Recently arrived titles at Montreal's The Word Bookstore. Palmer's epic and the others depicted can be purchased through the store's website.
New copies of Sugar-Puss on Dorchester Street and other books in the Ricochet series* can be purchased through Véhicule Press.
He failed to remember the day or the occasion when he first grudgingly admitted that her body was a beautiful one, that there was something arresting in even the triangulated face with dark tangle of lashes along the smooth cheek, too pale to be called a daffodil-yellow and too dark to be compared to a gardenia. But he had not been compelled to revise his earlier estimate of her. Nothing was gained, he knew by contending that she was an undersized and flat-faced barbarian who exuded the odor of fish oil. It was the white man's duty to be loyal to his white race.
"I'll concede that she has her own ars erotica. That's imposed upon her, I suppose, by her environment. She has to be warmer-blooded, in a country like this, just as she has to wear warmer clothing. You can write it down to Nature's plan for keeping the race going. Where the soil is thin there must be no mistake about planting the seed. I'm not a medical man enough to know how true it is that the Innuit vulva is more prominent and prehensile than the white woman's."
* Stringer's 1927 novel The White Hands, in which a pair of Jazz Age sisters are sent off North Ontario, provides a bit of a twist on the premise.
** I can't help but note that in Helen Dickson Reynolds' truly strange He Will Return (1959), abandoned wife Constance Owen-Jones discovers her husband is still alive through a newsreel street shot.
Trash – and not "good trash" – but none the less will appeal to the vast majority of those who demand nothing but "escape" from their reading. The story of a New Yorker who escapes civilization by joining a tribe of Eskimos in the Far North, "buying" a mate, and evading the claims of wife and home; succeeds in making so-called civilized ideals sufficient excuse for immorality.– Kirkus, 15 June 1936
I'm honoured to have been asked by the Globe & Mail to write an obituary of poet, critic, journalist, biographer, and lexicographer Fraser Sutherland. It'll be appearing in print this coming week. For now, you can read the obituary online through this link (note: it's behind a paywall).
Fraser was the first person I interviewed for A Gentleman of Pleasure, my biography of his friend John Glassco. He as unfailingly generous and encouraging. In this way, my relationship with the man was anything but unique.
One of the last times I saw Fraser was at the Montreal launch of The Heart Accepts It All, a selection of Glassco's letters I edited for Véhicule Press. He'd made the effort of travelling from his home in Toronto.
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| Carmine Starnino, Fraser Sutherland, and Mark Abley at the launch of The Heart Accepts It All. The Word, 14 August 2013 |
Fraser always expressed an interest in my work, particular the discoveries made while working on this long exploration of forgotten and neglected Canadian literature. My final visit to 39 Helena Avenue, the house he'd shared with his wife Alison, was to pick up some old Canadian pulp novels he'd wanted me to have.
I will never forget his kindness.
RIP, Fraser.
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| The Globe & Mail, 14 April 2021 |
EASTER LILIES
Oh, where are the sweet white lilies
That grew by the garden wall?
We wanted them for Easter,
But there is not one at all!
Down on the bare brown garden
Their roots lie hidden deep,
And the life is pulsing through them
Although they seem to sleep;
And the gardener's eye can see them—
Those germs that hidden lie, —
Shine in the stately beauty
That shall clothe them by-and-by!
Even so, in our hearts are growing
The lilies the Lord loves best:
The faith, the hope, the patience
He planted in the breast.
Not yet is their rich full blossom,
But He sees their coming prime
As they shall smile to meet Him
In earth's glad Easter time!
The love that striveth towards Him
Through earthly gloom and chill;
The humble sweet obedience
Through darkness following still—
These are the Easter lilies,
Precious and fair and sweet,
We may bring to the risen Master
And lay at His blessed feet!
