The Dustiest Bookcase: L is for Lysenko (& Lesik)

The Dustiest Bookcase:

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

Westerly Wild
Vera Lysenko [pseud Vera Lesik]
Toronto: Ryerson, 1956

284 pages

Purchased for $2.50, I was sold by the opening words on the front flap:

WESTERLY WILD, a sort of Canadian Wuthering Heights, grew out of the fascination exerted on the author by the rolling countryside of south-western Saskatchewan...

Six years later, this Vera Lysenko novel continues to collect dust because I still haven't read Wuthering Heights.

A Harlequin Harlot Romance for Valentine's Day

The Pick-Up

Raymond Marshall [pseud René Lodge Brabazon Raymond]

Toronto: Harlequin, 1955

Related posts:

Harlequin: Before the Romance

Another Harlequin Valentine

This Year's Harlequin Valentine

A Harlequin Valentine from Day Keene
Romance… Harlequin Romance
A Harlequin Valentine from Syd Dyke
A Harlequin Valentine Just for You
C'mon, It's Harlequin Valentine Time

This Year's Climacteric Harlequin Valentine

A Weird and Tense Harlequin Valentine

Harlequin & the Eternal Valentine's Day Question

Nothing Says Romance Like a Harlequin Romance

Harlequin: The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name
Suggestive Harlequins: A Romantic Threesome
Harlequin Librarians: So Many Secrets
Harlequin's Filthiest Title

May Agnes Fleming's Wronged Wife (of many)

A Wronged Wife
     [The Twin Sisters; Or, The Wronged Wife's Hate]
May Agnes Fleming

New York: Carleton, [c. 1883]

420 pages

A Wronged Wife was first published in 1864, the year before its author, then May Agnes Early, met and married machinist John W. Fleming. I think this worth noting because that union was a complete disaster with Mr Fleming exposing himself as a drunkard given to physical violence. Mrs Fleming proved herself the stronger. A victim of Bright's disease at thirty-nine, she managed to leave behind a will – which stuck – in which her husband was denied her money and their four children. Anyone with so much as a passing knowledge of nineteenth-century Canada will be astonished by this accomplishment.

Types of Canadian Women or Women Who Are
or Have Been Connected With Canada
H.J. Morgan, editor
Toronto: William Briggs, 1903

There are plenty of wronged wives in May Agnes Fleming's fiction, but I've yet to encounter another so vindictive as the one in this novel. The story begins with a train arriving in the village of Riverside, a sunny summer retreat to Manhattanites of means. This being a "drear and dark December day," no one is expected to disembark, so it comes as a surprise when a man known to the locals as "Captain Forrest," a regular visiter in warmer months, does just that. Under cover of darkness, he makes his way to a ramshackle house, steals two sleeping toddlers, then makes off who knows where.

The next scene takes place some days later on Christmas Eve (1844, by my calculation) in the large, lavishly appointed Fifth Avenue brownstone of wealthy widower Alexander Hazlewood. His is a full house comprised of three adult sons, two nieces, a recently widowed sister, and an unspecified number of servants. Old school chum Dr Jeremiah Lance has stopped by for a visit. The eldest niece and three Hazelton sons are preparing to leave for a party when they're interrupted by "a shrill scream from the hall below." The chambermaid has come upon a pair of toddlers – twin girls – who have somehow been deposited just inside the front doors, along with this note:  

"It's a vile slander!" declares crimson-faced Mr Hazlewood, "It’s the work of some infamous being who has taken this means of securing a home for the offspring she will not rear."

Dr Lance, a sour bachelor whose proposal of marriage was decades earlier turned down by the aforementioned widowed sister, is not so quick to dismiss: "Black eyes, black hair, fresh complexion, and good features—all characteristics of the Hazelwoods?" And, really, if the two girls were mere street urchins, why are they so elaborately and expensively dressed?"

Why, indeed!

Enter the three Hazelton sons: handsome heartthrob Conway, delicately dishy August, and ugly Eugene:

It's an uncomfortable situation, but not so much as to delay the brothers' departure for the party. And who can blame them! Beautiful Helen Thornton, who ranks amongst New York's greatest heiresses, is hostess! Mr Hazelwood is well aware and well pleased that the desirable Helen has eyes only for Conway. His other sons, who aren't quite so observant, bare their hearts to Helen, and are rejected. By party's end, Conway and Helen are engaged to be wed.

As preparations take over the Hazelwood household, one might be forgiven in forgetting the toddler twins. They've not been shuffled off-stage, nor shuttled to the alms-house, as Mr Hazelwood had threatened, rather they remain in the Fifth Avenue brownstone. Once wed, beautiful Helen wants to adopt the girls – which is not to suggest that she believes her betrothed to be their father.

Meanwhile, Eugene has gone missing. Having been spurned by Helen, he's set off to solve the riddle of the twins' paternity.

The evening before the wedding, a figure disguised in in blackface confronts Conway on Broadway telling him that he must show himself in Thornton conservatory at half-past ten the next morning... that is, if he knows what's good for him.

On the day of the wedding, beautiful Helen receives this intriguing note: 

Against her maid of honour's advice – always listen to your maid of honour – beautiful Helen does just as the note instructs. The novel's second scream comes when the bride is discovered dead in the conservatory. A distraught Conway, who dismissed the instructions he'd received the previous evening, learns that the missing Eugene had been in the conservatory mere minutes before Helen's body was found. He has his brother arrested and charged with Helen's murder. Eugene maintains his innocence, but not even his broken-hearted father believes him.

He's found guilty, is sentenced to death, and hangs himself with a bed sheet.

This whirlwind of events comes to a climax in the form of a letter received on the evening of the suicide:

cliquez pour agrandir

Wow!

I've given away much of the plot, but not enough to spoil. Rose Hazelwood's letter appears roughly one-third through the novel, and there's so much more to come: a riding accident, a second suicide, a third kidnapping, and several additional deaths within the Hazelton family. This reader was surprised that nothing aligned with the path of vengeance indicated in the letter. Was this the author's plan? Was there a plan, or was she just writing furiously for money?

May Agnes Fleming published more than two dozen novels in her thirty-nine years. Nowhere in the one, two, three, four other Fleming titles I've read is there one so self-referential:

• Dr Lance describes the appearance of the twins with accompanying note as something “absurd and mysterious enough for a three-volume novel."
• Arthur likens their appearance to "a thing from a play or a story."
• The widowed sister tells her niece that "it would be like a story in a novel if the twins turned out to be Conway's children." (To which the niece replies: "such things only happen in novels.")
• Helen's murder and the surrounding drama is not only dramatized for the stage, but serves as inspiration for "sensation-novelists." 
• Male characters liken themselves, or are likened, to heroes of novels.

As in other Fleming novels coincidence piles upon coincidence, the difference here being height and instability. The most amusing part of the A Wronged Wife comes when the narrator (omniscient) remarks on the improbability of three Americans, none of whom had seen each other in well over a decade, encountering each other in the Quebec village of St Croix. 

It's an old storyteller's trick. In recognizing and remarking on one unbelievable coincidence, the others seem less incredible. May Agnes Fleming was a pro; "Canada’s first outstanding success as a professional novelist,"  she was like no other of her day.

She knew how to make money... a lot of money.

And she knew how to keep it from her husband.

Favourite sentence:

She flew off as she spoke, like a lapwing, thrusting the note into Love's own post-office — her bosom.

Trivia I: Though the chapters set in St Croix take place in 1860, Fleming refers to the village as being in "Lower Canada," and not "Canada East." The latter replaced the former with the Act of Union 1840, which was passed in the year of Fleming's birth. Her use leads me to wonder whether "Lower Canada" continued as part of common speech.

Trivia II: The author, a New Brunswicker, uses the word "Canadian" when referring to the francophone residents of St Croix. The anglophones are referred to as "English." Interestingly, everyone living in St Croix is depicted as being fluently bilingual.

With Confederation, three years after the novel was published, Fleming became a Canadian.

Object: My Carleton edition bears an 1883 copyright and looks to date from the late nineteenth century. An investigation of the six pages of other Carleton titles offered after the end of the novel confirms. It was purchased last year from a bookseller in Webster, New York. Price: US$10.

Access: The novel first appeared in 1864 as 'Hazelwood,' a serial that ran in New York's Sunday Mercury. It was first published between the covers as The Twin Sisters; Or, The Wronged Wife's Hate (New York: Beadle & Adams, 1864). For reasons that would spoil in the telling, A Wronged Wife is the better title.

The worst of the novel's many titles is The Rival Brothers, first used in a 1875 edition from published by Beadle (sans Adams). As far as I can tell, it was last used sometime in the early 20th -century by While it's true that Conway, Arthur, and Eugene are in competition for Helen's hand, their rivalry ends early. Eugene commits suicide in the eighth of the novel's twenty-seven chapters. Arthur, from the start a ghost of a character, moves to England, develops gout, and all but vanishes.

As of this writing, just five copies of the novel are on offer from online booksellers. At US$17.50, the least expensive is an 1888 edition published by Dillingham. This is the one to buy. Three booksellers offer Federal Book Company editions, published as The Rival Brothers, at prices ranging from US$67.00 to US$100.00. The most intriguing and most expensive offering is a copy of the 1888 Dillingham edition featuring an 1899 inscription signed by "M. Fleming." The bookseller notes: "May Agnes died in 1880 at age 39 from Bright's disease. Presumed then to be the signature of a relative."

I suppose it is possible that the presumed relative may be daughter Maude Fleming, who was entrusted with her mother's literary estate, but at US$212.45 I'm not interested in taking a gamble. 

Related posts:

Falling Hard for May Agnes Fleming

Parents of the Children of the Revolution

Soldiering On with Edith Percival

May Agnes Fleming's Very Worst Marriage?

Erring on The Terror of the Tar Sands

A 1968 children's book, one of the most obscure novels I've read since beginning the Dusty Bookcase, The Terror of the Tar Sands came under fire at the 2012 International Symposium on the History of the Oil and Gas Industry.

I was not invited.

The criticism originated with oil historian Joyce Hunt, who took issue with the use of "tar sands" in its title:

Contemporary rhetoric creates fear in the minds of those unfamiliar with today’s vital energy industry as it puts on hold construction jobs and the economic hopes of thousands. The media and those opposing oil sands development constantly refer to Alberta’s oil sands as tar sands, a technically incorrect term.

Does that not seem a bit unfair? After all, "oil sands" is also technically incorrect. And let's not forget that "tar sands" was used for decades by the industry itself. Still is:

Hell, I grew up with ads for the tar sands, like his one, which featured in the 31 October 1977 issue of Maclean's:

cliquez pour agrandir

(Am I alone in thinking that a sitting MLA shouldn't be on Syncrude's payroll, never mind serve on its Management Committee?)

I'm not a fan of The Terror of the Tar Sands either, but my criticism has nothing to do with the title. You can read all about it in the new issue of Canadian Notes & Queries. My copy arrived today. You're a subscriber, right? If not, here's some of what you're missing, beginning with this cover by Seth:

Dan Wells' Publisher's Note introduces a new series, Shelf Talkers, bringing together recommendations from independent booksellers (among them, my old friend Ben McNally).

Rod Moody-Corbett writes on Percy Janes, whose House of Hate is both one of this country's most controversial and most neglected novels. Only in Canada is such a thing possible.

We have a fable from Pauline Holdstock and a short story by Shaena Lambert.

Bruce Whiteman contributes a memoir.

Other contributors include:

Ho Che Anderson

Michel Basilières

Steven W Beattie

Juliane Okot Bitek

Andreae Callanan

Laura Cameron

Sally Cooper

Steacy Easton

André Forget

Alex Good

Brett Josef Grubisic

Tom Halford

Jeremy Luke Hill

Mikka Jacobsen

River Kozhar

Allison LaSorda

David Mason

John Metcalf

James Grainger Morgan

Nick Mount

Shane Neilson

Rudrapriya Rathore

Patricia Robertson

Mark Sampson

Richard Sanger

Souvankham Thammavongsa

Phoebe Wang 

It all ends on page 88 with Stephen Fowler's remarks on this book:

But wait, what's this?

The same envelope containing the latest CNQ brought the very first issue of Bibliophile, which features the latest news from CNQ mothership Biblioasis. 

Subscriptions to Canadian Notes & Queries can be got through this link.

One last thing: It was through reading The Terror of the Tar Sands that I first learned of Project Cauldron, a 1958 proposal which would have seen nuclear bombs used to separate bitumen from the sands. Why were we not taught this in school? After reading up on it all, this illustration from The Terror of the Tar Sands doesn't seem so insane.

The Dustiest Bookcase: K is for Keith

The Dustiest Bookcase:

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

The Bells of St. Stephen's

Marian Keith
Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1922

336 pages

My rule when buying books by Marian Keith is to pay no more than two dollars. I ignored this with The Bells of St. Stephen's, which set me back four dollars. The cover, depicting a young woman with volume in hand, seduced.

I don't know what to make of Marian Keith because I've never read her. She exists in a fog, as do so many once-popular Canadian novelists. Keith was more successful than the vast majority, and yet she's still miles below contemporaries like Gilbert Parker, Ralph Connor, Basil King, and L.M. Montgomery (with whom she co-authored 1934's Courageous Women.) I doubt one of Keith's novels sold as well as Robert E. Knowles' St. Cuthbert's, but her literary career lasted much longer, stretching from Duncan Polite (1906) to The Grand Lady (1960).

I've been meaning to read Keith for years. Is The Bells of St. Stephen's the best place to begin? In Canadian Novelists: 1920-1945 (1946), Clara Thomas suggests that Keith's best is A Gentleman Adventurer (1924).

I've yet to cross paths with anyone who has read Keith, but I'm sure you're out there.

Where should I begin?

My Marian Keith collection.
Total expense: $11.00

Related post:

St. Cuthbert's and the Rest

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.

The Very Best Reads of a Plague Year

Not one week into 2020, I met a physician friend for dinner at Sidedoor in Ottawa's ByWard Market. Over too many drinks, he told me of his concerns about a virus sweeping through China's Hubei province. I'd seen a bit about it on the CBC and had noticed headlines in the Globe & Mail, but didn't take the threat nearly so seriously. Again, too many drinks. Eleven months later, we've just spent our first Christmas apart from our daughter. Parents and a grandparent, who live well within driving distance, were kept at bay. To think that in last year's 'Best Reads' I described 2019 as "a very strange year."

Here's to better times.

I reviewed twenty-one titles here and in the pages of Canadian Notes & Queries this year. Tradition dictates that I suggest three most deserving of a return to print. Easily done:

The New Front Line
Hubert Evans
Toronto: Macmillan, 1927

The first novel by a writer remembered – when he is remembered – for Mist on the River (1954). Here Evans draws upon his own experiences as a returning Great War veteran who rejects the city and its commerce for a healthier life in rural British Columbia. The love of a good woman figures.

Perilous Passage
Arthur Mayse
New York: Pocket, 1950

West Coast rural noir written by a transplanted Manitoban, this tale of two teens confronting a drug cartel brought back such memories. Nothing to do with battling crooks, you understand, rather being young. I was caught up in Joe and Devvy's adventure and romance. I'm betting you will be, too.

Blantyre—Alien
Alan Sullivan
London J.M. Dent, 1914

The first book I read this year, and the first of the author's thirty-something novels, Blantyre—Alien has grown on me. A story as strange as its title, it concerns a medical doctor, his wife, and their disintegrating marriage. I found interest in its depiction of Toronto the Good  

Two books I reviewed this year are currently in print:

The lone book revisited this year, I first read Not for Every Eye, Glen Shortliffe's translation of Gerard Bessette's Le libraire (1960), as a very young  man in in the summer of '85. I found I liked it more in middle age because my more seasoned self better understood narrator and protagonist Hervé Jodoin. An essential text for anyone interested in censorship as depicted in fiction or the dark days of Duplessis' Quebec. Not For Every Eye is available through Exile Editions. 

Does Armand Durand count? I read Mrs Leprohon's 1868 novel in a 19th-century French translation by J.-A. Genaud. The original is in print as part of the Borealis Press Early Canadian Women's Series. My French is so very weak that it took months for me to get through the novel. I wonder whether spending all that time with the Durand family contributed in some way to my concern for their trials.  

Two of the three novels selected last year as "most deserving of a return to print" did just that! I'm proud to say that I played a hand in both:

I Am Not Guilty
Frances Shelley Wees
Montreal, Véhicule, 2020

Following The Keys of My Prison, this is the second Wees novel I've helped revive. I'm torn as to which I prefer. In this 1954 tale of domestic suspense, a widow relocates to post-war suburban Toronto in an attempt to solve her husband's murder. Martinis and harried businessmen figure. Patti Abbott was good enough to provide the introduction.

The Ravine
Phyllis Brett Young
Montreal, Véhicule, 2020

First published in 1962 under the nom de plume Kendal Young, The Ravine was Phyllis Brett Young's only thriller. Remarkably, it remains the only one of her novels to have been adapted to the screen. Don't bother with the film, read the book. The introduction is by Amy Lavender Harris.

Praise this year goes to Mary Chapman and the ever-expanding Winnifred Eaton Archive. This online site provides a remarkable wealth of material concerning the groundbreaking Asian-Canadian author of Marion and "Cattle", amongst other novels. Of late, I've become increasingly interested in Eaton's Hollywood years. The Archive somehow satisfies while fuelling my desire for more. Do visit!

And now, the resolutions:

I've got three book projects on the go, but will be doubling down on telling the awful story of Maria Monk. As a result, fewer titles will be reviewed here next year. I'll be filling the gaps by reviving 'The Dustiest Bookcase.' Seasoned readers may remember it as a series of short pieces on books I've always meant to review (but haven't).

Oh... and as always, I resolve to keep kicking against the pricks.

Wishing everyone a Happier and Healthier New Year! Bonne année! 

Related posts:

The Very Best Reads of a Very Strange Year (2019)

Best Books of 2018 (none of which are from 2018)

The Year's Best Books in Review - A.D. 2017
The Year's Best Books in Review - A.D. 2016
The Year's Best Books in Review - A.D. 2015
The Christmas Offering of Books - 1914 and 2014
A Last Minute Gift Slogan, "Give Books" (2013)
Grumbles About Gumble & Praise for Stark House (2012)
The Highest Compliments of the Season (2011)
A 75-Year-Old Virgin and Others I Acquired (2010)
Books are Best (2009)

What to Do? What to Do?

Just Kids

Stranger in a Strange Land

Reading Gérard Bessette on His Hundredth
Armand Durand; or, A Summer Project

Domestic Suspense in Small Town Ontario
Nature as the Devil's Playground