The Dusty Bookcase

25 April 2014

Too Many Writers

Too Many Women
Gerry Martin
Toronto: News Stand Library, 1950

Maurice Bendrix, the main character in The End of the Affair, is a novelist. I'm more than prepared to allow Graham Greene this conceit; in his twenty-six novels Bendrix alone holds the occupation. I have less time for Ronald J. Cooke, who placed novelist protagonists at the centre of the first two of his three novels.

I've not read the third.

Novelists, newspapermen, poets, gag writers and the like are so common in Canadian fiction that you'd almost think everything was set in an alternate universe. My casual journey through neglected and forgotten tomes has led to wannabe novelist Clive Winston (The House on Craig Street), frustrated novelist Dave Manley (The Mayor of Côte St. Paul), washed up novelist William Marshall (Exit in Green), and successful novelists Mortimer Tombs (I Hate You to Death), George Sloan (A Body for a Blonde) and Gabrielle Lubin (The Best Man).

Ron Simpson, the main character in Too Many Women, belongs with Tombs, Sloan and Lubin. His debut, Two Loves Have I, is a best seller, "a book a lot of old maids are crazy about." Tall, handsome and talented – though, let's be frank, that title implies otherwise – he should be living the dream.

So, what's the problem?

Well, first there's wife Sue, who talks on the phone and has the radio tuned to soaps when genius requires silence to write. For goodness sake, she won't even answer the damn door! And let me tell you, those callers are persistent. A kid selling magazines rings and rings, while brother-in-law Arch will hold that goddamned button down for a ten-minute stretch. No exaggeration.

It's kind of a mistake to let Arch in the house. Ron's old college pal, he's part of the reason they were expelled. What's more, the guy's a boor, a braggart and a womanizer. How he ended up married to Sue's sister is a mystery.

Could alcohol have had something to do with it? I'm not so sure. There's more drinking in Too Many Women than in any other novel I've read, yet no one gets drunk. This is not to say that bad decisions aren't made. For example, Ron agrees to an early morning game of golf with Arch, which is something I'd never do.

The next day, Ron takes three swings and loses two "dollar and a quarter balls" to a gully and another to some bushes, then returns to the club house where Arch introduces him to Dell Whitney. She falls for the writer's pouting, petulant ways as he drones on and on about the love he may or may not have for his wife.

(cliquez pour agrandir)

Everything that follows is a bit of a blur; this has nothing to do with alcohol but Martin's inability to handle time and place. The story itself is really quite simple: a man drinks, drives, eats in restaurants, goes to nightclubs and attends parties, all the while going back and forth on whether to leave his wife for another woman. That he ends up returning to Sue at the end seems dictated by page count; had there been room for another chapter it would've been Dell.

The idea that "Ron flits happily from woman to woman, heavily sampling the nectar of each", as cover copy would have you believe, is absurd. Ron doesn't so much as kiss young Cynthia and rejects Maxine outright. Yes, he does. Even though she's got the body of a Grecian goddess… and a gun.

Not to worry, the scene between Ron and Maxine, depicted somewhat inaccurately in Syd Dyke's cover, begins and ends in less than half a page.

Anyone who bought Too Many Women based on the back cover would've been disappointed to learn that there is no "three day [sic] orgy" – in part because there is no character named "Charlie the Greek". The professional party girl is, I suppose, Maxine, though there's no "play and run" talk. The calibre and mark of the gun she pulls on Ron are never mentioned, but then Martin is not one for details.

Hey, the publisher was only trying to sell books. A novelist should understand.

Main Street, Hamilton, Ontario, 1 August 1947.

Trivia: Too Many Women is the first novel I've read that is set mainly in Hamilton, Ontario. Main Street is mentioned. Buffalo, Niagara Falls, Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts and Ron's beach house (location undisclosed) also figure.

Favourite passage:

Ron watched Arch clean the dust off his shoes with a towel.
"I must admit she's attractive," he said.
"Attractive hell!" said Arch. "She's good enough to eat."
"Then how come you never made a play for her?" asked Ron.
"I'm not her types," said Arch. "She's the queen. I'm only the cat that can look at her. She doesn't like cats. She likes writers…"

Every writer's fantasy.

Object and Access: Could this be the best produced News Stand Library title? There are few typos, no dropped lines and the text is a uniform dark grey.

Published in single printings for the Canadian and American markets, Too Many Women draws a complete blank on WorldCat. Three copies are currently listed online: a Very Good American at US$9.00 and two less than Very Good Canadians (the true first) at C$25.00.

22 April 2014

Of Thucydides, Themistocles and Richard Rohmer

Thucydides wrote that Themistocles' greatness lay in the fact that he realized Athens was not immortal. I think we have to realize that Canada is not immortal; but, if it is going to go, let it go with a bang rather than a whimper.

— Pierre Elliott Trudeau, 30 March 1988

Week fifteen of Reading Richard Rohmer and I admit that we've stalled. Events have conspired, travel has intruded, but more than anything the fun has gone. Seven novels in – PaperJacks would have had me believe it's eight – Rohmer nears something approaching competency. Talk of scheduling, formatting and rescheduling cabinet meetings no longer fill his pages. Where old inconsequential subplots were dropped, the new reach weak conclusion. Facts and figures are few, have relevance, and are repeated less frequently.

Rohmer's first four novels stuck together from being soaked in a sticky syrup of nationalism. They were led by the likes of Colonel Pierre Thomas de Gaspé, an übermensch who might thwart American invasion one month, then launch a hostile takeover of Exxon the next. Indeed, Colonel de Gaspé did these very things in Exxoneration.

And yes, Exxoneration is the title. It was all silly fun… but no more.

Triad follows Balls! and Periscope Red as part of a trilogy that is clearly designed to appeal to the American market. Time was Rohmer risked Canada ending in a bang, but Balls! produces not so much as a whimper (ignore that exclamation mark). The country disintegrates after Quebec votes to succeed, and Prime Minister Peter Lockhard pretty much hands over the keys to the American president. Canada is mentioned twice in Periscope Red, but only in passing. In Triad, cancon rests with boozer Bud Black, a former Canadian Forces fighter pilot who prostitutes himself as a mercenary. He's no Colonel Pierre Thomas de Gaspé.

I'm stuck at page 130 in Triad, all of which was tackled three weeks ago during a two-hour train trip from Toronto.

Lest you be impressed:

Triad reprints twenty-three pages from Periscope Red. I didn't bother to so much as skim. Rohmer can't be trusted when "attempting to condense and summarize", but is very adept when using safety scissors and paste. His "Note to the Reader"acknowledges an unenviable habit. Separation begins by reprinting the final chapter of Exodus/UK. The very same words appear for a third time in Separation Two, which is in itself little more than a reprint of Separation. Again, PaperJacks would have had me believe otherwise… so as to grab $3.50 earned through my minimum wage summer job at Consumer's Distributing.

I correct:

In fact, neither province decided to secede from Canada. Quebec does hold a referendum. The "No" side wins.

America is indeed sent reeling by a disastrous natural gas shortage, but it has to do with corporate incompetence and weak government regulation. The Soviets and NATO do not figure.

Rohmer's stab at the American market amounted to nothing. As sales figures slumped north of the border, PaperJacks took pains to remind Canadians of the titles that had once sold so well:

In fact, Richard Rohmer never enjoyed eight straight years of best sellers – and even if he had, it had been done before. All I can claim is two weeks on the Australian non-fiction bestseller list.

Oh, Canada.

Oh, Canada. Remember when we had a prime minister who could speak to Thucydides on Themistocles?

Related posts:

Recycling Richard Rohmer

Richard Rohmer Recycles (Again)