Brian Moore
New York: Pyramid, 1953
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Slimmer Pickings
36 minutes ago
16 October 2009
15 October 2009
14 October 2009
Brian Moore's Pulp Fiction
This blog began ten months ago with a modest piece on Sailor's Leave, the Brian Moore novel first published by Harlequin as Wreath for a Redhead. "It's a very small secret", I wrote at the time, "that between 1951 and 1957 Moore published seven pulp novels." Today, having spent much of the morning surrounded by Canadian reference books, I'm beginning to reconsider my words. The Canadian Encyclopedia doesn't mention them, nor does The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature. Reference works that do recognize Moore's pulps cock things up completely. Here, for example, is John Robert Colombo writing in his 1000 Questions About Canada:
The distinguished novelist Brian Moore did not write Harlequin Romances, but in 1951, while still a newspaperman, he wrote a number of suspense novels that were published by Harlequin Books. They are Wreath for a Redhead and The Executioners.Information is not plentiful, but it seems Moore wrote other novels for Harlequin. Their titles are sometimes given as This Gun for Gloria, French for Murder (as Bernard Mara), Intention to Kill [sic] and Murder in Majorca (as Michael Bryan). It seems in 1952 Pyramid Books published yet another Moore pot-boiler, titled Sailor's Leave.
I don't think Colombo really meant that Moore wrote all his pulps in 1951 – they were produced over a six-year stretch that began in 1950 – and so, put this morsel of misinformation down to sloppiness. But what of the rest? None of the "other novels" were published by Harlequin, and Sailor's Leave, published in 1953 (not 1952), was nothing but an American reissue of Wreath for a Redhead. Contrary to Colombo's claim, information is plentiful and the titles are well-documented – as they were in 2001, when 1000 Questions About Canada was first published. As with any research, the trick is knowing where to look. Let's start with Denis Sampson's fine biography Brian Moore: The Chameleon Novelist, which includes this handy page:
The very same information can be found elsewhere, which makes Colombo's writing all the more disconcerting. This is, after all, a man whose career was built in large measure as Canada's go-to guy for reference works. I don't think I'm making too much of a fuss; this is the second time I've consulted Colombo in writing this blog, and it is the second time his information has shown itself to be incorrect.
Enough. I promised myself that October would be dedicated to writing that brings in money. The next week or so will feature nothing but images of Moore's pulp novels. Enjoy!
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12 October 2009
Childhood's End
That crummy bookstore I complained about last Thursday wasn't my only source of books. In elementary school then, as now, the Scholastic Book Club was omnipresent. Their books were in our classrooms, they were in our library, and each month brought new catalogues with titles like From the Earth to the Moon, 100 Pounds of Popcorn and The Rise and Fall of Adolph Hitler tapping my allowance. Times have changed. As a parent, I can testify that the publisher's once varied offerings have been replaced by a narrow range of paper and plastic product.
Of the hundred or so Scholastics I once had, only PM: The Prime Ministers of Canada by John McCombie and an illustrated book on Sacco and Vanzetti remain. Why these two and not the above, spotted last week at the local thrift shop? Yes, it doesn't look like much – and certainly author and illustrator Gordon Johnston owes everything to Robert Ripley – but I do remember It Happened in Canada as a favourite. Published when I was ten, the book served as an early introduction to cannibalistic cougars, communes, cowcatchers, and names like George Brown and Sir Wilfrid Laurier.
No doubt this is the first I read of Frances Brooke and The History of Emily Montague... and I'm betting I didn't encounter either again until university. I take this opportunity to reveal, without shame, that I've never read Mrs Brooke's novel.
An image... well, I don't want to say that it is seared into my brain, but I certainly did remember it. Who could forget?
And I also remembered this woman, who lost her mind while retaining her looks.
Did I look up 'bustle' in the OED, or was I too lazy? And what did my ten-year-old self make of the wow, zowey, zap stuff about morphine and fine Turkish opium?
I swear to God
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