It was six years ago yesterday that I began this exploration of the suppressed, ignored and forgotten in Canadian literature. Brian Moore's Sailor's Leave, was the first read. A few hundred books by a few hundred writers followed, but I'll focus on Moore because it all begins and ends with him.
Though he would not acknowledge it as such, Sailor's Leave – a/k/a Wreath for a Redhead – was Moore's debut novel. A paperback written for money, it paid the bills. Without Sailor's Leave, and the six Moore paperback originals that followed, there would've been no Judith Hearne, no The Feast of Lupercal and no The Luck of Ginger Coffey.
Would that today's writers had similar opportunities.
Moore wrote a total of seven paperback originals, the last five under cover of pseudonym. I spent good money on each while he was still alive, but wouldn't read them. It was a misguided decision that had something to do with respect, I suppose. Moore's good friend Bill Weintraub encouraged a change of mind. "The books were immensely readable and his genius for atmosphere, dialogue and plot was everywhere evident," he wrote in his memoir Getting Started.
Bill was right.
I began reading Sailor's Leave on 11 January 2009, the tenth anniversary of Brian Moore's death. This blog's first post came eleven days later. There have been over eight hundred others, but each anniversary has been set aside for the next of Moore's disowned novels.
Yesterday's post on Murder in Majorca was the last, because it was Moore's last; he wrote no more paperbacks. I've now read all his books. It seems the right place to stop.
I've devoted six years to this exploration, and have made some real discoveries, but in all that time the only new books read were by acquaintances and friends.
No more.
It doesn't end here. Not entirely. I'll keep up my Canadian Notes & Queries Dusty Bookcase column. I'll keep reading old Canadian books, too. How could I not? The veins are so rich. There's every chance I'll have something to say about them. I'll return whenever I do.
For now, I've got to catch up on some reading.
