27 December 2011

A Quiet Revolution and Still Cowards Complain



The Squeaking Wheel
John Mercer [pseud. Eric Cecil Morris]
n.p.: Rubicon, 1966
103 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

25 December 2011

A Merry Christmas to All



A few favourite images from the 1961 Eaton's Santa Claus Parade Colouring Book. The entire thing – 32-pages, plus "COLOUR GUIDE IN FULL COLOUR" – is available for download here from the Archives of Ontario.

Merry Christmas!

23 December 2011

Pulp Noir à Montréal



The new edition of Canadian Notes & Queries lands, and with it comes another Dusty Bookcase sur papier. This time the spotlight plays upon Ted Allan's Love is a Long Shot. Not the Love is a Long Shot for which he was awarded the 1984 Stephen Leacock Medal, but a cheap, pseudonymous pulp novel from a quarter-century earlier.

Published by News Stand Library in September 1949, two months before newspaperman Al Palmer’s Sugar-Puss on Dorchester Street, this Love is a Long Shot holds the distinction of being the first pulp noir novel set in Montreal. As I write in CNQ, it ain't that pretty at all. The cover depicts, but doesn't quite capture, one of the darkest, most horrific scenes in any Canadian novel.


There's more to the issue, of course, including new fiction by Nathan Whitlock, new poetry by Nyla Matuck and – ahem
praise for A Gentleman of Pleasure from George Fetherling.

22 December 2011

POD Cover of the Month: The Simple Adventures of a Memsahib



Wait, isn't that Montreal?

It seems almost cruel to again focus on Nabu Press, but what better way to begin this day, the 150th anniversary of Sara Jeannette Duncan's birth, than to take a swipe at those dishonouring her work. Using a stock photo of a Slovakian castle for a novel set in India is one thing, but what I find more interesting is the botching of fair Sara's name:
Sara Jeanette (Duncan) "Mrs. Everard Cotes" Cotes
What dog's breakfast lies beneath that cover?

First edition:


New York: Appleton, 1893

A Christmas bonus:


Further ineptitude from POD publisher Echo Library of Fairford, Gloucester. The surname is correct.

Related posts:
POD Cover of the Month: Montreal for Tourists..
POD Cover of the Month: Rila of Ingelside

POD Cover of the Month: Romany of the Snows

20 December 2011

The Harper Hockey Book Watch (Updated!)



Regular readers and suffering dinner companions will know that for years my eyes have been scanning the horizon for signs of Stephen Harper's long promised hockey book. The prime minister does love to tease, promising a work that seems forever on the verge of completion.

Today, some hope. In her regrettably named "Morning Buzz", Globe and Mail reporter Jane Taber brings news that "there is a publishing date for the long-talked about and much-anticipated prime ministerial tome one [sic] hockey history." While the pub date – "next year" – seems awfully vague, we may take cheer in the fact the source is Stephen Harper himself. "He did not say who the publisher is," adds Ms Taber, leaving the reader to speculate as to whether he refused to say or simply wasn't asked.

Now, morning buzz turning to evening hangover, I see that the prime minister's critics are having fun with his writerly habits: "15 minutes every day for eight years". Oh, by all means, go ahead and snicker. Me? I admire the man's determination as much as I do his realistic expectations. Again, Ms. Taber:
He will not make a cent on it, he said.
I dare say, our prime minister understands something of what it is to be a writer in this country.

There's a sentence I never thought I'd write.

Later that day: Postmedia's Mark Kennedy reports that the prime minister has not yet completed the book.

Take heart, after today he'll be fifteen minutes closer.