R is for Richler Roast

Munro, Bellow, Millar, Macdonald and Identity

I Die Slowly [The Dark Tunnel]

Kenneth Millar

New York: Lion, 1955

222 pages

This review now appears, revised and rewritten, in my new book:

The Dusty Bookcase:

A Journey Through Canada's

Forgotten, Neglected, and Suppressed Writing

Available at the very best bookstores and through

Biblioasis, Amazon, Chapters/Indigo, and McNally-Robinson.

Harper Hockey Book Watch: Fin (et raison d'être)

Good things come to those who wait, but so do the bad and the ugly.

Nine years and 138 days after it was first reported, one year and 321 days after he announced its completion, the prime minister's hockey book was released yesterday. Given authorship, website and book trailer, the launch for A Great Game seems to have been rather muted. No copies were in evidence at the Conservatives' frightening Hallowe'en convention. Costco catalogue copy aside, the only advance notice I spotted came this past Saturday in the form of an ineptly worded, poorly punctuated "Suggested Post" on Facebook:

Pub date publicity – the best being this video of stumbling Leafs –  was by mid-morning overshadowed by a confession from Rob Ford, the prime minister's fishing buddy. The afternoon brought the "political executions" – John Ivison's words, not mine – of Brazeau, Duffy and Wallin. The prime minister's will be done.

Power & Politics passed without a single mention of our prime minister's hockey book. Nevertheless, A Great Game had risen to #16 at Amazon.ca by that point, 782,390 places higher than on Amazon.com. Its placing south of the border must have come as a disappointment to agent Michael Levine, for whom American distribution played an "extremely important" role in selecting a publisher.

I wish Simon & Schuster well, and very much look forward to reading the prime minister's book. While recognizing that Chris Selley, who has written the most thoughtful review thus far, dismisses A Great Game as "dry, dispassionate and detailed as to induce test anxiety," I spot some fun. For example, the first chapter begins with the prime minister cocking a snoot at the world of academe by quoting "The Life I Lead", an American song written for a 1964 Disney musical set in pre-Great War England, as a means of anchoring Edwardian Canada.

Such wonderful childhood memories.

I recognize that some correspondents may question my good wishes for the prime minister and his book. One follower of the Harper Hockey Book Watch has accused me of "picking on the Stephen Harper" (before warning that I best not set foot in Alberta). In fact, my criticism has naught to do with the prime minister, but the fourth estate (and I've visited Alberta without incident).

For nearly a decade, the press picked up and dropped the story of the prime minister's hockey book with the enthusiasm and attention span of a playful, inbred puppy. Back in April 2006, when BC boy Daniel Powter's "Bad Day" topped the charts, Mr Harper announced that he expected to finish the book within months. In the midst of the 2008 election – "I Kissed a Girl" by Katy Perry – he again told reporters that it was on the cusp of completion. In December 2011 – Rhianna's "We Found Love" – the prime minister revealed to Jane Taber and Tonda MacCharles that he'd actually finished his book, adding that a publisher was in place and that it would appear in 2012. Each pronouncement launched a flurry of news stories, but never a follow-up. Not a single news source commented when the promised hockey book failed to materialize last year.

Not one member of the press has pursued Heritage Canada's sudden, unexpected and unexplained decision – which I support! – to allow Simon & Schuster Canada to publish Canadian books.

Hockey is not the only great game.

And so, I close the Harper Hockey Book Watch with two related queries and a gentle suggestion.

Queries: Has the beneficiary of proceeds, the Military Family Fund, received an advance on royalties? If not, why not?

Suggestion: Those who are choosing to boycott A Great Game may wish to consider donating directly to the Military Families Fund.

Note to the Conservative Party of Canada: A website update is long overdue. Rumours are fuelled by things like this:

Related posts:

Ignatieff's Ink and Harper's Hockey Book
The Harper Hockey Book Watch (Updated!)
Harper Hockey Book Watch: Year Eight, Day 253
Harper Hockey Book Watch: Year Nine, Day 39
Harper Hockey Book Watch: Year Nine, Day 222

Harper Hockey Book Watch: Year Nine, Day 236
Harper Hockey Book Watch: Year Nine, Day 237
Harper Hockey Book Watch: Year Ten, Day 27
Harper Hockey Book Watch: Year Ten, Day 77

Q is for Queer People (but not kweer kapers)

The plaque on Palmer Cox's gravesite went missing last year. Its disappearance, believed to be the work scrap metal scavengers, is perhaps the greatest in a long list of insults to his memory. No other name in Canadian literature has suffered such a decline in death, few have been quite so snubbed as this son of Granby, Quebec. Palmer Cox is nowhere to be found in The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature or W.H. New's Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada, yet a century ago his presence was inescapable. Here the man's image graces a cigar box:

Cox's verse and illustrations featured in newspapers, magazines and books published around the globe. Much of his popularity had to do with Brownies, mischievous little sprites inspired by stories told by his Scottish grandmother. Touring companies performed theatrical adaptations of Cox's Brownie verse, while the characters themselves were sold in places like Birks as porcelain figurines.

Tacky? Perhaps you'd prefer some Brownie cutlery or dinnerware? Salt and paper shakers? A creamer? How about a tea towel for the kitchen and some wallpaper for the nursery?

No? Okay, but you'll want a Brownie Ice Cream Sandwich for the road.

You'll say they're great!

It's Disney before Disney.

Cox wrote and illustrated something in the area of thirty books – I've yet to find a reliable bibliography. I think my favourite, Queer People and Their Kweer Kapers (Toronto: Rose, 1888), provides some indication as to why the author is so ignored by the keepers of the canon. We begin with the tale of Grim Griffin, a "giant bold" who lives off the labour of hardworking farmers in stealing their produce and livestock. Cox took the time to draw "heaps of hoof and horn" lying at Grim Griffin's feet. Not a pleasant sight, but then neither is this:

Grim Griffin meets his end when he hooks a whale that pulls him out to sea.

The people rejoice:

The high point of the collection to this discerning reader is Cox's "Cock Robin", in which a dark nursery rhyme is made more morbid.

I suppose subsequent generations came to consider these images and accompanying verse inappropriate for young children. A shame, because they often carry some valuable advice. Consider the last lines in Grim Griffin's tale:

Palmer Cox died at his home, Brownie Castle, which was built by his brothers not far from his childhood home.

It stands to this day, a short stroll to his resting place and the monument that once bore these words:

IN CREATING THE BROWNIES

HE BESTOWED A PRICELESS

HERITAGE ON CHILDHOOD

Not in Canada, he didn't.