Thriller Most Foreign

The Quebec Plot

Leo Heaps

Toronto: Seal, 1979

This is a thriller written by a man whose own story reads like a thriller. A Jewish Canadian paratrooper in the Second World War, Leo Heaps fought in the Battle of Arnhem, was captured by the Nazis, escaped, joined the Dutch Resistance and returned to fight another day. He served as an advisor to the Israelis in the War of Independence and worked on the International Rescue Committee during the Hungarian Revolution. Heaps was also the son of A.A. Heaps, a leader in the Winnipeg General Strike and one of the founders of the CCF. Anyone collecting OAS today should raise a glass.

With a background like that it should come as no surprise that The Quebec Plot isn't just a thriller but a political thriller. It begins with Marcel Legros, chief of the secret French intelligence agency CEDECE, catching a plane at Charles de Gaulle Airport. Cut to Martinique, scene of a clandestine meeting between Legros and Gilles Marcoux, newly installed Parti Québécois Minister of the Interior. Our hero, Mark Hauser, makes his debut in Stowe, Vermont, where he's looking to get in some end-of-season skiing.

Hauser is a Pulitzer Prize-winning senior journalist at a New York-based news syndicate. Far below, in age and experience, is a colleague named Freeman. When the younger man breaks his leg while on assignment in Quebec City, Hauser is tapped to take his place. Good choice. The American-born son of a French Canadian and a German Jew, Hauser is bilingual and knows a good deal about Canada. It would've been his assignment from the start had the agency thought there was much of a story.

What is the story? Harry Consadine, head of the syndicate, explains: "This new Quebec party wants the province to separate from the rest of Canada. You know how insular we are down here, Mark. We've always taken Canada for granted."

Still do, apparently, which is why they sent Freeman with his schoolboy French, and it is why Consadine reassures his star reporter that he'll be back on the slopes in a day or two. With great reluctance, Hauser leaves Stowe and his newfound love interest, an intellectual ski bunny named Hilda Beane, for an appointment that his boss has set up with Saul Klein at the Montreal offices of the Canadian Jewish Congress. Why? "The Jews are a seismograph. If they're leaving it's a sure sign something is wrong," Consadine tells him.

Klein is staying put.

The thriller only kicks into gear when Hauser leaves Montreal for Quebec City. Along the way he picks up a hitchhiker named Paul Lejeune who is heading for a hunting and fishing lodge north of Lac St-Jean... or so he says. Hauser notices an automatic weapon with folding stock sticking out of the Lejeune's rucksack.

What Hauser doesn't know is that his passenger is really en route to one of the training camps of something called the Quebec Army of Liberation. The Canadian government knows about the army, and is fairly certain that the bases exist, but can't seem to find any. Ottawa's doing much better with L'Inflexible, a French nuclear submarine it's tracking as it makes its way from Martinique to the Gaspé peninsula. Unbeknownst to the French, the Americans are following in their own submarine, Wolverine, which has been newly equipped with a secret weapon.

Ignore the bit about the secret weapon. Ignore the cover copy about H-bomb missiles (we're never told exactly what L'Inflexible is delivering). The most interesting parts centre on Hauser in Quebec City, beginning with his discovery that Freeman has disappeared from his bed at the Hôtel-Dieu hospital.

The Quebec Plot is taut, which is just the thing one wants in a thriller. I imagine it would've been tighter still had it not found a home with London publisher Peter Davies. I blame the intrusive hand of an editor for its worst page:

I won't criticize Seal – McClelland & Stewart, really – for letting these lines stand, but will take it to task for ignoring typos, "tyre" and glaring mistakes like "Party Québecois".

Don't let that dissuade you. The separatist movement of the 'seventies inspired several Quebec-based thrillers. Heaps' followed others by old pros like Philip Atlee, Lionel Derrick and Richard Rohmer. I expected little, yet found that The Quebec Plot rose high above the rest. Quite an accomplishment for a first-time novelist. The author's bio should've given me a clue.

Addendum:

Don't you believe it. That urbane Prime Minister is modelled on Pierre Trudeau. The chain-smoking Premier of Quebec is René Lévesque. The American President with the perpetual smile owes everything to Jimmy Carter.

Object: A 248-page massmarket paperback, featuring ads for The Snow Walker by Farley Mowat and Margaret Laurence's Manawaka series. The cover art is uncredited. I purchased my copy for three dollars in 2013 at the Merrickville Book Emporium. The following year, I came across a pristine copy of the Peter Davies true first (right) in London at Attic Books. Fresh as the day it was published, it set me back one Canadian dollar. 

Access: Held by seventeen of our university libraries, the Kingston Frontenac Public Library, Library and Archives Canada and the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec.

After the Peter Davies first, The Quebec Plot reappeared in the UK as a Corgi paperback. Seal's first Canadian edition appears to have enjoyed one lone printing. Leo Heaps was no Richard Rohmer.

Used copies are plentiful. Very good copies of the Peter Davies edition begin at US$2.95. Pay no more than US$6.00.

Related post:

The Paratrooper, the Professor and the Publisher:
The Nasty Public Battle Over The Quebec Plot
Americans to the Rescue!

The Brexit Fix-it

Today in The Walrus, my take on the biggest story going:

The Brexit Fix-it:

How an obscure forty-year-old Canadian thriller might help alleviate a global crisis

That obscure thriller? Exodus/UK, the 1975 Canadian bestseller.

Its author? Richard Rohmer, the mind behind Ultimatum and Balls!

Rohmer's solution? Ah, you'll have to read the piece to find out.

It's here – gratis!

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

A Poet's Angry Word With the Fenian Botherhood

Angry verse on this 148th anniversary of Thomas D'Arcy McGee's assassination found in Evan MacColl's Poems and Songs (Toronto: Hunter, Rose, 1883).

A WORD WITH THE FENIAN BROTHERHOOD 

(Suggested by the assassination of Thomas D'Arcy McGee, in 1868) 

            "The Fenian Brotherhood "! the phrase sounds well,
            But what's your right to such a title, tell?
            Strangers alike to honour, truth, and shame—
            Conspirators to aim at Fenian fame!
            If truly sang the bard of Selma old,
            The Fenian race were of no cut-throat mould;
            Though sometimes they in Erin loved to roam,
            A land more north was their heroic home;
            The "Cothrom Féine," was their pride and boast;
            Of all base things they scorned a braggart most;
            Besides 'twas not a custom in their day,
            Assassin-like, one's victim to way-lay
            And shoot unseen contented if, cash down,
            The price of blood were only half-a crown!
            Fenians, indeed! all true men of that race
            Fraternity with you would deem disgrace;
            Fenians, forsooth! renounce that honour'd name;
            "Thugs" would more fitly suit your claim to fame! 

            Poor souls, I pity your demented state;
            You will be vicious if you can't be great.
            Better for Erin any fate would be,
            Than to be ruled by bedlamites like ye:
            The war of the Kilkenny cats renewed,
            She'd find, I think, a very doubtful good.
            O wondrous-valiant, treason-hatching crew,
            If words were deeds, what great things might ye do?
            Ye, who have left your country for her good—
            Ye talk of righting all her wrongs in blood!
            'Tis laughable — the more so, that we feel
            Your necks were made for hemp, and not for steel.
            At Britain's lion you may spare your howls,—
            That noble beast is never scared by owls;
            Tis well for you, with all your vapouring frantic,
            You have 'tween him and you the broad Atlantic. 

            Let no one think that he who now cries shame
            On your misdeeds, your Celtic blood would blame;
            A Celt himself, his great grief is to see
            The land that nursed you cursed by such as ye.
            So bright the record of her better days—
            So much to love she still to us displays—
            So rich her heritage of wit and song—
            So warm her heart, so eloquent her tongue,
            He honours Erin. 'Tis to fools like you
            Alone the tribute of his scorn is due. 

            Union is strength. Joy to the nations three
            As now united! May they ever be
            The first and foremost in fair freedom's van—
            An empire built upon the Shamrock plan—
            A seeming THREE and yet a perfect ONE.

Related posts:

'O Martyr'd McGee!'

D'Arcy McGee's Query (with a response)

D'Arcy McGee, All Compliment to Thee

'Death of D'Arcy McGee'

'IN MEMORIAM! The Hon. T.D. McGee'

Remembering Edith Eaton and D'Arcy McGee

'Erin's Address to the Hon. Thomas D'Arcy McGee'

Ezra Levant and the Crude Art of Bowdlerization

The Rainmaker: A Passion for Politics
Keith Davey
Toronto: Stoddart, 1986

Pity Ezra Levant, not nine months ago he was making good money hosting his own show on the Sun News Network. True, ratings hovered around five thousand, but Brian Lilley and the rest of his stablemates fared no better. It was a dream job. Sun stood by its man as he smeared, misinformed, insulted, fabricated and spewed racist vomit. Job security seemed guaranteed. Separatist Pierre Karl Péladeau was committed to the "unapologetically patriotic" network… until he wasn't. There were no takers when it was up for sale.

Ezra Levant, Pierre Karl Péladeau and Rob Ford,
Sun News Network Launch, Toronto, 1 April 2011.

Levant has since turned to the internet, following Glenn Beck into irrelevance with a website supported in part by ads for mail-order brides. He calls it "The Rebel". Write him if you're interested in contributing. Don't bother if you expect to be paid (those ads for mail-order brides don't bring in much).

I'm not sure what The Rebel has by way of staff. Last May, Levant put out a call for an intern. Salary: $1000 a month with free lunches at McDonald's. Clearly, there's no researcher. Just last week, in an effort to expose Liberal bias, Levant told us that this man, James Armstrong Richardson, after whom Winnipeg's airport is named, sat in Pierre Trudeau's cabinet.

Pierre Elliott Trudeau was a teenager when James Armstrong Richardson died. The airport was named under Stephen Harper.

This week has Levant claiming that "Justin Trudeau is demanding that 24 Sussex Drive be totally rebuilt before he moves into it." This isn't a cock-up so much as another of Levant's fictions. Trudeau is demanding nothing, rather he's following the recommendations of a seven-year-old Auditor General's report that Harper chose to ignore. Maybe Rona Ambrose told him that asbestos isn't all that dangerous.

Levant makes no mention of the Auditor General's report, which deemed the renovations urgent, nor concerns coming from the National Capital Commission. Using his very best indoor voice, he tells us that the idea is Justin Trudeau's alone:

This is his first real fight – fighting for his own perks. Well, what was Pierre Trudeau, his dad, like when he was prime minister living in 24 Sussex? Was he a spoiled millionaire, too? Pierre Trudeau, like Justin Trudeau, inherited millions of dollars when he was born. He didn't have to work a day in his life.

Yep, didn't have to work a day in his life – except that he did. What follows is Levant at his most disingenuous and deceitful:

Let me read to you from Keith Davey's account of how Pierre Trudeau demanded a swimming pool at 24 Sussex Drive and threw a tantrum until he got one. Davey was a Liberal senator and senior campaign advisor to Trudeau. So, I'm going to quote now Davey's account. I'm just going to read it.

Bullshit.

What Levant reads is a bowdlerized passage from Davey's memoir with all words, sentences and paragraphs that challenge his narrative removed. Here is the late senator's true account of what transpired, with the words Levant struck out:

So, there you have it, Keith Davey's account of "how Pierre Trudeau stamped his feet and had a tantrum like a spoiled child just like his millionaire son is doing now."

Pity Benjamin Harper, son of millionaire Stephen Harper. How long before Ezra Levant passes judgement?

Who am I kidding.

Levant won't say a word. After all, he's never gone after this billionaire's son.

Related posts:

Sex and the Trudeaus: The Bachelor Canada

On Pearson's Pendant and Ezra Levant's Fiction

Trudeaumania II

One prime minister weeps over the coffin of another. I doubt anyone at McClelland & Stewart was thinking this back in 2000 when they put together that cover. It's not something I saw coming – not until last month, anyway – and certainly not in so decisive a victory. The results aren't quite what I would've liked, but I'm thrilled just the same. 

And so, the country's darkest decade ends with Stephen Harper defeated by the son of a man he'd demonized leading a party he'd vowed to destroy. There's a certain justice in that.

In recognition and celebration, ten favourite books by and about Trudeau père from my collection.

Trudeau
Ottawa: Deneau, 1984

A souvenir from the 1984 Liberal convention at which Pierre Trudeau stepped down as party leader. I bought my copy at a local Goodwill at precisely 4:00pm on 28 September 2000 – I kept the receipt – then arrived home to learn that Trudeau's death had just been announced on the CBC.

Federalism and the French Canadians
Pierre Elliott Trudeau
Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1968

Ex-libris John Robarts, 17th Premier of Ontario.

Sex and the Single Prime Minister
Michael Cowley
[Don Mills, ON]: Greywood, 1968

The first of three pieces of similar silliness published during Trudeau's first term. Glimpses of each can be found here and here.

PM/Dialogue
Keswick, ON: High Hill, [1972?]

A mysterious book I picked up sixteen years ago at a United Church book sale in Merrickville, Ontario. I've never seen another copy.

Conversations with Canadians
Pierre Elliott Trudeau
Toronto: University of Toronto, 1972

A signed first edition, excavated just last year in a local thrift store. Price: $1.00. 

The Trudeau Question
W.A. Wilson
Montreal: Montreal Star, 1972

Written "to make both the issues and the politics more comprehensible to the voters who will make their judgement this year."
Thanks, Montreal Star!

A Time for Action:
Toward the Renewal of the Canadian Federation
Pierre Elliott Trudeau
[Ottawa]: Minister of Supply and Services Canada, 1978

Found amongst a pile of newspapers left behind by the previous owner of our first house. Bonus!

Trudeau and Our Times
Volume 1: The Magnificent Obsession
Stephen Clarkson & Christina McCall
Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1990

"He haunts us still." Great first line. I was mistaken for Alexandre Trudeau at the launch.

Memoirs
Pierre Elliott Trudeau
Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1993

Signed.

Related posts:

Sex and the Trudeaus: The Bachelor Canada
Sex and the Trudeaus: Son and Hair

Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Ladies Man

Margaret's Marriage in Mass Market

'Erin's Address to the Hon. Thomas D'Arcy McGee'

Verse on the 147th anniversary of the assassination of the great D'Arcy McGee. "Erin's Address to the Hon. Thomas D'Arcy McGee" precedes "Death of D'Arcy McGee" as the first of two poems to the politician in Nora Pembroke's Verses and Rhymes by the Way (Pembroke, ON: S.E. Mitchell, 1880).

ERIN'S ADDRESS TO THE HON. THOMAS D'ARCY McGEE

O thou son of the dark locks and eloquent tongue,
With the brain of a statesman sagacious, and strong,
And the heart of a poet, half love, and half fire,
Thou hast many to love thee and more to admire;
But I bore thee, and nursed thee, and joyed at the fame
Which the sons of the stranger have spread round thy name,
I am Erin, green Erin, the "Gem of the sea."
Listen, then, to thy mother's voice, D'Arcy McGee.

Since the crown from my head, and the sceptre are gone
To the hand of the stranger, who held what he won,
I have borne much of sorrow, of wrong and of shame,
I've been spoken against with scorning and blame;
But still have my daughters been spotless and fair,
And my sons have been dauntless to do and to dare;
For as great as thou art and most precious to me.
Still thou art not my only one, D'Arcy McGee.

At the bar, in the senate, in cassock or gown,
Our foes being judges, they've got them renown;
On the red field of battle, of glory, of death,
They've been true to their colours and true to their faith;
And where bright swords were clashing and carnage ran high,
They have taught the stern Saxon they know how to die.
Well, no wit, poet, statesman or hero can be
More dear to my heart than thou, D'Arcy McGee.

Wild heads, may plan glories for Erin their mother,
Weak plans and wicked plans chasing each other;
To me worse than the loss of a sceptre and crown
Is a spot that might tarnish my children's renown,
'Tis the laurels they win are the jewels I prize,
They're the core of my heart and the light of my eyes;
For my children are gems and crown jewels to me,
And art thou not one of them, D'Arcy McGee!

I had one son, and, oh, need I mention his name!
He who well knew where lay both our weakness and shame;
His true, tender heart sought to measure and know
This thing, most accursed, formed of babbling and woe;
And his life did he dedicate freely, to slay
The monster that made my bright children his prey;
In the place where the wine cup flows deadly and free,
The bane of the gifted, oh D'Arcy McGee.

For so well hath the father of lies tried to fling
A false glory around it, so hiding the sting,
Saying wit gets its flash, and high genius its fire,
From the fiend that drags genius and wit through the mire.
Ah! it biteth, it stingeth, it eateth away,
And our best and our brightest it takes for its prey,
'Tis the bowl of the helot, no cup for the free,
As thou very well knowest, my D'Arcy McGee.

Hast thou risen my loved one and cast from thy name
All the shadows that darken thy life with their shame;
Thou hast raised thyself up, against wind, against tide,
Thou art high, thou art honoured, my joy and my pride;
Now the song of the drunkard is chased from thy place,
And my pride is relieved from this touch of disgrace.
Thou wilt help to make Erin "great, glorious and free,"
And I bless thee my silver-tongued D'Arcy McGee.

Related posts:

'O Martyr'd McGee!'

D'Arcy McGee's Query (with a response)

D'Arcy McGee, All Compliment to Thee

'Death of D'Arcy McGee'

'IN MEMORIAM! The Hon. T.D. McGee'

Remembering Edith Eaton and D'Arcy McGee

Pornography Dressed Up as a Cautionary Tale

Death by Deficit: A 2001 Novel
Richard Rohmer
Toronto: Stoddart, 1995

There are plenty of villains in this novel – Quebecers, bankers, the Japanese, a CBC reporter with beer on his breath – but only one appears more than fleetingly. This would be the unnamed former prime minister, a "burned-out politician" whose "lined round face was recognized by everyone in Canada."

I recognized him as Paul Martin, our twenty-first prime minister.

Rohmer's twenty-first prime minister is one of "the architects and the builders of the crisis." The emphasis, mine, is wholly justified. Death by Deficit is set in an imagined 2001, a future past, during the earliest days of the greatest crisis Canada has ever faced. Rohmer's twenty-second prime minister – known only, perhaps tellingly, as "Richard" – has just been sworn in when the economy collapses.

Not his fault. Blame Paul Martin, Jean Chrétien, Brian Mulroney, Pierre Elliott Trudeau and their years of reckless deficit spending. As the country's accumulated debt approaches one trillion dollars, the Japanese get jittery and start dumping their Canadian bonds and securities. Richard announces to the assembled media that he is certain the Americans and Europeans will do likewise.

Which they then do.

Which is meant to show how smart he is.

This reader thinks he's an idiot – and not just for that self-fulfilling prophecy. I'm sure the author wouldn't see it that way. Rohmer's Richard is a hero. The leader of a new party created by the merger of Reform and the Progressive Conservatives, he sees crisis as an opportunity to do whatever the hell he wants: slashing the civil service, privatizing Crown corporations, ending foreign aid, giving "Indians" the what for and, of course, slamming the door on immigration.

I once wrote about this type of story in reference to a fantasy Preston Manning published in the Globe & Mail. Masturbatory to those who favour the right, I called it porn. It is. The U of T's Sylvia Ostrey can hardly contain her excitement: "As usual, Richard Rohmer tells a gripping tale – but this time about fiscal policy!"

Former Progressive Conservative MP James Gillies joins in: "Death by Deficit uncannily captures the atmosphere which dominates the House, the caucus, and the Cabinet when there is a crisis."

Bullshit.

There's never been a crisis in which a PM has called for the RCMP to be brought in to House of Commons to quell dissent.

Not yet, anyway.

Richard snubs his Cabinet and meets with his neophyte caucus only to deliver a false primer on "the parliamentary principle of party discipline."

Enter that beery-breathed CBC reporter, who dares make the very observation that Richard did behind closed doors:

"You have a new, inexperienced Cabinet filled with people who don't even know how to find a washroom in this place, let alone how to handle this crisis. Don't you think you should get some help, call in the best brains in the country?"

A fair question, it's followed by others until Richard changes the channel (pun intended):

"There is no longer any justification for the continuation of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and its enormous drain on the public purse."

So ends the CBC. Cut the mike.

The prime minister never calls in "the best minds in the country", rather he phones Allan Greenspan Al Weinstock, Chairman of the Federal Reserve of the United States.

Weinstock states the obvious:

"…you'd better open the IMF and World Bank doors. At least knock on them and let them know you're coming."

As if he hasn't already helped enough, the Chairman of the Fed gives Richard some phone numbers.

Accompanied by Abbi Black, his very hot "director of international studies," Weinstock flies to Ottawa, susses out the situation, and presents the "Weinstock Solution": Washington will take on Canadian debt in exchange for free access to the country's fresh water, abrogation of cultural protection and unobstructed negotiations that would see British Columbia absorbed by the United States.

Richard accepts the proposal with thanks. No negotiation necessary. No need to call the President.

God, what a mess. It's not like we didn't see it coming.

Remember that 1993 episode of W5 devoted to New Zealand's meltdown?

Sure you do. After all, the reporter was "one of Canada's best, probably the best, TV news magazine producer, Eric Malling." American Abbi Black thinks so much of the show that she presents the entire transcript to Richard, his Minister of Finance, the President of the Treasury Board and, ultimately, the reader. Thirty pages of disjointed prose follow.

"There's been some criticism of the program," hot Abbi acknowledges, "but it's okay for our purposes."

Criticism? Well, yes. In fact, Malling's report inspired Linda McQuaig's Shooting the Hippo: Death by Deficit and Other Myths, which laid bare Malling's… let's say "stretching of the truth."

Published six months before Rohmer's novel, McQuaig's Shooting the Hippo: Death by Deficit and Other Myths dominated the 1995 bestseller lists and was shortlisted for a Governor General's Award for English-language Non-Fiction.

Rohmer's Death by Deficit is, of course, pure fiction. You can tell because he inflates Canada's 1993-94 debt, has it that Employment Insurance is a drain on our taxes and repeats that old saw about Francophones controlling the civil service.

Think of it all as a novelist's prerogative.

Still, I can't help but think that Rohmer believes these things, just as I'm certain he believes the PM's warped version of parliamentary democracy is spot on. Death by Deficit is our world, but a little off, like cheese that's been left out too long smeared over the pages of The Plot Against America. In Richard Rohmer's Canada a female Governor General delivers the "Speech From [sic] the Throne" decked out like Eliza Doolittle at the Embassy Ball.

Death by Deficit predicts a Chrétien government that paid no attention whatsoever to the growing national debt, when in fact it began paying off same with record surpluses. Credit belongs to Paul Martin, who is referred to in the novel as a "lying bastard".

I'll hand the author this: Paul Martin did indeed become our twenty-first prime minister. What's more, our twenty-second, Stephen Harper, leads a party born of a merger of Reform and the Progressive Conservatives. What Rohmer gets wrong is that the Harper government has run the largest deficits in Canadian history, raising us to unprecedented heights of public debt.

What he gets right is that, like Richard's party, Stephen's votes as one.

Sheep.

Trivia: In Generally Speaking: The Memoirs of Major-General Richard Rohmer, the author describes Paul Martin as "a good friend of mine." Rohmer isn't mentioned in Hell or High Water, Martin's autobiography.

Best passage:

It was Abbi Black who was the sight to behold. The PM's male hormone computer told him she was one of the most strikingly beautiful women he had ever laid eyes on. His computer went up a further notch when she slipped off her heavy coat and white scarf. This tall, high-healed, long-limbed, slim beauty was wearing a tight-fitting black woollen sheath with a gleaming row of golden buttons running down from the discretely low-cut bodice that covered her firm breasts (just the right size, according to his computer).
     His eyes took in the cascade of wavy ebony hair and the smooth, unlined forehead, the black, well-shaped eyebrows arched over eyes that held deep-brown pupils in their centres. Her nose was perfectly shaped, her high cheekbones led to a wide, full-lipped mouth with exquisite teeth.
     The PM liked – very much – what he saw, but there was serious business at hand, and he switched off his internal computer as he shook Abbi Black's soft, well-manicured hand.

Highest concentration of hyphens in Canadian literature (but that's not why I point it out).

Bonus:

The doors of the Speaker's chambers opened. There the Right Honourable Pearl McConachie stood in radiant white, her long form-fitting gown reaching to the scarlet carpet. He sleeved arms were partly concealed by a purple cape that sat on her slender shoulders. The wavy blond hair was fetched upwards, seemingly encased in a delicate, glittering tiara.

Object and Access: A well-padded 234-page hardcover in Tory blue boards, my copy set me back 60¢ last summer. Online booksellers offer a dozen or so at prices ranging from $4.11 to $38.74. Condition is not a factor. Pay no more than 60¢.

Death by Deficit was printed only once and has never come out in paperback, meaning all copies out there are first editions. Pay no more than 60¢.

Thirteen of our academic libraries have copies, as does Library and Archives Canada. Public library users will find the book in the Calgary Public Library, the Red Deer Public Library, the Medicine Hat Public Library and the Toronto Public Library.

Death by Deficit was read for Reading Richard Rohmer. 

Related posts:

In Search of George Pepki, Poet
Resolved to Reading Richard Rohmer

A Very Canadian Succès de scandale

The Parliamentary Librarian chased after "Gilbert Knox". Conservative MP Alfred Fripp joined in the hunt, intent on having the author deported to who knows where. The clergy condemned, Ottawa echoed with talk of lawsuits, an election was fought. and a government fell. In the midst of it all, the woman behind the pseudonym suffered a nervous breakdown and was sent away to a Toronto nursing home…

So begins my latest Canadian Notes & Queries Dusty Bookcase column. The rest is found in the new issue, number 92, sharing pages with writing by Michel Basilières, Laura Bast, Darryl Joel Berger, Kerry Clare, Michael Darling, Marc di Saverio, Jennifer A. Franssen, Kaper Hartman, Melanie Janisse, Lydia Kwa, Nick Maandag, David Mason, John McFetridge, Shane Neilson, Patricia Robertson, Rebecca Rosenblum, Mark Sampson, Russell Smith, JC Sutcliffe, Nicholas Zacharewicz and, of course, Seth.

Fellow contributors will understand my singling out Alex Good's "Shackled to a Corpse: The Long, Long Shadow" and Stephen Henighan's "Jimmy the Crossdresser, Mother of Mavis Gallant" as being particularly worthy of attention.

My own contribution, much more modest, concerns The Land of Afternoon, a very good, yet forgotten roman à clef published in 1925 under the name "Gilbert Knox". Madge Macbeth (right) was its true author, which is something not even her publisher knew. The author took the secret to her grave, leaving behind a bright white paper trail for all to follow.

Few have.

Go back ninety years and we'd all be talking about The Land of Afternoon. The first book to come out of Ottawa's Graphic Publishers, it landed in the midst of the federal election fought between Arthur Meighen's Conservatives and the Liberals of William Lyon Mackenzie King. The latter doesn't figure, but Meighen served as a model for protagonist Raymond Dillings, Member of Parliament for Pinto Plains. Wife Isabel inspired Marjorie Dillings… and on it goes.

Again, you'll find more in the new CNQ.

For now, a couple of pieces of trivia that didn't make it into the piece:

1. In February 1936, a scene from the novel was dramatized by Toronto's Canadian Literature Club.
2. Macbeth's good friend Lawrence Burpee once appeared in disguise at a Canadian Authors Association event as "Gilbert Knox".

Burpee, not Knox, May 1926

Subscriptions to CNQ are available through this link.

A Cartoonist Remembers Sir John A. Macdonald

On the day we're being encouraged to celebrate the bicentenary of our first prime minister's birth, something from the other end. This unusual piece of memorial verse, penned by Grit Grip cartoonist John Wilson Bengough is found in Motley: Verses Grave and Gay (Toronto: William Briggs, 1895).

SIR JOHN A. MACDONALD

                              Dead! Dead! And now before
                  The threshold of bereavèd Earnscliffe stand,
                  In spirit, all who dwell within our land,
                              From shore to shore! 

                              Before that black-draped gate
                  Men, women, children mourn the Premier gone,
                  For many loved and worshipped old Sir John,
                              And none could hate. 

                              And he is dead, they say!
                 The words confuse and mock the general ear—
                 What! can there yet be House and Members here,
                              And no John A.? 

                              So long all hearts he swayed,
                Like merry monarch of some olden line,
                Whose subjects questioned not his right divine,
                             But just obeyed 

                             His will's e'en faintest breath,
               We had forgotten, 'midst affairs of State,
               'Midst Hansard, Second Readings and Debate,
                             Such things as death! 

                             Swift came the dread eclipse
               Of faculty, and limb, and life at last,
               Ere to the Judge of all the earth he passed,
                             With silent lips, 

                             But not insensate heart!
               He was no harsh, self-righteous Pharisee—
               The tender Christ compassioned such as he,
                             And took their part 

                             As for his Statesman-fame,
               Let History calm his wondrous record read,
               And write the truth, and give him honest meed
                             Of praise or blame! 

Bilingual Today, French Tomorrow Redux

Enough!

J.V. Andrew

Kitchener, ON: Andrew Books, 1988

153 pages

This review now appears, revised and rewritten, in my new book:

The Dusty Bookcase:

A Journey Through Canada's

Forgotten, Neglected, and Suppressed Writing

Available at the very best bookstores and through

Biblioasis, Amazon, Chapters/Indigo, and McNally-Robinson.

Related posts:

Bilingualism Today, French Tomorrow and the Bigots of Yesteryear
A Quiet Revolution and Still Cowards Complain

Beware the Savage Jaw of 1981

Loving the Mayor of Toronto

Firebrand
Rosemary Aubert
Toronto: Harlequin, 1986

Breathless, she couldn't say anything, and taking her silence as acquiescence, he kissed her again, whispering, "I'll call you tomorrow."
     Then he was gone. Before she went in, Jenn took a good look at the spot on her front porch where she'd just been kissed – twice – by His Worship, the mayor of Toronto. 

Municipal elections take place across Ontario today, meaning Rob Ford's time as Toronto's mayor is nearly over. Given the man's current health struggles, it may be unseemly to feel good about this, but I do. Ford did considerable harm to Toronto. Barring the election of his brother, which is unlikely, the city will be better off.

Fifteen years ago, when I was living in Toronto, a clownish figure named Mel Lastman was its mayor. Come election time I cast my vote for transgender rights advocate Enza Anderson. She came in third.

Enza Anderson and Mel Lastman, Toronto, 1999

Toronto politics seems to swing wildly between the conventional and unconventional  – or maybe that's just me. In 1986, the year Firebrand was published, the city's mayor was Art Eggleton. Then in the third of his four terms of office, he'd go on to Ottawa, where he served as President of the Treasury Board, Minister of Infrastructure, Minister of International Trade and Minister of National Defence.

When he was through, Lastman returned to his Bad Boy furniture stores.

Michael Massey, the hunk at the centre of this novel is more like Eggleton than Lastman, though I'm betting on John Sewell as the model. Like Sewell, Mike starts out as an activist politician, gets his face smacked by a fellow alderman, and rises to become mayor of our largest city.

The Globe & Mail, 14 March 1972

We first meet Mike in a police van after he's been picked up for disrupting the demolition of an old house (see: Sewell, John). Seated across from him is tearful Jenn MacDonald. Mike got himself arrested on purpose – something to do with bringing attention to the cause, I think – but Jenn is along for the ride only through a misunderstanding. Whatever will husband Bobby think? Fast friends, Mike and Jenn spend the night in neighbouring cells, are freed in the wee hours, and part on the Gerrard Street Bridge. It's not that Mike isn't attracted, but that Jenn is a married woman.

The second chapter begins fifteen years later. Jenn has split from Bobby, and is now working as a librarian at Toronto City Hall. After all this time, her thoughts drift back to the innocent evening spent with Mike. It wasn't that she wasn't attracted, but that she was married.

Mike got married himself – to a Rosedale ice queen – but is recently divorced. Now mayor of Toronto, Jenn sees him from time to time walking through the lobby, but he never sees her. Then, one day, they happen to stand next to each other while watching skaters on Nathan Phillips Square.  

Firebrand being my first Harlequin Superromance, I had no idea what to expect. Still, these things surprised:

• Elizabeth II as a character.
• Ribaldry.

• A debate over whether the Toronto Police Service should be armed with Uzis.
• A rally against arts cut-backs (with allusion to the cancellation of The Friendly Giant).
• A sex scene that takes place in the mayor's office.

Yes, a sex scene in the mayor's office. What's more, it takes place before expansive windows overlooking the city:

Suddenly the room behind her was plunged into darkness, and the square outside seemed to spring into full vibrant light. The fountain in the middle gleamed beneath its lighted arches. Queen Street and Bay Street glowed from Saturday night traffic. The clock tower of Old City Hall shone the hour with benign dignity, while all around, office buildings, banks, insurance companies and hotels cast glitter from myriad windows into the night. And above it all shone the full moon, golden, warm, familiar, seductive.

Firebrand is as much a novel about the love between Jenn and Mike as it is the author's love for her hometown. This is no brilliant observation on my part.

The couple stroll through Chinatown, drive along the Danforth, and sneak out of a ball at the King Edward Hotel. There are times it's all a bit forced, though I'm ready to blame an editor's heavy hand for sentences such as this: "She was in The Room, the most exclusive boutique in Simpsons, a huge department store on Yonge Street not far from City Hall."

"I love you, you big heap of brick and concrete," Jenn cries out one morning as she gazes upon the city. The greatest threat to the budding romance between mayor and librarian is found in their disagreement over the future of the Leslie Street Spit. That obstacle evaporates unresolved; others, promised by cover copy, prove no more intrusive than Timothy Eaton's left toe, and things move along toward the usual conclusion. Like City Hall itself, Firebrand alternates between the conventional and the unconventional. Or maybe not. It's my first Superromance.

Note to cleaning staff:

Before her, all six-foot-four of him glowing in the soft window light, stood Mike, fully and gloriously a man. Hungry for her with a hunger that was obvious in every part of his huge body. She dropped her eyes, suddenly shy.
     That gesture of shyness pushed him right over the edge of longing. He wanted her so much. He took a single step closer.
     And she fairly ran into his arms. Sweet, wise, willing Jenn. She had his heart, his soul, his body and his love.
     Tenderly he lowered her onto the deep, soft rug.

Dedication:

Trivia: The man who slapped John Sewell was Alderman Horace Brown, author of The Corpse was a Blonde, The Penthouse Killings, Murder in the Rough and Whispering City.

Object: A 306-page mass market paperback with and additional four pages of advertising. Today's bibliophiles will regret having missed out on this exciting offer:

My copy was given to me by Amy Lavender Harris, author of the acclaimed Imagining Toronto. I have Amy to thank for bringing this novel to my attention.

Access: Published in April 1986 – and never again – it's held only by Library and Archives Canada. There are plenty of used copies available online, ranging in price from 1¢ to US$44.60. Pay no more than one dollar.

The only translation of which I'm aware is Um homem inatingível [An Unattainable Man], published in 1986 by Brazil's Editora Nova Cultural.

Related post:

Harlequin Librarians: So Many Secrets