Old Lady Harlequins: The Wicked, the Suicidal, the Murdered, the Petticoated, and the Headless

The Wicked Lady Skelton
Magellan King-Hill
1949

Die With Me, Lady
Ronald Cocking
1953

Lady - Here's Your Wreath
Raymond Marshall [pseud. James Hadley Chase]
1953

Lady Doctor
Peggy Gaddis [pseud. Peggy Dern]
1957

The Lady Lost Her Head
Manning Lee Stokes
1958

Related posts:

Harlequin Librarians: So Many Secrets
Harlequin Blondes: Terror Struck Them Dumb
Suggestive Harlequins: A Romantic Threesome

AC/DC Nurse: Another Harlequin Threesome
Harlequin: The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name

Harlequins, Ranchers and Redheads: A Threesome
Another Wreath for a Redhead

Dope Rings in Canada! Oh My!

The Trudeau Papers: Bang!

The Trudeau Papers
Ian Adams
Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1971

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

Beginning our sesquicentennial year with a novel imaging Canada's demise might be an odd choice were it not for the deafening roar heard from south of our border. How long before the first major fuck-up of the Trump presidency? I'm betting on this month.

The fuck-up described in this debut novel is monumental. The CIA manages to recruit a brilliant Red Army computer analyst, tasks him with testing the security of the Soviet's "fail-safe computer firing program", and then forgets he ever existed.

Bureaucracy is to blame, which isn't to say that there aren't benefits to be had.

Two SS-9s head for American bases in Montana and North Dakota, and the Soviets can do nothing to stop them. Their Premier alerts the President of the United States of the situation, but is unable to convince him that it is all a mistake. Fortunately, Trump the President knows nothing of the Bible and so cannot recall the quotation used in the nuclear code ("Unto God would I commit my cause." – Job 5:8). Unfortunately – for Canada – the U.S. Strategic Missile Command manages to intercept both missiles, resulting in nuclear explosions above Edmonton and southern Saskatchewan.

One million people die.

Within two weeks, the number triples. It grows exponentially as children succumb to leukaemia, their elders shed skin and hair, and Canadians of all ages are sprayed repeatedly with Agent Orange.

After the Prime Minister's plane goes down on a return flight from Washington, the United States takes advantage of misplaced Soviet guilt. Its military moves north on the pretence of securing American-owned industry, while right-wing vigilantes with ties to the CIA take to the streets. Bookstore owners are beaten, and left-leaning student leaders are strung up on the rafters of Varsity Stadium.

Were it not so dense, I'd consider this 108-page "Novel by Ian Adams" a novella; were it not so complex, I might be dismissive. The Trudeau Papers is a remarkable and unusual novel. Its title is explained by narrator Alan Jarvis, a former journalist who has been entrusted by fellow members of the resistance to record what has happened since the two SS-9s exploded:

The name seemed to evoke a collective sense of grim irony. Personally, I think there title is unimportant, considering the enormity of what has taken place, and how much of it has been documented. The rather vague explanation for the choice was that as one of the last democratically elected prime ministers, his name symbolized the end of a nation. So be it.

The "vague explanation" works well. Jarvis himself was once a former CIA operative – and it could be that he is still. Nothing in The Trudeau Papers is cut and dry; nothing is black and white. I came to trust him, but not so much that I won't understand your distrust.

The Trudeau Papers takes place sometime after 1975... but when?

And so, on this second day of our sesquicentennial year, a new question arises: Which Trudeau?

Addendum: This post is the second – after my review of Richard Rohmer's Triad – to include the Trudeau quote above. Again, is it not incredible that we once had a prime minister who could speak about Thucydides on Themistocles?

Object and access: A slim novel in orange boards with uncredited dust-jacket, I bought my copy twenty-seven years ago at S.W. Welch in Montreal. Price: $1.00. Eighteen years earlier, this very same copy was a Christmas gift from journalist Peter C. Newman to John Payne. I'm guessing that this is the same John Payne who once served as an adviser to future PM John Turner (and not the man who starred opposite Maureen O'Hara in Miracle on 34th Street).

It appears there was no a second printing. Remarkably, there has never been a paperback edition.

Ranging at prices between US$3.48 and $17.54, eight copies are listed for sale online. Condition is not a factor.

'The New Year comes white-winged, unstained, a star...'

Century-old jingoism to begin a New Year by Minnie Henrietta Bethune Hallowell Bowen (1861-1942) of Sherbrooke, Quebec, from John W. Garvin's anthology Canadian Poems of the Great War (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1918). During the conflict, Mrs Bowen served as President of the Sherbrooke Patriotic Association.

THE NEW YEAR, 1917 A.D.

Canada's National Service

          The New Year comes white-winged, unstained, a star
               Loosed from God's hand across a world of night!
          What thoughts await its coming from afar?
               What deeds shall quicken in its unknown light?

          All Time is God's — to give and to withhold!
               To men the power is given to use or waste —
          To turn the passing splendour into gold,
               Lasting and beautiful — or bid it haste.

          Dearer than jewels — bought with holiest blood —
               Are these few months God-given to our hand
          By Him whose might held back the threatening flood
               There at the Marne, that we might arm and stand.

          The grey tide swells apace — the nations fall
               Before its pitiless, embracing lust!
          Here at the threshold of another year —
               Still with God's gift of time — we face our trust!

          The bells are ringing in the quivering towers —
               The chimes are calling over glistening snow.
          The year is dawning in its awful powers —
               The hours are coming and the hours must go!

          These few, small days may be the last that wait
               On our decision! Riven ears may know
          The iron thunders of approaching Fate
               That closes Mercy's door and arms the Foe.

          Dear blood, outpoured for love of God and Man,
               Has drenched the far-off altar with its red,
          And heavenly fire that through the trenches ran
               Has wrapped the lives that suffered in our stead.

          How can we give enough — since they have died?
               Since they have lived — shall we not greatly live
          And know in life or death with holy pride
               No wealth of service is too much to give?

          The Call to Service! ringing loud and clear
               Beats in the angel pinions overhead —
          Still time is given that deadened ears may hear
               Before the final word of doom is said.

          Work! for humanity's sublimest goal!
               Fight! in a cause too great to be denied!
          Hear! for the Dead are speaking to your soul!
               Wake! for God calls the Nation to His side!

Related posts:

A Poet Laureate's 'Prayer for the New Year'
Decades-Old Verse for the New Year by E.J. Pratt

Temperance Verse for New Year's Day

An Old Poem for the New Year by Arthur Stringer

Immature Verse for the New Year

A New Year

'The year is dead, for Death slays even time...'

Verse for the day from the 1935 revised edition of Our Canadian Literature, an anthology of verse selected by the poet's friends Bliss Carman and Lorne Pierce.

A Happy New Year to all!

Related posts:

'Farewell, Old Year' by James Alway Ross, MPP

On the Year's Last Eve

Just Say the Invitation Never Arrived