Mordecai's Mom's Memoirs

The new issue of Canadian Notes and Queries has arrived, bringing a rich mixture of essays on collecting, bookselling and Mordecai Richler. With ninety-six pages of goodness, there's too much to list here, but I will point CanLit collectors to essays by Nigel Beale, Michael Darling and Jim Fitzpatrick. I add that admirers of Charles Foran's Mordecai are treated to the biography's original preface, penned just as work was beginning.

My own piece deals with The Errand Runner: Reflections of a Rabbi's Daughter, the 1981 book by Leah Rosenberg, Richler's mother. A product of John Wiley & Sons' Toronto branch plant, it ranks as the most awkward and badly edited memoir I've yet come across – and here I'm including self-published stuff. Blame belongs entirely with the publisher, which reveals its reason for signing the memoir on the book's dust jacket.

As I write in CNQ: "Discard the dust jacket, however, and Mordecai Richler's name disappears. His is not to be found in the text..."

More in print.

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The Miracle Man on Paper and Nitrate Film

News today that another issue of Canadian Notes and Queries is born. I leave it to publisher Dan Wells to make the pitch:

CNQ 81 is in, and should be on newsstands and making its way to mailboxes by week's end. The Genre Issue, contributors include Margaret Atwood, Mike Barnes, August Bourre, Brian Busby, Grant Buday, Devon Code, Emily Donaldson, William Gibson, Alex Good, Jason Guriel, Jeet Heer, Michael Libling, Roy MacSkimming, Steve Noyes, Anna Porter, Patricia Robertson, Mark Sampson, Brett Alexander Savory, Marko Sijan, Ray Smith, David Solway and James Turner. There's fiction by Halli Villegas, poetry by Jacob Arthur Mooney, a North Wing graphic novel adaptation from The Handmaid's Tale, and an X-Ray broadside (for subscribers) by David Hickey.

To which I add: Yet another fine cover by Seth. I'll never tire of his work.

My contribution this issue concerns The Miracle Man (1914) by Montreal crime novelist Frank L. Packard. His break-out book, it's a fun and entertaining read, though I admit my main interest lies in the 1919 screen adaptation. A lost film, sadly, there's just enough below to give some idea as to why The Miracle Man is considered one of the great silent movies. Enjoy!

Hard Copy

Mention here is a bit late, but not so much that one can't pick up a copy as a last minute stocking stuffer. The new issue of Canadian Notes and Queries features the debut of The Dusty Bookcase on paper. Subject? Nothing less than John Glassco's most intricate piece of hoaxery: The Temple of Pederasty. Banned in Canada, pulped in the United States, its history is one involving deception, forgery, plagiarism, smuggling and a cold government bureaucrat.

I'll say no more except to point out that the very same issue features a very fine piece by Zachariah Wells' on The Mulgrave Road, Harry Bruce's 1951 collection of verse.

Neglected, not suppressed.