert de Gaspé (and then only in translation).
• I resolved to feature more non-fiction, and yet this writer of non-fiction reviewed nothing but fiction.
• I resolved to keep kicking against the pricks. This was easily done. Witnessing the  miscreants of the Freedom Convoy roll past on its way to Ottawa gave extra incentive.

This December I make no resolutions.

Here's to the New Year!

Bonne année!

Related posts:
The Very Best Reads of the Second Plague Year (2021)
The Very Best Reads of a Plague Year (2020)
The Very Best Reads of a Very Strange Year (2019)
Best Books of 2018 (none of which are from 2018)
The Year's Best Books in Review - A.D. 2017
The Year's Best Books in Review - A.D. 2016
The Year's Best Books in Review - A.D. 2015
The Christmas Offering of Books - 1914 and 2014
A Last Minute Gift Slogan, "Give Books" (2013)
Grumbles About Gumble & Praise for Stark House (2012)
The Highest Compliments of the Season (2011)
A 75-Year-Old Virgin and Others I Acquired (2010)
Books are Best (2009)

An Egotist of Yesterday

A Woman Who Did
Spoiled by a Publisher

Quebec City Noir

Lunar Attractions; or, The Leacock I Like

Just Kids

West Coast Canadian Noir

West Coast Canadian Noir

Arthur Mayse's Perilous Passage is now arriving in better bookstores. Its publication comes after a long search. Post-war Canadian noir is expansive, but not in terms of geography. Most novels are set in Montreal; add in Toronto and you've pretty much covered the waterfront.

Pun intended.

For years I looked for a worthwhile novel set on the West Coast; one, two, three were read and rejected before I came upon Perilous Passage.

It more than made the cut. You'll find my thoughts here in in this 2020 blog post.

Perilous Passage was Arthur Mayse's first novel. It garnered attention before publication when the Saturday Evening Post paid US$15,000 (roughly US$176,000 today) for the serial rights. The novel appeared in seven instalments running from May 14 to June 25, 1949.

That autumn, Morrow published Perilous Passage in hardcover; it was soon reprinted.

Other editions followed, the first being a 1950 Pocket paperback with cover by sometime Post illustrator James R. Bingham.

In 1952, London publisher Frederick Muller brought out a UK edition.

The Ricochet edition is the first since Frederick Muller's.

Seventy years!

There was never any question as which cover we would use in its return to print.

The new edition features a fifteen-page introduction by Susan Mayse, the author's daughter.

Again, Perilous Passage is arriving on our better bookstores. It can also be purchased online from the usual sources. Better still, you can get it directly from the publisher through this link.

Any East Coast post-war noir out there?

Related posts:

Just Kids

Arthur Mayse: The Gift of His Extraordinary Life
Arthur Mayse, His Wife, and The Beachcombers

Just in Time for Christmas!

The new issue of Canadian Notes & Queries arrives at a busy time of year, which suits me just fine. I usually race through each issue, reading it from cover to cover, but am now forced to slow the pace and savour.

And so, all I've read thus far is Seth's regular column 'The Landscape.' The beginning raised a smile of self-recognition:

There are still a few places in Ontario where one can find shelves (or piles) of old second hand books for sale that have not been curated. Randomly acquired, roughly heaped into sections, and priced not by author and title but by paperback or hardcover status alone. These places are dwindling fast but I still know a few prime spots. Don't expect me to name them or tell you where they're located though. s if. I don't want you going there. These are my secret places. My old books! Keep out.

Seth's focus this time is The Canada Permanent Story, 1855-1955. "These corporate books weren't really meant to be perused," he writes, yet Seth has done just that, sharing this endpaper illustration:

My own contribution concerns Garnett Weston, whose books and film work consumed much of my summer. They also consumed a fair amount of my income. I've yet to find a Weston in any of my secret places.

Garnett Weston
1890 - 1980
RIP

It's not entirely true that I've only read Seth's column. Among the other contributions is 'Telling the Story,' in which Susan Mayse remembers her father Arthur Mayse's writing career. I commissioned the  piece as the forward to the forthcoming Ricochet Books reissue of Arthur Mayse's 1949 novel Perilous Passage.

There's so much more to look forward to, including writing by:

Stephanie Bolster

Alex Boyd

Kornella Drianovaki

Megan Durnford

Stacey Easton

André Forget

Stephen Fowler

Alex Good

Ronald L Grimes

Brett Joseph Grubisic

Luke Hathaway

David Huebert

Mark Anthony Jarman

Kate Kennedy

Aris Keshav

M Travis Lane

Rohen Maitzen

Dancy Mason

David Mason

Jeff Miller

Nofel

J R Patterson

Shazia Hafiz Ramji

Patricia Robertson

Naben Ruthnum

Cal Sepulia

Drew Tapley

Rob Taylor

Carl Watts

Bruce Whitman

Given that it's the season... Anyone looking for a last minute Christmas gift can't do much better than a subscription to Canadian Notes & Queries. I bought a couple. You can, too!

The link is here.

Related posts:

The Dead of a Dead End Street
Legacy of Fear

Just Kids

Read Quebec. Read Montreal Noir.

Emily Mernin's article "Montreal Noir, from Passion to Print" has been up on the Read Quebec site for some days now. It's a very nice piece on Véhicule Press, its Ricochet Books imprint, and efforts to return post-war pulps to print. I've been remiss in not sharing. You'll find it through this link.

The penultimate paragraph reveals something:

Two of Ricochet’s forthcoming books, much to Busby’s excitement, will be firsts for the imprint: Perilous Passage takes place on the west coast, while another is set between both Toronto and Montreal.

It's true!

Arthur Mayse's Perilous Passage, which I listed last December as deserving a return to print, will be republished next month. The author's daughter, Susan Mayse, is providing the introduction.

As for the unnamed title to follow – "set between both Toronto and Montreal" – I'm not about to reveal. 

Related posts:

Just Kids
Arthur Mayse; The Gift of His Extraordinary Life
Arthur Mayse, His Wife, and The Beachcombers

The Very Best Reads of a Plague Year