Thomas P. Kelley's Elusive Gorilla's Daughter

The Gorilla's Daughter
Thomas P. Kelley
Toronto: News Stand Library, 1950

160 pages 

Note: The Gorilla's Daughter is the most sought-after Canadian paperback. It is also the most notorious, though I would argue this has everything to do with the cover. Because copies are so scarce, and access so limited, I'll be relaying the story of the gorilla's daughter from beginning to end. There will be spoilers. Criticism will be kept to a minimum.

Blonde and beautiful Diana Lynn, nineteen-year-old daughter of archeologist and big game hunter Professor Theodore Lynn, is abducted by Bontu, a five-hundred-pound male gorilla, whist on safari in Equatorial Africa. She'd heard stories of native women who had been carried off by "the hairy men of the trees," but had dismissed them as products of "the wild imagination of the village natives, the witch doctors and the porters." Now, she knew different. Or was she having a nightmare?

But, no, it isn't a bad dream; rather a living nightmare.

Fortunately, the wild imagination of Thomas P. Kelley spares the reader the worst, instead skipping ahead a year to the point Diana gives birth to the "hideous offspring of their union!"

Do you think this impossible? I did, but was soon set straight:

"Oh, you fool. You blind fool. Do you not know history as you should? Can't you realize that the ancient Druids of England mated humans with animals? Don't you realize that the ancient Roman Emperor Caligula, chose a beautiful and snow-white mare for his mistress?"

Blade Runner being my favourite film, and Taffy's Snake Pit Bar being a favourite hangout, this particular example stood out: 

"If you know anything about Egyptian history, you will realize that the great Queen Hetshepsut, always employed an asp – yes, a slimy reptile, a snake – for her moments of love. History can't deny that."

Can't it? In my defence, I minored in Canadian history. For what its worth, I have read Marian Engel's Bear, and do not recall a pregnancy.

Bear
Marian Engel
Toronto: Seal, 1977

Returning to The Gorilla's Daughter, as the title suggests, the "OFFSPRING of MAID and MONSTER" is female, possessing a "shapely form like that of her mother," but with the face of her father. Diana names her Tara... "Tara, the gorilla's daughter!"

Fourteen years pass, during which mother and daughter cement the closest of bonds. Though Tara is unable to communicate verbally, except in the language of the gorillas, she is taught to write and proves herself every bit as intelligent as her English educated mother. Tara grows strong while her mother grows weak. No longer blonde or beautiful, Bontu's abuse has taken a great toll and her body is giving out.

Escape attempts are long in the past; Bontu was always quick to recapture and punish her. Diana will come to accept that she can never return to London society:

In Tara's fifteenth year, there occurs an event that changes everything. Bontu has been relocating his tribe ever eastward so as to avoid encroaching white trophy hunters. When one evening a safari comes uncomfortably close to Bontu's tribe, Diana sees an opportunity. She moves in on the camp late at night, has Tara kill a sentry, then awakens a member of the party. It is at this point that she learns that her dear father spent his remaining years searching for her, before dropping dead of a heart attack. Her fiancé, was similarly dedicated, until scandal arose. A blackmail attempt by bespectacled, ugly, fat Lancashire scullery maid led to his suicide.

The only positive thing Diana takes away from the meeting is a rifle, which she then uses to kill Bontu.

Ill health claims her shortly thereafter.

Tara inherits the rifle and remains with the tribe, which is taken over by a gorilla named Targash. He's neither better nor worse than her father. For three years, Tara stays out of his way until the day Targash kills Taka, the semi-lame gorilla who is her crush. The tribe leader had wanted her for his mate, but the grieving gorilla's daughter stabs Targash to death, thus becoming "Tara, Queen of the tribe of Tara!"

Two more years pass, during which the white men continue to encroach. Tara is running out of territory in which to relocate when Patak, the eldest member of the tribe, tells her of a land of gurgling streams and abundant fruit surrounded by a ring of mountains where the white hunters do not venture.

Here the narrative shifts abruptly to focus on handsome Bob Wickson. The son of American steel baron Andrew J. Wickson, he's "one of those fortunate young men who has too much money" and not much to do. Looking for adventure, he heads for Cape Town where he encounters an old drunk who tells him a story of Atlantis which has the survivors of that mythological sunken continent settling in the heart of Africa where they built a city of untold wealth encircled by "The Forbidden Mountains."

He has a map to sell.

Bob buys it for £2500 – roughly £138,000 today – telling himself that there's one chance in a hundred that the drunk is telling the truth.

I thought this wildly optimistic.

The gamble pays off quickly and the Forbidden Mountains are found in the very next paragraph. As they approach, there is unrest amongst Bob's native guides and porters. It's left to his chief gun-bearer to enlighten:

"The men are afraid, they do not want to go any further. We are approaching the land of the evil spirits, Bwana. Our ancestors have told it is a terrible place of death and destruction, where huge beasts ten times larger than the biggest elephant, fly through the air and devour everything they see!"
   To say that young Bob Wickson was annoyed, would be putting it mildly. 

Bob instructs his men to wait and continues alone. Coincidentally, this is very same instruction given by Tara to her tribe upon reaching the mountains that very same day. Once inside the ring, she finds a paradise as described by Patak... and then she spots Bob from her perch upon a tree:

Tara shoots the panther, saving Bob's life, and jumps to the ground.

Hey, she has a nice personality.

Tara finds Bob intriguing and attractive, despite his short narrow nose. She falls in love, and asks him to be her mate. Bob accepts the proposal, though his motivation is unclear. I suggest it has something to do with a recognizing that Tara will protect and keep him alive.

Soon enough, the pair are captured by the short-legged, long-armed, white-haired descendants of Atlantis, and it is only though Tara's strength that they are able to escape. In fleeing, Bob sprains his ankle and is carried to safety in the gorilla's daughter's arms. She will later save him from another panther and from being sacrificed at the Temple of the Flaming God.

For Tara, the Forbidden Mountains has everything she has desired, Bob most of all. And so, she leads her tribe in the slaughter of the Atlanteans, crushing skulls, and tearing off limbs:

The tribe of Tara made no discrimination as to sex – wives meeting the same fate as their husbands – while infants and children were raised upwards by shaggy paws which dashed their heads against the massive and towering pillars. Screams and shrieks arose, then frantic cries for mercy. But the beasts  of Tara could not understand the words, and mercy was a thing unknown to them.

Curiously, Bob expresses no reaction to the carnage. What's even more strange is that he uses the occasion of the victory to break his engagement to Tara:

"Well, Tara, the truth is that you are not a human. To be sure, you have the most glorious human body that ever trod the earth. But – but your face is that of a beast. Oh, don't you see – you're a freak, a grotesque freak – part human, part beast. If we were ever to go to my country, people would shudder at the sight of you!"

Tara is, of course, only able to write her response: "But your promise. You promised that you would be my mate and that we would have four children!"

She says nothing more, rather collapses on the alter upon which Bob was to have been sacrificed.

Eight days later, Bob's ankle has all but healed. He manages to climb the range and return to his camp, only to find that his guides and porters are gone. The fortunate young man with too much money has two hundred miles to traverse without arms, support or supplies. As the terrible truth sets in, Tara reappears to guides and protect him on a trek that would otherwise result in certain death.

They walk in silence for nearly a week, until they near a friendly native village. Tara turns but Bob can't bear to let her go:

Half-beast or not, he realized that in this strange creature he has found nothing but goodness – loyalty, unselfishness and honesty. Yes, perhaps she was some queer quirk of nature, but there was something in her that was fine, FINE!

He encircles Tara in his arms and holds her body to his, a motion that in her tribe signifies acceptance of a mate. Their embrace is broken by a charging lion. Tara whips out her knife and is killed saving her mate.

FIN 

I lie.

There's more to The Gorilla's Daughter. The novella continues a further three pages in which it is revealed that the narrator learned the story from Bob during a long night spent smoking ciggies atop the Great Pyramid of Giza. There's also a subplot concerning a failed campaign by Mrs C. Anthony Van Carlson of the Boston Carlsons to marry daughter Gloria into the Wickson family. 

This is not their story, it is the story of Tara, the gorilla's daughter.

Bonus: The Gorilla's Daughter ends on page 127, falling far short of the standard News Stand Library title. Padding is provided by a thirty-page science fiction story titled 'Awaken the Dead!' by Halls Wells.

Set in 1947, it concerns a wealthy Wall Street investor who, at age ninety-two, is doing his darnest to stave off death. To this end, he has himself refrigerated so that he might be thawed out when there are cures for his ailments.

Halls Wells that ends well, except for Harley D. Haworth.

About the cover: Is the woman meant to be Diana or Tara? Either way, the illustrator errs in that both are blonde. In fact, Tara is described as having platinum blonde hair.

Object and Access: A typical NSL mass market paperback.  The rear cover copy does indeed consist of excerpts, the lone difference being "blonde." Kelley uses "blond" throughout the novel. I prefer the former.

Library and Archives Canada, McMaster University, and the University of Calgary have copies, but that's it.

My three decade pursuit of The Gorilla's Daughter has failed to yield so much as a sighting. I have bowdler of Fly-by-Night to thank for sending me scans and photocopies.

As of this writing, no copies are listed for sale online.

Related post:

Exclamation Marks Abound!

Adults Without a Clue

The Clue of the Dead Duck

Scott Young
Toronto: Little, Brown, 1962
159 pages

Morgan Perdue and Albert "Young Ab" Magee are up to no good. They've taken advantage of a trip taken by Black Ab – he's Young Ab's dad – to skip school and do a little illegal duck hunting. Friend Sally Connors wanted to join them, but the boys had waved her off. Morgan and Young Ab leave well before dawn, piloting a boat down Irishman's River to the very same floating bog Black Ab uses when hunting duck. No sooner do they arrive than they are attacked and Morgan is knocked out.

The boy regains consciousness to find Young Ab and the boat gone. He spends a long cold day on the bog before being rescued by Sally. She'd grown concerned when the boys hadn't returned. Morgan's rescue sets off a futile search for Young Ab. The Ontario Provincial Police are called in, the RCAF sends a helicopter from CFB Trenton, and yet there is no sign of the missing boy. 

There's suspicion from the start. Morgan Perdue is a foster child. He's spent his childhood being shuttled from place to place by Children's Aid. Morgan considers his two years at the Magee house the best he's ever lived, which is something given that the period coincides with Mrs Magee's sudden illness and death. Though no one blames the boy for her passing, Young Ab's Aunt Winnie has always considered Morgan a bad seed. She's certain he's hiding what really happened on Irishman's River:

"Are you sure you and Young Ab didn't didn't have some kind of an argument and then that that [sic] temper of yours didn't get the better of you?"

Detective Sergeant Bower of the OPP has a similar theory. A grim, unfriendly man he isn't so much intent on investigating as obtaining an a confession.

It's this treatment of Morgan, this terrible prejudice, that lends weight to what would otherwise be just another adventure story for children. The boy wants to clear his name, but more than anything he wants to find his friend.

The children of The Clue of the Dead Duck come off so much better than their elders. Sally proves herself a capable, loyal friend. Pearl, Young Ab's little sister comforts Morgan as the adults point fingers. Meanwhile, Morgan somehow manages to find the strength to continue his quest in the face of insinuations and accusations levelled by the adults. His actions, not those of the police, lead to the break in the case and the arrests of the persons responsible for Young Ab's disappearance. 

The Clue of the Dead Duck is the sixth book in Little, Brown's Secret Circle series. A strange name, don't you think? It suggests a group of crime solvers, like the Three Investigators, yet the books have no recurring characters. What they do have in common is Arthur Hammond, who not only served as the series' general editor, but provided plot outlines for each title. The subtle social commentary of The Clue of the Dead Duck sets it apart from Max Braithwaite's The Mystery of the Muffled Man, the only other Secret Circle book I've read. Whether this is the result of Young's influence or that of Hammond, a man known for his social activism, is a matter of further research. Ultimately, credit goes to the author. Sketching out a story is one thing, writing this is quite another: 

The last thing Young Ab said before he went to sleep was that the alarm was set for four o'clock and that we'd better get some sleep.
     But sometimes when I'm just about to go to sleep things seem very clear to me. If I've done something wrong during the day, it's in those few minutes before I go to sleep that I worry about it. Now I started thinking, suppose there's an accident? Suppose somebody gets shot? The faces of all the people I knew around Irishman's Lake, all the people who accepted me right now because I was under Black Ab's protection, came up in my mind. But as I  lay therein the dark, these faces seemed to be looking at me accusingly. Old ladies had their heads bent together and were looking out of the corners of their eyes at me, and I was scared.

Sadly, The Clue of the Dead Duck remains relevant. It hasn't aged.

Note: The Clue of the Dead Duck was read for the 1962 Club. Reviews by fellow club members can be found through this link.

Other books from 1962 reviewed here over the years:

Canada 1962

The Damned and the Destroyed - Kenneth Orvis

Four Days - John Buell

Lust Planet - Olin Ross [W.E.D. Ross]

The Mystery of the Muffled Man - Max Braithwaite

The Ravine - Kendal Young [Phyllis Brett Young]

Object: A well-constructed hardcover with series design. The eight illustrations, cover included, are by Douglas Johnson. I purchased my copy last year at Craigy Muir Curiousities in Spencerville, Ontario. Price: $5.00.

 

Access: Very few copies are listed for sale online – prices range from US$6.00 to US$13.96. Note that not one features the dust jacket.

In 1981, The Clue of the Dead Duck was reissued as a Seal mass market paperback. As far as I've been able to determine, it was a split run with Scholastic Canada. These editions are being sold by pretend booksellers like Thriftbooks at prices ranging from US$30.42 to $42.48.

Related posts:

Yeah, I Know the Muffled Man

Christmas With Neil Young's Dad

Teamwork

Gordon Pinsent's Gift

A Gift to Last
Gordon Pinsent and Grahame Woods
Toronto: Seal, 1978
215 pages

Gordon Pinsent celebrated his ninetieth birthday last summer. I recognized the day – July 12th – by raising a glass and downing its contents... and then I thought of this book.

A Gift to Last was a Salvation Army Thrift Store score. Did I pay fifty cents or a dollar? The sight of it brought back memories. A Gift to Last began in 1976 as a critically-acclaimed made-for-TV Christmas movie. Its popularity spawned a television series that ran for three seasons before Pinsent pulled the plug. 

In any other country, A Gift to Last would be aired annually as a Christmas classic. I saw it only once, in my adolescence, and so have to rely on this novelization. The early pages follow a familiar pattern. We begin with Harrison Sturgess – his very name suggests a stick-in-the-mud – the father of two children: sensible, strong-willed Jane, and "pale-skinned, fragile-looking" Clement. You might guess which child Harrison favours.

Clement is the novel's protagonist, though his Uncle Edgar is the hero. Portrayed by Pinsent, Edgar is larger than life and stronger than nature. He appears on Christmas Eve 1898, having made his way through a blinding snowstorm to his bother's expansive home in small town Ontario. Edgar is the black sheep of the family in that he joined the Royal Canadian Regiment, instead of following dour brothers Harrison and James into the Sturgess tannery business. A joker, a singer, a teller of tall tales, and heavy drinker, Edgar has an eye for the ladies. You might guess which brother this reader favours. 

I believe the novelization is faithful to its source material, but can't say to what degree because both movie and series haven't aired in over four decades. My memory is just not that good. I do remember that the movie was framed by Clement as an old man looking back on that Christmas of his youth. The novelization abandons all things 1976, instead presenting a linear story that begins in fin de siècle Tamarack (the series' fictitious small Ontario town) and ends just a few year later. Things happen, and as in the very best television, strength lies in the ways in which characters react and interact in the face of these events.

The first episode of the series – chapters four through six in the novelization – revolves around the illness and death of Harrison Sturgess (because Alan Scarfe, who'd played the character in the movie, was committed to the Stratford Festival). His unexpected demise changes the dynamic of the Sturgess family. In black silk weeds and weeping veil, the widowed Clara withdraws from her children, retreating into memories of her late husband. Cold and calculating James sees his chance to not only expand the tannery, which Harrison opposed, but control his later brother's finances. Eleven-year-old Clement, who is told he is now the man of the house, struggles with the distant relationship he had with his dead father. Edgar, who recognizes his surviving brother's conniving, is torn between duty to family and the Dominion.

Following the hot mess "shapeless jumble" that was The Whiteoaks of Jalna (1972), A Gift to Last is an all-too-rare example of Canadian television period drama. Like the programme, the novelization is rich in history. In her mourning, Clara recalls a trip to Montreal, where William Notman took her portrait, and she visited Savage, Lyman & Co on Notre-Dame Street.

Grahame Woods' novelization is unembellished, as one might expect from a former screenwriter. He understands pacing, story, and the use of dialogue, making for an entertaining adaptation of an entertaining show.

Novelizations of television programmes seem such quaint things today. Relics of a time before Betamax, next to the Fotonovel, they were the only way to revisit shows and movies on demand. Not that A Gift to Last made it to Betamax or VHS or Laserdisc or DVD. The series has never been offered by any streaming service. Hell, CBC Gem doesn't even offer The Beachcombers. 

How I wish I could see it again. Until then, I've got this.

A Christmas Miracle: I read A Gift to Last on Christmas Day, and wrote the above on Boxing Day.  The very next day, December 27, someone going by the name of Chance Wolf uploaded the movie to YouTube:

As it turns out, my memory wasn't so far off. The novelization pares down the script somewhat. Old man Clement appears more than I remember, and is much more sour. I didn't remember anything of the father's early morning drinking. Even more remarkable, my memory held nothing of actress Barbara Gordon's orange lounging attire.

Credits: The cover credits the novel to Gordon Pinsent and Graham Woods. The title page clarifies:

Trivia: Gordon Pinsent co-wrote and sang the theme song. It was released as a single by the CBC and on South Africa's Plum label.

His character is also given to singing. Lines several songs are found throughout the book, but for all my efforts I haven't been able to identify one. Could they be Pinsent's own?  Here's a example, from the family gathering to see Edgar off to the Second Boer War:

By eight o'clock, things had got quite serious and maudlin. Edgar decided that enough was enough, did a quick shuffle-step and started to sing. 

          In the middle of Auntie's petunias,

          Where I thought I'd rest for a spell,

          There along came a couple of lilies

          And their names were Virginia and Nell... 

"Not another word of that song, you old fool, Lizzy sniffed back a tear.

     "But you taught it to me."

     She slapped at him. "I did not. Have you ever heard anything quite so foolish.

Darn that Lizzy Sturgess for cutting him off.

More trivia: In 1978, the made-for-TV movie was adapted to the stage by Alden Nowlan and Walter Learning.

Object and Access: A mass market paperback. Eleven stills feature on the interior covers. Were this an American production they would've been interior plates. The novel itself is followed by the first two chapters of Charles Templeton's thriller An Act of God, "to be on sale August 23rd [1978], wherever paperbacks are sold."

As far as I've been able to tell, A Gift to Last enjoyed just one printing. I've not been able to find it in any library catalogue. A handful of used copies are listed for sale online, ranging in price from US$3.89 to US$34.97. Condition is a factor.

A Stranger Comes to Town; an Author Vanishes

Forever 33
Jacques Byfield
Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1982
175 pages

The Alberta town of Breery exists nowhere outside Forever 33, but should be familiar to readers of Canadian fiction. Its five hundred inhabitants – those featured in the novel, anyway – will be equally familiar; there's the voluptuous waitress (she's up for anything), the tempted hardware store owner (his wife wants to start a family), the brooding farmer (he beats his kids), the widowed schoolteacher (with a heart of gold), and the troubled preacher (who is questioning his faith).

As might be expected from its Alberta setting, the novel takes place during the Great Depression.

The unfamiliar comes in the form of a one-legged gravedigger named John Evans. I'm betting that the novel's first sentence – "No one knew where he had come from, and no one went out of his way to find out." – inspired the copy on the back of the dust jacket:

The front flap looks to build upon the aura of mystery: "He was a stranger who seemed to know things people didn't know about themselves." The words "haunting" and "mesmerizing" feature, followed by this: "none is left untouched by the watchful presence of the gravedigger."

Memories of Evans, like this one, fill the earliest pages:

Pastor Clough remarked more than once that his gravedigger showed little concern for the rituals of pre-burial; he even went so far as to doubt the man's confederacy with Christianity. John Evans was never seen inside the church. He remained for the most part a man unnoticed, passing his days digging deep holes and then refilling them upon the heads the town's deceased. Occasionally he would disappear; on those occasions he would be employed at other towns in the vicinity digging for their burials. No one had to tell him where or when his particular services were required. He just knew. The man had a nose for death. He could sniff its adolescent scent on the breeze and be gone in its direction before the bereaved could gather.

All hints at the supernatural, bringing to mind Ray Bradbury's G.M. Dark (Something Wicked This Way Comes) and Stephen King's Leland Gaunt (Needful Things), mysterious outsiders who wreak havoc on small town America. I expected gravedigger Evans to be their Canadian cousin.

I was wrong.

Evans is a mysterious figure only in that the author doesn't share as much about him as he does Breery's townsfolk. His powers rest on observation, and are no more remarkable than those of local gossip Vera Roden:

The woman had an uncanny knack. If she caught only so much as one word of private conversation, then the cat was out of the bag.

As the novel progressed, I became less interested those living in Breery than I did the town as a whole. How did was it, I wondered, that a town of five hundred could support a hardware store and diner? How was it that everyone lived in comfort, despite the Great Depression? More than anything, I wondered how Breery was able to afford a full-time gravedigger.

Then there was Byfield's style, which swings wildly. Compare the passages quoted above with this, in which young Peter Carlson, son of the brutal farmer, chases after Evans:

The boy's breath billowed with the exertion of his haste. It was in his heart to consummate their earliest vague discussion. Since that first talk he'd been savouring with anticipation what he hoped the digger might tell him next. He hurried and was quickly upon the object of his haste.

Forever 33 was declared a finalist in the $50,000 Seal Books First Novel Award.

No winner was awarded.

How is that fair?

For all its flaws, Forever 33 is a better debut novel than Mordecai Richler's The Acrobats, Daniel Richler's Kicking Tomorrow, and Emma Richler's Feed My Dear Dogs. I admired Byfield's imagination and looked forward to a more mature sophomoric work... only to discover that his bibliography begins and ends with Forever 33.

The publicity sheet inserted in my copy informs that he author is at work on a new novel.

It's been thirty-eight years.

About the title: In reminiscing, the gravedigger recites lines from a song he remembers from the Great War: "The soldier knows that he will die and buried deep he'll be. The digger may live to be ninety-nine, but he'll stay thirty-three."

I've found no evidence that these lines exist outside the pages of this novel.

Fun fact: According to the Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data, Jacques Byfield was born in 1948, which would have made him either 33 or 34 at time of publication.

Object and Access: A slim volume bound in brown boards. The jacket design is credited to Fernley Hesse Ltd. My copy is a first edition. I see no sign of another.

I can find all of two copies available for sale online, neither of which is offered by a Canadian bookseller. How is that possible?

The cheaper of the two is priced at £15. I can't say it's worth the price. I can't say it isn't.

Held by Library and Archives Canada, the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, and twelve of our academic libraries. Of our public libraries, only that serving Toronto comes through. Not only that, it offers this photograph of the young author on its website.

Related post:

One Book Wonder?

The Dustiest Bookcase: G is for Gotlieb

The Dustiest Bookcase:

Short pieces on books I've always meant to review (but haven't).

They're in storage as we build our new home.

Patience, please.

O Master Caliban!

Phyllis Gotlieb

New York: Harper & Row, 1976

244 pages

A childhood enthusiasm, I gave up on science fiction at about the time this book was published, which pretty much explains how it is that I had no idea Phyllis Gotlieb wrote sci-fi novels. Before coming across a copy of her first, Sunburst, at last fall's Friends of the St Marys Public Library book sale. I knew her only as a poet. I've never read her verse, but the fact that it had been published by Oxford University Press holds considerable weight.

O Master Caliban! was Gotlieb's third novel. I found this pristine, seemingly unread first edition one cold January day at Attic Books. The price - $3.00 - encouraged purchase, but I hesitated after reading the first sentence of the front flap:

Esther, an intelligent, articulate, motherly gibbon; Yigal, a large, grumpy white goat who talks; and Sven, a moody young man with four arms, are the protagonists of this fast-paced and delightful novel.

Oh, dear.

I bought it just the same, but can't bring myself to start in on the thing. The cover of the 1979 Seal mass market paperback all but guarantees I never will.

The Honesty's Too Much: Dan Hill's Comeback

My promised review of Comeback, the 1983 novel by singer/songwriter Dan Hill is now available at the Canadian Notes & Queries website. An excerpt:

I hesitate in describing Comeback as an extraordinary novel because it is not very good; what I mean to say is that it’s unlike anything I’ve read. Let’s begin by recognizing that the author modelled protagonist/rapist, singer/songwriter Cornelius Barnes IV on himself. Like his creator, Barnes achieves fame in his early twenties with a hit considered by some as “the most romantic song of the decade,” but his star soon falls into the gutter. Now pushing thirty, it’s been five years since his last hit, and Barnes is without a recording contract. The other characters of note come from the author’s life: Cornelius Barnes III is modelled on his father, Daniel Hill III. Timothy Reynolds, Barnes’ high school friend and musical collaborator, is based on music producer Matthew McCauley. Timothy’s father bankrolls Barnes’ first album, just as McCauley’s did for Hill. Bernie Fiedler, owner of the legendary Riverboat Coffee House, plays himself.
     Sadly, Lawrence Hill, the author’s Giller Award-winning younger brother, does not feature.

You can read the whole thing here:

The Honesty's Too Much

Related post:

Sometimes When we Touch: Dan Hill Writes Six Sex Scenes

Sometimes When We Touch: Dan Hill Writes Six Sex Scenes (NSFW)

Things have been pretty quiet here, I know. Much of these past two weeks has been taken up by other writing and promotion of The Dusty Bookcase – the book. This is not to say I haven't found time to read. Just yesterday I finished Comeback, the 1983 novel by Dan Hill, brother of Lawrence. It's one of the most unusual books read in this journey through Canada's forgotten, neglected, and suppressed writing. For reasons outlined in my review, which should follow in a few days, it is also one of the most disturbing. A roman à clef infused with self-loathing and sex scenes, at time of publication Maclean's dismissed Comeback as "soft-porn."

Because used copies listed online begin at C$115 ("20 pages throughout the book have splatter stains" – coffee, I hope), I present these excerpts.

You may wish to close your eyes and hide.

1

She felt awkward – no man had undressed her before. Her legs were pressed so tightly together that he finally had to pull off her suit in hurried jerky motions. She felt his warm breath against the opening of her vagina. As his hands opened her legs she shuddered and whispered. "No – please – don't."
     "It's alright," he murmured, his breath pounding into her, "it's alright."

2

Her nipples felt as soft and pliant as the erasers at the tip of a pencil, but her breasts were hard and unyielding – like a pair of Prince Edward Island potatoes

3

She drew my mouth against hers, kissing me with unusual tenderness, but the moment I closed my eyes she slid her hand into the salad bowl, scooped up a handful of grapes, and dropping them down the front of my pants. I squawked indignantly, sliding down the refrigerator and toppling on the floor, pulling her down on top of me as I fell. The salad bowl hit the floor with a crack and I slid it out of our way, leaving Maria and me a good double bed's worth of space to flop around in.

4

"You can touch it if you like."
     I timidly obliged.
     "Now trace your way down...slowly...softly...until you reach the opening.... That's right...hmmmmm...hmmmm...that's right, you're catching on...just a little at a time.... Oooohhhh, that feels like...hmmmm...like you've got the knack of it...."

5

She started running her hand up and down my thigh, as if I were nothing more than an extension of the bedspread, something that needed to be unwrinkled, smoothed over.

6

I felt her hands pull down my pants, felt her mouth take me in – gradually, a little at a time. My body stiffened, coiling itself up for impending release. I tried to step away. But she clasped her hands around my buttocks and drew me closer, deeper, and I lost myself to the sensation sweeping through me like a waterfall. I started falling to the floor – I didn't care – and my hands grabbed hold of her shoulders, pulling her with me. Somehow her mouth stayed fastened to me – my body curled around either side of her face – her mouth still sucking long after the last drop had trailed down her throat.

Sadly, this has now lost its innocence:

Related post:
The Honesty's Too Much: Dan Hill's Comeback

The Sea Lord Unsheathes His Sword

Sea Lord [The Swordsman]
William C. Heine
Don Mills: ON: PaperJacks, 1984

William C. Heine's The Last Canadian is one of the worst novels I've ever read; its ending stands as the stupidest.

God, it's awful.

You'll understand then why I so much wanted to read Sea Lord, the author's only other work of fiction. I hunted for years, scouring used book stores, thrift shops and garage sales, but never saw a single copy. It shouldn't have been such a challenge. A former editor of the London Free Press, Heine was a local author, and the novel had enjoyed a couple of good mass market paperback runs. The first, published as The Swordsman (Toronto: Seal, 1980), had the better cover, but I wasn't picky.

In the end, I resorted to one of those "weedy companies" that sell books for a penny.

A bargain at twice the price.

Sea Lord – the Swordsman, if you prefer – is Mirand, slave of Tehemil, born of a fallen Greek noblewoman in ancient Tyre. The first page is nearly his last as he suffers a near-fatal knife attack at the hands of a hired assassin. In the first page of The Last Canadian, hero Gene Arnprior stays up late watching TV in his suburban Montreal home.

On the surface, Heine's two novels seem very different, but they're not. Both adolescent fantasies, in the first, Gene Arnprior wanders a post-Apocalyptic world, beds some babes, and is remembered as one of the greatest figures in history; in the second, Mirand wanders the ancient world, beds babes, and is remembered as one of the greatest figures in history. In his own time he's considered a god.

Mirand is very much mortal. The slave owes his life to ironworker and renowned swordmaker Elisha, who hides the injured slave in his house. Beautiful daughter Naomi slowly nurses Mirand back from near-death as he stares at "the swelling lines of her dress, straining to hold her full breasts":

He amused himself as he sipped the broth with the thought that on [sic] day he would possess her. As a spasm of pain burned across his torn body, he choked on a half-laugh of self-pity and amusement. "If I live," he amended his promise to himself, "if I live I will lie with her one day."

Ah, classic Heine.

When the spasms subside and hearty laughter returns, Mirand becomes Elisha's apprentice, all the while fantasizing about his saviour's beautiful daughter:

Now he indulged himself in his daydream while his arms and hands methodically shaped hot iron under a hammer. "She is beautiful, and she is strong, too. I saw her practicing on the beach with bow and arrow and she could split a plank better than her father. Those arms are strong but her breasts are soft and someday I'll lie in her perfumed bed, with linen cloths like Tehemil had, and cool wine waiting in a flagon, while I kiss the ironworker's daughter and stroke her breasts and slide into her. I'll rouse her out of her coolness... she will beg for more..." and he gave the rod he was hammering a blow that snapped it in two. 

Not only do Mirand and Naomi lie together, they marry and have children. With papa Elisha and a mother-in-law who barely exists, he amasses immense wealth trading goods throughout the Mediterranean. A mistress, a kidnapping and an attack by pirates bring excitement to what would otherwise be a rather mundane existence. The biggest and longest of Mirand's adventures begins with a voyage to the western coast of Africa made without Naomi and the in-laws. The ship is caught in a violent storm and, a couple of months later, he and his crew wash ashore in South America.

There Mirand finds favour and more with an Aztec king known as Iximhunti. Owing to Mirand's blond locks, the monarch determines that the newcomer is a god, showers him with gifts and insists he sleep with his beautiful daughter.

And yet, Mirand longs for home.

Using all they've managed to salvage from the Minnow, he and his crew construct a ship unlike any the world has ever seen, and set off in the expectation that they will find a current that will take them home.

Will they make it?

Did I care?

Heine learned something working on The Last Canadian. The writing on this sophomore effort is better, and yet I was bored to tears. All has to do with the fact that The Last Canadian takes place during Cold War, a time I remember well. Heine's take on the geopolitical world of Pierre Trudeau, Richard Nixon and Leonid Brezhnev is so absurd as to be entertaining, but I have no idea what to make of his depiction of ancient Tyre. Accurate? Astute? Silly? He didn't make me care enough to find out.

The only thing that kept me going was the hope of another stupid ending.

I wasn't disappointed.

Favourite passage:

It was as pretty a fight as Carthage had seen for many moons. It lasted as long as it takes a man to make a woman desperately anxious, which depends greatly on the skill of the man and the experience of the woman, but is measured by each in different terms.

Object: An entirely unattractive 256-page mass market paperback with cover art by Martin Visser. At first glance it looked to be one of PaperJacks' more competent productions, then I noticed this:

The Swordsman? But, um, we're calling it Sea Lord now, right? Remind me again why we're keeping the title of his book on historic sailing ships a secret.

Access: Library and Archives Canada has the novel in its collection, as do four of our universities. C'est tout.

As The Swordsman, used copies of the Seal first edition range in price from US$1.50 ("Very Good") to US$78.54 ("Good"). PaperJacks' butt ugly Sea Lord edition is far less common. As of this writing, just two are being offered online: US$6.25 ("Fair/Good") and US$12.00 ("VG+").

In 1984, Robert Hale published the first and only British edition (right). A hardcover, the only copy I've ever seen – indeed, the only copy listed online – is offered by Attic Books, mere blocks from Heine's old newspaper office. A Near Fine signed copy, it's being offered at US$100.

Just the thing for the Heine collector.

Related post:

At Long Last Lunacy

The Paratrooper, the Professor and the Publisher: The Nasty Public Battle Over The Quebec Plot

The first review of my first book was negative. The reviewer's disappointment had to do with my having written the book I wanted to write rather than the book he had wanted to read.

The second review of my first book was written by a man who was identified in same as the model for a throughly dislikeable character in George Galt's novel Scribes and Scoundrels. The reviewer made no mention of this, though he did question my existence.

"Do not respond," a senior writer friend advised.

I didn't.

The reviews that followed were very positive. I remember nothing of them other than that – very positive – but I do remember the two negative reviews in detail. For example, I can tell you that the first reviewer got the price and page count wrong. I can also tell you that I was taken to task for not including an index. The book has one, but he'd read an advance copy. His was an amateur's mistake, published in the closest thing Canada has to "the organ of the trade".

Bad reviews stay with you in a way good reviews don't. I know not to read them. I don't read good reviews either. Every now and then I feel bad for not acknowledging a reviewer's kind words... and here I'm certain that they are all kind words.

"Do not respond."

Good advice I pass on to others. And yet all these years later I still fantasize about taking on the critics in question, which is why I so enjoyed Leo Heaps' thrust and parry with Patrick O'Flaherty found in 38-year-old editions of the Globe & Mail.

A professor at Memorial University, Patrick O'Flaherty was tasked with reviewing The Quebec Plot for the paper (22 July 1978). I have no idea why; I don't see that O'Flaherty had reviewed thrillers in the past. His opening sentence betrays a certain ignorance of the genre: "Leo Heaps, who has been reading James Bond stories and learning a little Canadian geography and history, has decided to write a thriller, some would say a roman a clef about the Quebec situation."

Ignoring the obvious (The Quebec Plot owes nothing to Ian Fleming), what irks is the insinuation that Heaps, then living in London, needed something of a refresher in things Canadian. This is very same thinking the most stupid of our cultural nationalists once employed against the great Mavis Gallant. Winnipeg-born Leo Heaps was the second son of A.A. Heaps. He was educated at Queen's and McGill, and lived most of his life in Toronto. At the risk of being accused of racism – more on that later – I find this quip about Heaps "learning a little Canadian geography and history" a bit rich coming from a man whose early education pre-dated his province joining Confederation. It's not O'Flaherty at his worst, but it's pretty bad. His lowest and laziest comes when he quotes two lines of dialogue out of context:

• "I hope to God there's no armed revolution in Quebec."
• "Let's get down to business."

This is a cheap trick that we've all seen before; indeed, Heaps himself recognizes it as such in his response. But before I get to that, O'Flaherty's conclusion is worth presenting in full:

Now, I'm the first to recognize that it is not always easy to come up with a decent conclusion to a review – look no further than mine of The Quebec Plot for evidence – but this one is a real head-scratcher. On the other hand, I'm no academic, which is why I so appreciated the University of Toronto's June V. Engel, who in a letter the Globe & Mail (1 Aug 1978) refers to Prof O'Flaherty's conclusion as "incomprehensible."

Engel wasn't alone in her criticism of the critic. An earlier letter found in the 28 July edition describes the professor's review as " jumbled, incoherent." The writer was someone named Caruso, who may or may not have been an academic him or herself.

By that time, Heaps had responded to the critic. In the 26 July 1978 edition of the Globe & Mail, he shrugs off everything to do with his knowledge of Canada, associations with Ian Fleming, Marian Engel, Charles Templeton and Little Orphan Annie creator Harold Gray, then presents a parting shot:

I have been away from Canada for some time and have grown accustomed to having my books read by literate people who are concerned both with their prose and the philosophical content of their reviews. If Mr. O'Flaherty is a professor of English in Newfoundland who is there to protect us from the academics who teach in our schools?

Fair question. I've been asking variations since my graduation from Beaconsfield High School.

Leo Heaps' letter drew no response from Patrick O'Flaherty, though Jack McClelland weighed in with a letter (4 Aug 1978), which reads in part:

At first I thought it was a bad Newfie joke. Then my reaction turned from disbelief to anger. Mr. O'Flaherty's judgement, in my opinion, ranks slightly below that of a Rhesus monkey and I have nothing against monkeys. 

Was the publisher being disingenuous? "It happens that although I am not the publisher, I have read The Quebec Plot," McClelland writes of a novel he would publish within a year. Might as well add that he also published the novel about the cardinal who doesn't want the world to know about the discovery of Jesus' bones and the one in which a woman tries to copulate with a bear.

Curiously, it was McClelland's letter that brought a response from professor. Notably tardy, here he is from the 24 August 1978 edition:

The letter from Jack McClelland (Aug. 4) comes out with abusive, racist talk – "Newfie," "monkey," etc. This letter, contemptible though it is, merits a few words of reply.
     In recent years I have reviewed a number of silly books published by McClelland and Stewart Ltd. rather harshly. Looking back over my reviews, my only regret is that they were not harsher.
     What does a reviewer do when he is sent a trashy book to review? Normally, I, for one, return the item to the editor with a note saying that it is not worth reviewing. But there is so much writing in Canada – especially at the "creative" level – and so much of it is published with the assistance of the Canadian taxpayer, that it is hard to resist occasionally damning bad books. And so I stand by my review of Leo Heaps' book.

I imagine the professor does to this day, ignoring the simple facts that The Quebec Plot received no taxpayer support and was never sold as anything other than a thriller.

The last word is owed Leo Heaps himself, as published in this letter in the 4 September 1978 edition:

I cannot resist taking a parting shot at my friend Patrick O'Flaherty who reviewed my book The Quebec Plot in your columns. I will miss the professor from Memorial College, Newfoundland, at his departure.
    Professor O'Flaherty has in his letter to your newspaper on Aug. 24 presented such a perfect and inviting target that I felt it was irresistable. His remarks either hide a character of infinite subtlety and wit or one of enormous pomposity and self-righteousness. Personally, I am inclined to favor the latter view. Mr. O'Flaherty has sounded like the budding parliamemtary candidate he is when he protests against the waste of taxpayers' money on behalf of Canadian authors struggling to make ends meet. (Unfortunately, I have never had any grants. All my books have been published abroad, except one, which won a Governor-General's Award.) Perhaps the professor might tell us where the subsidy came from to publish his somewhat obscure anthology of Newfoundland and Labrador writing, which he co-edited some years back.
     If Patrick O'Flaherty remains as severe as he is, "untroubled," as Browning said, "by the spark," and if he is allowed to indecently expose himself in book review columns, then one can begin to understand his concern about Canadian prose. One only has to read what the professor writes.

Yes, Heaps is owed the last word... but I can't quite bring myself to let him have it.

In January 2009, at a dinner celebrating the sixtieth birthday of the aforementioned senior writer, I was introduced to the second critic of my first book. On learning my name he paused – here it comes, I thought – and then said: "You wouldn't be any relation to Reverend David Busby? I was one of his altar boys."

"Yes," I replied, "he was my uncle."

"Nice man," said the critic.

"Yes, very nice," I said.

And then we parted.

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Thriller Most Foreign

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!