The Dusty Bookcase

14 August 2013

Ce soir: The Heart Accepts It All

THE HEART ACCEPTS IT ALL

SELECTED LETTERS OF JOHN GLASSCO

BOOK LAUNCH

Wednesday, 14 August 2013, 7:30 p.m.

THE WORD

467 Milton Street

Montreal

12 August 2013

F is for First Statement

The editor of this mag, John Sutherland, is a very decent chap, about 30, a pretty good drinker too...

– John Glassco, letter to Robert McAlmon, 16 August 1944

The April & May 1945 issue of influential Montreal little magazine First Statement. Irving Layton, A.M. Klein, Patrick Anderson, Ralph Gustafson, Miriam Waddington... amongst the lesser-known writers we find Wingate Taylor, "a farmer in the Eastern townships [sic] of Quebec." He's better remembered – though, in truth, he's barely remembered at all – as Graeme Taylor, the man who shares many adventures with John Glassco in Memoirs of Montparnasse.

I've long been fascinated by Taylor, in part because he was expected to do such great things. Writing in the 'twenties, Leon Edel described him as one of the three premier Canadian writers of his generation, while A.J.M. Smith recommended his writing to anthologist Raymond Knister. I read nothing of Taylor's that would justify such praise, but it appears Edel and Smith weren't alone in seeing something; while living in Paris, Taylor's writing appeared in This Quarter and transition, sharing pages with James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Paul Bowles and William Carlos Williams.

Taylor's lone contribution to First Statement, "The Horse-Stall" broke a fifteen year silence, marking his first appearance in print since those days in Montparnasse. It was also his last.

"The Horse-Stall" isn't a short story, but an excerpt from a lost, unpublished novel titled Brazenhead. The twelve pages in First Statement is all that survives – an apt reflection of a man who, as Michael Gnarowski has written, "remains unrealized and obscure to the present day."

A shorter, earlier version of this piece was cross-posted at A Gentleman of Pleasure.

07 August 2013

An Invitation to the Heart Accepts It All Launch

05 August 2013

E is for Early Work

I once met Barbara Gowdy at a Chapters Inc annual shareholders meeting; I owned stock, she was signing copies of The White Bone. Anyone who finds this at all peculiar is advised to revisit their memories of the 'nineties. The very same meeting saw the launch of a short-lived, ill-conceived venture, immortalized through laminated bookmarks slipped into copies of Ms Gowdy's novel:

The White Bone was free to anyone willing to stand in line. I took my place, but what I really wanted was Ms Gowdy's signature on the book pictured above. Published in 1988, Through the Green Valley was her first. I've not read it – 'tis a historical romance – though I am intrigued because it is so very different from the rest of her oeuvre. Where Falling Angels, the author's sophomore novel, is in print Through the Green Valley has been unavailable for a quarter century.

"I'm not sure I want to sign this," said Ms Gowdy.

I felt bad.

Brian Moore disowned his earliest novels. For three decades, friend Mordecai Richler kept his debut, The Acrobats, out of print. In university, this paperback copy made the rounds of my friends like a Bowie bootleg.

(Am I alone in being amazed by the speed with which it returned to print after Richer's death?)

I've been thinking of early work and all associated embarrassment ever since receiving a query brought by last week's post on doppelgängers:

You wrote that you used to write as Brian John Busby. Someone called Brian John Busby wrote for a Canadian TV show called "Time of Your Life". Are you that Brian John Busby?

Yes, I am. A low-budget, low-rent teen soap, Time of Your LIfe was my first paid writing gig.

The correspondent adds: "Great show!"

Wish I could agree, though I'll allow that the stray bits posted online point to something that is not nearly so horrible as I remember.

As for Ms Gowdy... I didn't press, and she proved to be a good sport.

Addendum (for my nieces):

01 August 2013

Margaret Millar's Michigan Murder Mystery

Vanish in an Instant

Margaret Millar

New York: Dell, [1953]

224 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.

29 July 2013

D is for Doppelgänger

There was a Brian Busby who lived two blocks from the house in which I grew up. Our paths never crossed – he was eight years older – but I was aware of his presence and remember the day his family moved. There was also a Brian Busby who attended our church and another who worked for the CBC. I can't tell you what the latter did, but his name did leap out as credits rolled. I came to the illogical conclusion that while "Busby" wasn't terribly common, "Brian Busby" was.

All this is to explain why I used my full name on my early writing.

Austin Clarke did something similar at the beginning in his career to set himself apart from Irish poet Austin Clarke.

Amongst Thistles and Thorns
Austin C. Clarke
Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1965

Collected Poems
Austin Clarke
London: Allen & Unwin, 1936

A New Canadian Library reissue of Amongst Thorns and Thistles aside, the last I've seen "Austin C. Clarke" used by a North American publisher was on McClelland & Stewart's 1967 first edition of The Meeting Place – thus avoiding further confusion with this man:

2001: A Space Odyssey
Arthur C. Clarke
New York: New American Library, 1968

You wouldn't think a name like Austin Clarke would cause such trouble. Thomas King, I can understand...

King's Explanatory Arithmetic
Thomas King
London: The Author [c. 1920]

Lisa Moore and William Gibson, too.

Merveilleux Voyage
Lisa Moore
Toronto: Harlequin, 1986

A Vision of Faery Land and Other Poems
William Gibson
Boston: Munroe & Co., 1853

Even John Metcalf.

Milk for Babes; or, A Catecism in Verse
John Metcalf
Northampton, MA: The Author, 1840

But Clarke seems a particularly, peculiarly problematic surname for Canadian publishers. Forget publisher Clarke Irwin, consider my friend, poet George Elliott Clarke...