A Gentleman of Pleasure

Just announced by McGill-Queen's University Press:

A Gentleman of Pleasure: One Life of John Glassco, Poet,

Memoirist, Translator, and Pornographer

Brian Busby

April 2011

The first biography of Canada's most enigmatic literary figure, a self-described "great practitioner of deceit."

John Glassco (1909-1981) holds a unique position in Canadian letters and a somewhat notorious reputation throughout the world. He is best known for his Memoirs of Montparnasse, the controversial chronicle of his youthful adventures and encounters with celebrities in the Paris of James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, and Ernest Hemingway. Less known are his poetry, his instrumental role in the foundation of modern translation, and his numerous - and widely popular - works of pornography.

A Gentleman of Pleasure not only spans Glassco's life but delves into his background as a member of a once prominent and powerful Montreal family. In addition to Glassco's readily available work, Brian Busby draws on pseudonymous writings published as a McGill student as well as unpublished and previously unknown poems, letters, and journal entries to detail a vibrant life while pulling back the curtain on Glassco's sexuality and unconventional tastes.

In a lively account of a man given to deception, who took delight in hoaxes, Busby manages to substantiate many of the often unreliable statements Glassco made about his life and work. A Gentleman of Pleasure is a remarkable biography that captures the knowable truth about a fascinatingly complex and secretive man.

More, including pre-ordering information, can be found here.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the cover is by the talented David Drummond.

And These Were Her Magnificent Breasts

This was Joanna

Niel [sic] H. Perrin [pseud. Danny Halperin]

Toronto: News Stand Library, 1949

Of all the novels read this past year, not one has left so great an impression as Neil H. Perrin's The Door Between. In the second of two posts about the book, I described it as "one of the most peculiar Canadian novels I've ever read". Here I reconsider: The Door Between might well be the most peculiar Canadian novel I've ever read. It's portrayal of 1948 Toronto as a dark, sexual sin city, populated by stricken, agonizing souls certainly runs counter to the staid and sober images that linger in popular culture.

These same sorry sods would find fit in This was Joanna, which was published twelve months earlier. We never actually meet Joanna – she's found dead on page one by an unnamed fisherman, as depicted on the cover of the publisher's American edition: "...for one witless moment he looked down on the haunting perfection that was Joanna, the closed eyes in a kind of rapture, the long, strained throat, twisted torso, magnificent breasts, profound hips, proud legs, crouched in death like a supple cat."

Profound hips...

This is not the dead woman's story, rather it concerns an ex-lover, a nameless newspaperman who attempts to solve the mystery that was Joanna. His quest brings him into contact with her other past paramours. As with The Door Between, sexual disfunction and perversity pervade. We see this on Joanna's wedding night, as described by her husband Charles:

At last she stood nude before me. When I looked at her I was shocked to see the most brazen smile on her face.

Then, without hesitation, her fingers sure, carefully, slowly, she began to undress me. I went slightly hysterical then. I began to shudder to laugh, to giggle, to squirm. I simply went berserk. In the grip of nameless emotions that shook my whole body and dazed my mind I began to fight with her, to hit her, to drag her toward the bed.

What Joanna thought of this I don't know. We have never discussed it. I only know that later, all passion spent, as I lay beside her in the muttering gloom, I realized that on our wedding night I had gone mad, had beaten my wife and had virtually raped her.

Joanna never forgives Charles, whose desperate attempts to win her back render him a cuckold. The tryst with the newspaperman is just the first in a series of extramarital flings. It's with penultimate lover Ted Wrisley that Joanna's amorous adventures come to a climax. A sensualist who owes much to J.-K. Huysmans' Jean Des Esseintes, Wrisley introduces Joanna to "the arts of which immortal Ovid and the Marquis de Sade have written." He takes delight in showing his "chamber of horrors" to the newspaperman:

On the walls of the room were hung all sorts of gadgets of torture; long needles, small, hairy whips, knouts, knives sharp as razors, silken threads of unbelievable length. Over the mantlepiece were afixed two large peacock feathers; the end of one was a rubber stopper, the end of the other a handgrip. I dared not ask the significance of these feathers for fear of being told.

Suspended from the ceiling were two long cords, obviously used to hold a person up from the floor by his (or her) thumbs. On the floor, as if alive, lay the stuffed corpse of a sinuous cobra. The most unspeakably evil paintings adorned the walls and, in one corner of the room under a blue light, sat the grinning statue of Priapus, the phallic symbol of the ages.

This was Joanna was banned in Ireland.

Wrisley's playroom – which, incidentally, is soundproof – stands as Priapus in what is otherwise a remarkably flat environment. Like an American soap opera, This was Joanna is set in a neutral everyplace that is populated by the pampered and privileged. How bland compared to the torrid Toronto of The Door Between! I can't help but compare – had it not been for one I would not have read the other – and yet... and yet I still recommend the novel. This was Joanna might not be the most peculiar Canadian novel I've ever read, but it's up there.

Trivia: News Stand Library's American edition of This was Joanna, published in November 1949, two months after the Canadian, marks the last time the book saw print. Why Halperin's pseudonym was changed from Neil H. Perrin to Grant R. Brooks remains a mystery.

Object: A mass market paperback that is typical of News Stand Library's shoddy production values. Streaks of black ink run along the edges of a dozen or so pages, making for challenging reading. The author's name is misspelled on the cover and title page (but is correct on the spine and back cover). "I before E, except after C", I suppose.

Fly-by-night provides a thorough account of the publisher's many failed attempts at getting Halperin's pseudonym right.

Access: Only the University of Calgary has copies (both the Perrin and Brooks editions). This was Joanna might be all but absent from libraries, but that doesn't mean it's expensive. Ten copies – all fairly decent – are currently listed online at between US$7.50 and US$30. One bookseller describes his offering as "a bit misscut [sic]". Par for the course, really.

Amazon Customer Review: 'A Jonny come lately approach to writing about the American frontier.'

Related posts:

Homophobes and Book Burners Weigh In

Amazon Customer Review: 'My review has more intelect'

Amazon Customer Review: 'I could not throw it away or burn it as I would have liked to do'

Many Happy Returns

The Ottawa Citizen, 3 December 1960

McClelland and Stewart's Christmas offerings from half-a-century ago. Only This Side Jordan is in print today. Pity that, Robertson Davies' A Voice from the Attic is a particularly good match for a snowy winter's day. "A witty, robust and wonderfully opinionated book on the joys of reading and the author's own offbeat likes and dislikes." There is truth in advertising.

Which of this fall's McClelland and Stewart titles will be in print in 2060, I wonder. I'm betting against Ezra Levant's Ethical Oil (and even 2009's Shakedown, which I was once told "belongs in the category of Uncle Tom's Cabin".)

My recommendations for this season's gift-giving favours presses that are hard at work mining the neglected riches of our past.

First up, Véhicule, which this fall launched its Ricochet Books series of pulp fiction reprints. (Full disclosure: I'm consulting editor for the series.)

The Crime on Cote des Neiges

David Montrose

The series debut, returning Montrose (Charles Ross Graham) to print after after an absence of more than four decades. Originally published in 1951, this edition includes a foreword by yours truly.

Two blondes, one brunette, a roadster and a whole lotta Dow. It doesn't get much better.

Murder Over Dorval

David Montrose

Foreword by Michael Blair

"In one hand she held a plane ticket to Montreal, in the other a wad of greenbacks. She was a gorgeous looking redhead. For the sake of her lovely green eyes, Russell Teed took the plane and the money. But it wasn't long before h realized that whatever she had offered, it wasn't worth it."

Recognition of Dundurn's Voyageur Classics series is long overdue. For four years now it's been "bringing forward time-tested writing about the Canadian experience in all its varieties." This year's titles:

Storm Below

Hugh Garner

Introduction by Paul Stuewe

Combat Journal for Place d'Armes:

A Personal Narrative

Scott Symons

Introduction by Christopher Elson

Self Condemned

Wyndham Lewis

Introduction by Allan Pero

Pilgrims of the Wild

Grey Owl

Edited and introduced by Michael Gnarowski

Note the handy links to the publishers' websites. Of course, all are also available from booksellers, whether online or not, but I'm not playing favourites.

Related post: Books are Best

That's Herbert... not Hébert

The Healing Hands of Rocke and Locke

The third part of my review of The Canada Doctor by Clay Perry and John L.E. Pell 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.

Related posts:

The Canada Doctor: First Visit

The Canada Doctor: Second Visit

The Canada Doctor: Second Visit

The second part of my review of The Canada Doctor by Clay Perry and John L.E. Pell 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.

Related posts:

The Canada Doctor: First Visit

The Healing Hands of Rocke and Locke

The Canada Doctor: First Visit

The Canada Doctor

Clay Perry and John L.E. Pell

Boston: Hale, Cushman & Flint/[Toronto]: Thomas Allen, 1933

361 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.

Related posts:

The Canada Doctor: Second Visit

The Healing Hands of Rocke and Locke

James at 100 (Jasper at 62)

As a kid, Jasper was everywhere – the daily newspaper, Maclean's, postcards, T-shirts, buttons and ball caps – but now he's seen nowhere outside the national park that gave him his name. Out of sight, out of mind, I hadn't thought of the bear in years until stumbling over the fact that today marks the centenary of Jasper creator James Simpkins' birth.

A commercial artist, Winnipeg born and bred, Simpkins' talent extended much farther than Jasper. Here's one example, a 1956 postage stamp:

And then there were other cartoons, like Simpkins' Montreal:

The Gazette, 29 August 1962

But the bear was pervasive; a friend's parents had Jasper salt and pepper shakers, he had a copy of McClelland and Stewart's 1972 Jasper. Was it the same as Ryerson's similarly titled 1954 collection or the one published by Rinehart six years later? I have no idea. Jasper books are so very hard to come by these days, all the more reason why a revival – very much overdue – would be welcome. Drawn and Quarterly? Seth?

A Neglected Author's Forgotten Novel

Gambling with Fire

David Montrose [pseud., Charles Ross Graham]

Don Mills, ON: Longmans Canada, [1969]

Until this year, I had no idea that Gambling with Fire existed; most Montrose bibliographies – few and far between – don't recognize the title. Easy to see how it's missed. Where the author's other novels – The Crime on Cote des Neiges, Murder Over Dorval and The Body on Mount Royal – were cheap paperback originals from the early 'fifties, this hardcover landed in shops at about the same time as Abbey Road. I wonder if anyone was waiting. I wonder whether anyone noticed.

I've seen nothing more than a very brief Saturday Night review, and no adverts. There must be something else out there – in Quill & Quire, perhaps – but it appears that Montrose's fourth and last novel just drifted by, meeting the same fate as his pulps: a single printing. It could not have helped sales that the author died while it was in press.

Let's assume for a second that there was a Montrose fan out there, someone who had waited those fifteen years for the next novel. I imagine there would have been some initial disappointment. Gone is private detective Russell Teed, the good-natured, mildly quirky hero of the first three novels. In his place we have impoverished Austrian aristocrat Franz Loebek, a displaced person in a post-war world. Loebek is so very staid, less likable, and less of a character, though he does share Teed's appreciation of interior decoration and a love for what was then Canada's largest city:

Here was this great city of Montreal, old and seeming as educated in vice as European cities; berthed in her docks, ships of the world. Bars like London, churches like Paris, narrow streets that could be Marseilles, neon streets that could be New York.

Yes, this was Montreal – in many ways it still is – but the metropolis one encounters in Gambling with Fire pre-dates the novel's publication. Montrose presents us with a city that is "one-third English. Of which part, perhaps one-thousandth are the controllers of the industry, the business, the financial houses, the banks." This is a Montreal untouched by Jean Drapeau, the Quiet Revolution, the FLQ and Expo 67. In keeping with previous Montrose novels, this is very much an English metropolis. That said, though the French speaking characters are few in Gambling with Fire, they have a much greater presence. There's Nicole Porter-Smythe (née Desmarais), Loebeck's great love; Julius Trebonne, Loebeck's loyal cabby ; and Rosaire Beaumage, Loebeck's mortal enemy.

It is Beaumage's murder of Loebek's old friend Morris Winter that sets all in motion. I won't go on for fear of spoiling the plot. Gambling with Fire is worth a read. In fact, approaching the end, I was prepared to describe this as the best-written of the four Montrose novels. What prevented me is the final chapter which seems a grasping, hurried attempt at tying up loose ends and providing redemptive, happy endings for each and every character. I have no reservation in declaring these twelve pages the weakest the author ever published. A sad conclusion to a wonderful oeuvre... but, oh, the aftertaste!

Dedication: "To my most compassionate friend, LEV CHIPMAN". Stepping onto a limb, I suggest that the dedicatee is a descendant of Leverett de Veber Chipman of the Nova Scotia Chipmans.

Access: Toronto's public library comes through, though all others fail. Gambling with Fire can also be found in eight of our university libraries, but not any located in Montreal. For shame. Regular readers will not be surprised to learn that Library and Archives Canada doesn't have so much as a listing. Only two copies are currently on offer from online booksellers – at US$15 and US$18.75. As an old prof used to say, "run, don't walk".

Related post:

Ricochet and the Charles Ross Graham Mystery

A.J.M. Smith Memorial Plaque

It was thirty years ago today that A.J.M. Smith died. This coming Saturday afternoon will see the unveiling of a memorial plaque to the poet at the chapel of Montreal's St James the Apostle Anglican Church. All are welcome!

St James the Apostle Anglican Church

1439 St Catherine Street West

Montreal, Quebec

(entrance Bishop Street)

5:00 pm, Saturday, 27 November 2010

'Snainef spelled backwards is Fenians'

The Passionate Invaders

John Clare

New York: Doubleday, 1965

Had it not been for the nineteenth-century English poet John Clare, I doubt that I would've noticed this novel, found several weeks ago in a London thrift store. The Canadian John Clare meant nothing to me, though he did once serve as editor for a number of Toronto-based periodicals. Here he is in a 1948 advert for Maclean's:

The Ottawa Citizen, 18 February 1948

Just how well Clare practiced his precepts in the short story format I cannot say – there is no collection – but this, his first and only novel, is a great disappointment. Here I admit that I was hoping for another forgotten, entertaining satire like The Chartered Libertine by Ralph Allen (top row, first from the left). Instead, what I encountered was a slight, self-indulgent work. Oh, but the cover held such promise!

All centres on Magnus Dillon, a wise-cracking Toronto magazine editor who is assigned to track down "The Snainef", a group of Canadian terrorists intent on invading the United States. Truth be told, he barely tries. Despite great pressure from his boss, Dillon spends most of his time drinking and thinking about the past.

There's no suspense in this "SATIRIC, RICHLY COMIC SUSPENSE NOVEL"; the author doesn't want us on the edge of our seats, he'd rather we sit back as he recounts the boyish pranks Dillon pulled during his stint in the RCAF. (Clare served as a flight lieutenant during the Second World War.) There's also a lengthy history of our hero's favourite watering hole, an inconsequential four-page letter from a friend, and Dillon's rather dry attempts to explain Canada and Canadians to any and all Americans he encounters. The greater part of The Passionate Invaders passes before protagonist and reader so much as encounter the Snainef.

Throughout it all, the prose coughs, sputters and chokes. Witness the beginning of chapter two:

Gus had driven half the distance from his office to the Carfleet house (he was going to meet his wife at the party – she was diving out with a friend), when it occurred to him that Charlie Carfleet might well be a likely suspect after all.

The author told Scott Young (top row, second from the right) that Doubleday accepted his novel "on sight". Clare further claimed that the publisher asked for no changes: "They didn't lay a glove on it."

Shame, really.

An aside: I can't help but feel that the folks down in New York were hoping for a success along the lines of Leonard Wibberley's The Mouse that Roared and its many spinoffs.

Trivia: The Passionate Invaders cover art is by the late Eldon Dedini, best remembered for his New Yorker and Playboy cartoons.

Object and Access: Found in public libraries across the United States, though only that belonging to the City of Toronto serves north of the border. Rob Ford might just put an end to that. Those looking to purchase this, the first and only edition, will find that Very Good copies start at US$8. Two booksellers from an alternate universe are asking US$75 and US$99 respectively.

Hanged 125 Years Ago Today

Prophet of the New World, I

Do the work of the Most High.

I assert it with no pride.

I live in humility.

Is there any one to side

With me? Yes. Sincerity

Will gather up its recruits.

And we will soon taste its fruits.

Louis Riel

22 October 1844 – 16 November 1885

RIP