The Meaning of Children: An Interview with Beverly Akerman by Darryl Salach

The Meaning Of Children: now available on Kindle!

1.) You spent twenty years working in molecular genetics research, before deciding to become a writer. Why the sudden urge to become a writer and how difficult a transition was it?

The urge wasn’t sudden, though it might appear so from here. I always intended to be a writer “some day,” but I never entertained it as a way to support myself or my family. And I remember feeling I had to amass some experience in life, wondering what I would have to say as a 20-year-old. Maybe that was just that ol’ deflating self-doubt. But in 2003, my father-in-law died and I suddenly—viscerally—understood that my time, too, was finite, that I better seize this day and do the things I’ve dreamed of doing. Because sometimes “later” doesn’t quite work out.

2.) I found an interesting line in your bio that reads, "Beverly Akerman realized she'd been learning more and more about less and less." What did you mean by that exactly?

What I meant is that genetics used to be the study of individuals, traits, and populations. Then it became the study of chromosomes. Now it’s the study of molecules. In other words, the areas of concern grow more minute as time passed. I grew tired of trying to believe in the importance of the vanishingly small. Also, despite the passage of a generation, cures for genetic disease are still few and far between. We can prevent a lot more disease, usually through selective abortion. But worldwide, the largest use of therapeutic abortion is sex selection. I guess I stopped believing in the value of what I was doing. No matter how well-intentioned. It started to feel like, “the hurrier I went, the behinder I got.”

3.) Did you have a mentor or someone that helped guide you through the early days of your transformation into becoming a writer, and how valuable was that to you?

I’ve been fortunate in having a number of wonderfully generous writing teachers; I won a Quebec Writers Federation mentorship with noted poet Robyn Sarah, and studied for brief periods in the US and Canada with Luis Urrea, Nancy Zafris, Brad Kessler, Neale McDevitt, Mikhail Iossel, Tess Fragoulis and many others. In taking my work seriously, these writers helped me to take my aspirations seriously. They helped me learn to shush that internal yenta, that nudgy little voice that said, “who do you think you are?” That has been very important and empowering. Still is, in fact.

4.) What was the genesis behind putting together your collection of short stories The Meaning of Children and how long of a time period did it take to write the stories for the book?

I started publishing my short stories in 2006. By 2010, I had over 20 out there, many winning or placing in contests. The next step was to publish a book. Maybe it should have been a novel, from a marketing point of view (agents and publishers seem to think no one reads short stories…unless the author’s name is Munro). I started submitting a huge collection which included unpublished work. No dice.

So I looked at them all again and tried to find some commonality, some thread other than that they were all written by me. I realized how central children were in my work and decided to structure the book in three parts: ‘Beginning’ features first person point of view stories of children, ‘Middle’ tells of those in the child-bearing years, and ‘End’ is about older people, or stories that take the longer view of life.

And bingo! Of course, life is an uncontrolled experiment, isn’t it?

I started negotiating with Exile Editions. And then Enfield & Wizenty told me I was one of three finalists for their 2011 Colophon Prize.

But it was too late to back out of the first negotiation (I hadn’t signed anything but…well, let’s just say it was complicated). The three E&W finalists would win publishing contracts (the only difference was the size of the advance). I recently discovered the overall winner was W.P. Kinsella, for his first novel in decades (Butterfly Winter). Pretty impressive company to be in.

5.) How difficult was raising three children of your own, and were those mothering years paramount in giving you the ability and proper perspective in order to be able to write these kinds of stories?

As a student of genetics, I’ve always been taught that life is all about producing the next generation…As a feminist, I always intended to have meaningful work and not let motherhood stop me. The truth is, women can have it all—just not at the same time.

Having children is one of the most significant experiences of the human adventure. At the same time, despite all these wonderful supports available in Canada and in Quebec—paternity leave, $7 a day daycare—it is still hard to combine full-time work and motherhood. Very hard. My husband, former MNA Russell Copeman, travelled a lot in his job—we estimated he was gone about three whole YEARS of the first decade when our kids were growing up. That put a lot of pressure on me. So I have a fine-tuned appreciation of the under-appreciated bailiwick of women.

Mothering—and the other nurturing professions largely filled by women—are still systematically devalued in our culture. And that’s a damn shame. I read the papers and it frustrates me that there are so few front section articles where the featured newsmaker is a woman.

Which is another way of saying that being a working mother is absolutely essential to who I am, and the kind of book I’ve written.

6.) Do you have a personal story from your collection that you feel closer to than any of the others, and if so why?

I feel close to all the stories, they’re all my “babies.” And all, in their way, semi-autobiographical. Even the fantastical one, “The Woman with Deadly Hands.” I wrote part of that one naked in the Super 8 Airport Motel in Portland, Oregon, after I woke early from a disturbing dream. I continued writing it later that day in the San Francisco airport while awaiting a connecting flight (don’t worry: I’d put on some clothes by then!). As writers, we’re always told to read, read, READ! Which I do. But can one read too much? That’s what the story is about. To me, anyway.

7.) All of your stories have a recurring theme to them: sex, death, guilt, and social prejudice. How difficult was it for you to capture the complexities of these themes and emotions through a child's eyes?

I wouldn’t say ALL my stories deal with these themes…but childhood is fraught with sex, death, guilt, and bigotry. We live in a great country but it’s by no means perfect. And we shouldn’t over idealize childhood. It isn’t all Care Bears and unicorns. By the time my kids got to elementary school, half the kids in their classes were already children of divorce. Of course, where I live, most parents never even marry in the first place.
 

It’s not for me to say how difficult it is to capture complex situations through a kid’s point of view. I had a pretty mature grasp of a lot of the world as a kid. I can recall talking about the Vietnam War and the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings with my Dad when I was 9 or 10 years old. Kids are smart and often deep. One of my own children, while working through his bar mitzvah project, told me couldn’t believe in God because of the Holocaust.

It may comfort adults to believe children aren’t aware of big picture issues, but they are. Maybe those who don’t realize this just haven’t spent enough time with kids. And my kids are upper middle class kids, never been beaten (or seen their mother being beaten), never gone hungry…

8.) Do you see life possibly getting any easier for children in today's world and the generations of children to come?

I think children suffer when adults are under more pressure. We live in a very pessimistic society compared to when I was growing up in the ‘60s and ‘70s. At the same time, by most conceivable measures, we’re better off now than a century back—I mean, a century ago, half of Canadian children were still dying by the age of five. But you wouldn’t know that from reading the papers or watching the news. Because fear is the best marketing tool there is. Check out Michael Moore. We could use a good dose of optimism.

9.) What was the last book you read that you felt inspired by in some way, and why?

One of my current projects is to reread the books I was assigned in school as a kid. So I’d choose Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. Big issues and a writer who tried to make a difference with his stories. Chris Cleave’s Little Bee is a more recent book in this inspiring vein. I also can’t speak highly enough of To Kill a Mockingbird, a book as much about parenting as about racism (though I didn’t see that at all as a 12-year-old; one of my bugaboos is that we give kids books to read that aren’t really appropriate. Another is that schools are still giving kids the same books to read that I got 30 years ago—but I digress). 


My favourite book of all time is Barney’s Version . Richler so perfectly crystallized the concerns of his character’s point in place and time. I admire Lionel Shriver so much for her fearless take on motherhood in We Have to Talk About Kevin, a much braver book than Room or The Book of Negroes, IMHO. I’m not big on mindless anomie, navel gazing, or young people fucking.


Finally, The Loved and The Lost has always stuck with me. TLATL is the first CanLit novels I remember reading as a really young person. This great novel of the immorality of racism also takes place in Montreal; the main character is Jim McAlpine. My last science job ended in 2003, when I left a biotech company called Ecopia. Some time during the last year or so I was there, a new VP was recruited from the States, a man named Jim McAlpine. 


Now, I hadn’t thought of TLATL for years at that point, but the moment I heard the new VP’s name, all I could think of was that this was the same name as Callaghan’s protagonist in TLATL.


I dug up my old copy and brought it to work; it sat in my desk drawer for months while I tried to work up the nerve to show the biochemist his literary namesake. I could never do it. Every time I caught sight of the paperback, I puzzled over why the coincidence of the names meant so much to me.


Eventually, I recognized this was part of the reason I had to quit science and try writing. It’s a nice bonus that Exile Editions is run by Morley’s grandson Michael Callaghan. I’m a sucker for stuff like that.

10.) In your opinion, what makes a good short story? Is there a particular formula that you try and stick to when you write?

I don’t believe in formulas, per se. But the writer has to be moved by her own subject or she won’t be able to bring the reader along with her. A story is a shared emotional journey, after all. And I do believe in moving the reader. I’m sick to death of stories that make me want to kill myself at the end—I mean, real life can be hard enough, why do I need to read about the world ending for some fictional character, too? Of course, I also write about the world ending, but I try to write from a place of hopefulness, if that makes any sense. Which may sound strange because so many of the stories in my collection are dark. But I keep hoping to understand what happened in life, to myself or my characters (who are just proxies, in a way).

I love a story with a moral wrapped in humour. One of my favourites isn’t even in the collection. It’s weird and whimsical, about Santa Claus, Brian Mulroney, and Karlheinz Schreiber.

“Based on a true story,” as they say. But I just couldn’t see it fitting into my “Beginning,” “Middle,” and “End” structure. Maybe if I’d had a little more time to discuss it with my publisher…calling our production schedule compressed misses the truth by at least an order of magnitude.

Anyway, “Now It Can Be Told: The Hardboiled Stress of Being Santa” is up at Joyland.ca and I hope people will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it…and rereading it. It features footnotes and links, but the final one isn’t quite working on the Joyland site. Here’s the url that the last word of the story should be linked to: 

http://data2.collectionscanada.ca/ap/c/c141131.jpg

Hope it gives you a few laughs. It did me!

11.) How difficult was it finding a publisher for The Meaning of Children and what's your experience been like with Exile Editions?

It’s my first book so I guess I can’t really judge how difficult it was. More difficult than I’d hoped, anyway. But the market is undergoing such changes, the loss of bricks and mortar stores, the advent of e-books…Exile have been great. I’ve had launches in Montreal and Toronto and there’s been talk of a small reading tour. I’m hopeful for the future; maybe it depends on awards and such…it’s still early days yet.

One thing, though: I’ve taken a gamble and kept all rights EXCEPT Canadian print. I’m hoping to find an agent who can bring the print and e-books to all other markets; I’m dreaming of film... Please cross all crossables for me, and help me spread the word!

12.) The Meaning of Children has been longlisted for a 2011 ReLit Award. How does that kind of recognition make you feel and to what extent do awards help open doors for writers?

I am thrilled to be longlisted for the ReLit; last year Lisa Foad, another Exile writer, won the ReLit for short fiction. She also edited my collection, so I’m sure that’s helped.

I’ve always believed in submitting to contests—spent a small fortune doing it, over the past few years. But I think it’s been worth it: I’m a winner of

--the Writers’ Federation of New Brunswick’s David Adams Richards Prize,

--the Professional Writers Association of Canada’s Short Article Award

--The Vocabula Review’s Well-Written Writing Contest

--an Editor’s Choice Award, Best New Writing 2011/Eric Hoffer Award

--a Fishtrap Fellowship

--Gemini Magazine’s Flash Fiction Contest

--the Fog City Writers Short Story Contest

And I’ve placed or been a finalist in

--the Sheldon Currie Fiction Contest,

--TWUC’s Short Prose Contest for Developing Writers (twice)

--The Potomac Review’s Fiction Contest

--The Glass Woman Prize.

I’ve also been nominated for the Puschart Prize in both fiction and nonfiction, received funding from The Banff Centre for the Arts, The Canada Council, and the Playwrights Guild of Canada to attend a residency, give readings, and see my first monologue professionally performed. I’ve travelled to Banff, Fredericton, Winnipeg, Ohio, and Oregon, solely for my work as a writer.

These contest accolades have helped me create a substantial literary CV. There is so much rejection in this business—the feedback from these contests has made a huge difference. It’s been a wonderful ride so far.

13.) What inspires you creatively, spiritually or emotionally?

Kindness and compassion, people being moved by the work and devotion of others.
How much some of us do, so unselfishly, for others. The feeling of being in this
together—I guess it’s just that ol’ John Donne thing: 

No man is an island entire of itself; every man 

is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; 

if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe 

is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as 

well as any manner of thy friends or of thine 

own were; any man's death diminishes me, 

because I am involved in mankind. 

And therefore never send to know for whom 

the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Seeing kids enjoy things. My mother used to take my kids to see plays put on occasional Saturday mornings at The Centaur Theatre–the rapt look on the funny little faces in the audience used to make me cry. Probably still would. Luckily, my kids are grown and I don’t have to humiliate myself in public to the same degree anymore.

But I’m still trying to move people.

14.) How important is it for you to read your stories in front of a live audience, and to what extent do you think that experience helps you with your writing?

I LOVE reading my work aloud! It helps that I’ve got one particular piece—“Pie”—that’s a monologue and in a Southern drawl. Which I can do…people are always somehow surprised by my readings, I think. 

Here’s a link to a reading I gave as part of a residency at The Banff Centre for the Arts.

http://www.banffcentre.ca/writing/live_events/2009/listen.aspx (scroll down to May 13).

I think it gave me real credibility to be able to get up there and slay the audience. I mean, I’m “just” a middle-aged woman. Not a sexy young thing, not a flavour-of-the-month. “Just” a writer with the courage to pull some wonderful stories out of my hat…er, psyche. When people enjoy my work right there in front of me, it gives me an incredible boost.

16.) What words of advice would you give people out there working a job they might be tiring of and wanting to try their own hand at becoming a writer?

First of all, marry well, someone who truly supports you (actually, that’s good advice no matter WHAT you want to do!!) I don’t want to be glib about this—I’m earning a fraction of what I did as a researcher. And I never really earned all that much money at that…but I think people should really try to find the thing they were meant to do. You’ll know it when you find it. And when that feeling goes away, find something else that does it for you. ; I could never do what I’m doing without hubby’s financial help.

Other advice: take courses and workshops, find a writing group, and a professional organization like PWAC (http://pwac.ca/) that can help you make contacts. (I’m also a freelance writer—my work has appeared Macleans, The Toronto Star, The National Post, The Montreal Gazette, and on CBC Radio One, as well as in many other lay publications and learned journals.)

If you haven’t already, read these “rules” for writing fiction, put together by The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/20/ten-rules-for-writing-fiction-part-one.

Finally, if you’re unhappy, try changing some of the things in your life: I changed jobs and moved house a number of times before I faced up to the cause of my malaise. Get a good therapist, if you have to.

Seriously.

Finally, you’ve got to BELIEVE you can do it. I can’t stress that enough: if you’re going to plunge into a realm that’s 99% rejection, you better really believe you’ve got the goods. Or you’ll be demolished by it.

17.) What's next for you? Are you working on a new book and when should we expect it to be published?

I’m trying to get this book into the hands of an agent who will bring it to the US (and other) market(s). I’ve sent the book to a film maker who sent me back a really nice note instead of laughing in my face. I keep dreaming/hoping/believing. And trying to figure out how to write a novel…believe me, I’ll be more than happy to let you know when it’s going to be published!

[The Meaning Of Children is available in fine bookstores across Canada and online at Amazon.ca, Chapters, and through Exile Editions]

ENFORCING THE LONG-GUN REGISTRY DOES PREVENT CRIME

Enforcing long-gun registry does prevent crime

Why do critics of the long gun registry persistently ignore this simple truth? 
By BEVERLY AKERMAN

 Originally published in The Hill Times, March 29, 2010 

MONTREAL—Does it make sense to assume all shotgun and rifle owners are law-abiding citizens, but that everyone behind the wheel of a car is a drunk? 

Isn't that the message behind the federal Justice Department's recent proposal to institute random roadside breathalyzer tests?  On one hand, the government, hiding behind the skirts of its latest sock puppet, sends Conservative MP Candice Hoeppner to pontificate: "Irrational government policy had to be challenged....The long-gun registry is a massive Liberal policy failure and it needs to end. It makes no sense to force law-abiding individuals with firearms licences to register their long-guns. It makes no sense to believe the registry will prevent a gun crime from taking place."  

On the other hand, it apparently makes perfect sense to assume that all drivers are drunk. 

Memo to Justice Minister Rob Nicholson: if a policy has The Western Standard saying "Harper government wants full-blown police state," you have a problem on your hands—a "Houston-we-have-a-problem"-sized problem.  

Nicholson apparently approves of the random breathalyzer idea, as does Mothers Against Drunk Drivers executive director Andrew Murie. 

Purchasing a gun must magically confer "law-abiding" status through some noble alchemy of lethal weapon possession. Meantime, the latest example of gun mayhem unfolds on our front pages: the sad murder of Ontario Provincial Police Constable Vu Pham, 37, allegedly by 70-year-old Fred Preston, former reeve of the Township of Joly, and lifelong resident of Sundridge, Ont. Const. Pham was a Vietnamese War child survivor and father of three who spent part of his youth in Sundridge. 

Each year, roughly 100,000 Canadian women and children take refuge in domestic violence shelters. How many of them live in homes with rifles or shotguns, remembering some 11 million such guns are in Canadian hands (and that 90 per cent of those hands are male)? How many Canadian women have been threatened with guns? How many of these guns are owned by "law-abiding" gun owners?  

How long does it take to pull a trigger, anyway? 

That's the amount of time it takes for a "law-abiding" gun owner to become a law-breaking one.  Here's how the gun registry helps prevent crimes, including murder (I'm typing slowly so even the dullards among us will understand): knowing who has which guns allows the police to remove them as a preventative measure, should it become necessary.  Why do critics of the long gun registry persistently ignore this simple truth? Enforcing the registry does prevent crime. 

Since its creation, close to 23,000 firearms licenses have been refused or revoked because of just this sort of safety concern.  

For years now, this "tough-on-crime" government has encouraged the flouting of the Firearms Act—still law in our land, despite their efforts to ignore it. They instituted an "amnesty" for those who failed to renew their gun licences and waived or refunded licensing fees, more than $120-million-worth. 

That's far from being tough on crime.  

The Supreme Court has ruled, "The registration provisions cannot be severed from the rest of the act. The licensing provisions require everyone who possesses a gun to be licensed; the registration provisions require all guns to be registered. These portions of the Firearms Act are both tightly linked to Parliament's goal of promoting safety by reducing the misuse of any and all firearms. Both portions are integral and necessary to the operation of the scheme."  

Const. Pham's shooting is a tragedy—for his family, his community, for all of us. Just imagine how much more danger our cops will be in when they pull us over to sample our breath after our gun laws are even further eroded.

***

Blue Emet: Bev Akerman @ Congregation Dorshei Emet's Inaugural Arts Festival Nov 20th

The Meaning Of Children: Upcoming Readings @ the Eleanor London Cote Saint-Luc Public Library & others...

You are cordially invited to attend the Eleanor London Cote St. Luc Public Library’s Local Authors Salon where Beverly Akerman will read from and sign copies of The Meaning Of Children, Thursday, Nov. 3rd, 7 pm. It would be great to see you there! TMOC is ELCSLPL's Book of the Month for October!

Also reading: David Brody, Melaine Lipsey, Ann Weinstein, and S. Nadja Zajdman.

Eleanor London Cote Saint-Luc Public Library

5851 Cavendish Blvd.

Côte Saint-Luc, QC H4W 2X8

Phone: 514-485-6900

Beverly will also be reading Nov. 20^th at Congregation Dorshei Emet in Hampstead QC; Dec. 7^th at Anglostore in Quebec City, and Dec. 12^th at the Ottawa Public Library. Details to follow.

Beverly Akerman appearing at the Blue Emet Arts Festival Nov. 20th

I'm appearing Nov.20th at the BLUE EMET ARTS FESTIVAL & YOU'RE INVITED!

My synagogue, Congregation Dorshei Emet, is excited to introduce a new programming initiative: The Blue Emet Arts Festival - November 19th and 20th, 2011.

This first edition of the festival features both films & books:

...
FILMS

Saturday, November 19, 7:00PM: Citizen or Stranger. Produced and presented by Ina Fichman.

Sunday, November 20, 7:00PM: The "Socalled" Movie; Presented by Garry Beitel (Director) and Barry Lazar (Producer).




BOOKS

Sunday, November 20, 10:30AM: The Teaching Novel: Novel Teaching. Presented by Jerry Wiviott/ Moderated by Esther Frank

Sunday, November 20, 1:00PM: Literary panel (moderated by Esther Frank) including Bev Akerman, Ami Sands Brodoff, Elaine Kalman Naves and Glen Rotchin.


Tickets are $8 per event or $20 for the weekend. Tickets available in advance or at the door. Reserve at 514-486-9400.


Event Co-Chairs are Marion Van Horn and Helena Kisilevsky.

Congregation Dorshei Emet
18 Cleve Road, Hampstead, H3X 1A6
Telephone: 514-486-9400
Fax: 514-486-5442
info@dorshei-emet.org

A Feminist Jewess on Charles Foran's "Mordecai: The Life & Times"

In honour of Charles Foran's biography of Mordecai Richler (Mordecai: The Life & Times) being named a finalist for the Governor General's Award for non-fiction, I'd like to offer for your delectation an encore presentation of my personal/feminist review of the book...and I'm seriously considering an addendum explaining why MR's work isn't considered for academic study. (The question is, am I brave/foolish enough to try?)

Congrats Charlie!

The first novel by Mordecai Richler I read was Son of a Smaller Hero in the late ’70s. I was a McGill undergrad in an intro to CanLit class taught by a Caribbean member of the professoriate, the punchline to the course being: there’s no such thing as Canadian literature because lit-rah-chure is universal, don’t you know?! Though set in the same Mile End district as later works Duddy Kravitz and St. Urbain’s Horseman, Son of is worlds away in sensibility — dark, angry, and bitter, unleavened by any of the renowned Richler ribaldry.
I’m pretty sure I acquired St. Urbain, Joshua Then And Now, and Solomon Gursky was Here through the Book-of-the-Month Club (something you won’t often find a literary writer admitting), in the late ‘70s or early ‘80s. And while Gursky is, by some accounts, supposedly Richler’s masterpiece, I had to force myself through it, while the other two I read with pleasure, and more than once.

Here was a Montreal I could still see evidence of, if only in broad strokes. Sort of like those chalk outlines left over at crime scenes. It wasn’t my Montreal but, in fact, my parents’, especially my father’s. But where my father was the good son — who stayed close to and cared for his parents, no matter their faults — Richler was the angry young man who flung himself across an ocean to drink, fuck and write himself into adulthood.

In retrospect, the Richlerian coming-of-age seems more like a romantic cliché, this swanning around, down and out in London and Paris…Ibiza, crossing paths with Papa Hemingway, et al. Reading about it again gave rise to a sort of melancholy, in the same way having come of age after Woodstock makes me nostalgic for a more recent past I also managed to miss. Although Richler probably felt the same way over having been too young to serve in World War II…

But there’s a special place in my heart for Richler’s tour de force of a novel, his grand finale, Barney’s Version. It has everything — humour, a whiff of mystery, poignancy, a suggested reading list for a literary illiterate like yours truly, the Falstaffian hero Barney Panofsky — cantankerous curmudgeon of good heart crossed with the insanely irresistible fax machine prankster, though I could have done without the soft shoe.

What I really loved about Barney’s Version, though, was the stake through the heart of the shiksa goddess motif. Here was a novel in which all three of Barney’s wives were Jewish women, even the third and favourite one, “Miriam, Miriam, my heart’s desire…”

As a Jewish woman, what a relief to finally read a novel by a Jewish male writer of stature in which a Jewish man actually desired a Jewish woman! One he was wholeheartedly, head over heels in love with and mad with desire for. What a novelty, as Quill & Quire’s reviewer James Grainger notes, amidst the “the parade of harpies, good-hearted floozies” that made up Richler’s usual female universe. (Miriam may be wonderful but she hasn’t, by a long shot, the dimensionality of Barney. But then again, who does?) And, of course, Jewish women aren’t harridans only in Richler’s universe, but in most Jewish men’s work. [And, of course, the 3 Jewish men responsible for bringing the book to the movies saw fit to recreate Miriam as a shiksa...]

In fact, once this deep desire of mine was fulfilled by Barney, I finally became aware of how large a need it had been (in fact, I still wonder if meeting it was calculated, a marketing ploy). But even if Richler decided to toss his largest constituency a bone — since women buy and read most fiction, I’ll wager the majority of even Richler’s readers are also women — I forgave him. Because really, who could hold anything against Barney?

Grainger actually castigates Foran for failing to speculate on the reasons for Richler’s way of writing women…and then repeats the identical error. But I have this theory…

Foran’s biography clearly owes a tremendous debt to Michael Posner’s The Last Honest Man: Mordecai Richler. In many places, Foran seems to have simply transformed the sliced and diced verbatim interviews Posner reports, into narrative prose.

Foran, who in publicity shots appears to be cultivating a Mordecai-ian hairdo, also takes pains to present his book as an unauthorized biography. To which I can only say: if this be unauthorized, one shudders to imagine the converse. Because, on comparing Posner and Foran, one becomes aware of the areas where the hagiography ends — which are, coincidentally, the points Foran conveniently overlooks. Some of them have to do with women, one being Mordecai’s first wife, Cathy Boudreau. According to one of Posner’s sources, a “friend, who requested anonymity” suggested that “Perhaps seeking a way out of his marriage…Richler…became impotent…‘I think towards the end Mordecai was uninterested and withholding himself and out of need, I guess, she slept with some of his friends (Posner, p. 106).’” (With friends like that, as my mother might say, who needs enemies?)

Which brings me to the subject of Richler’s mother. The book is quite detailed in the matter of even his parents’ upbringing, particularly that of Lily (sometimes Leah) Rosenberg, Mordecai’s mother.
Foran makes quite a song and dance of a 2,400 word letter Richler wrote his mother in 1976, a copy of which he kept in his archives. Florence never knew about the letter, which finishes with Mordecai explaining why he deviated so greatly from the biblical injunction “to honour our mother and father [;] I must point out that there were some things Moses had not yet heard of.” He then tells her he remembers, from his boyhood, that she had sex with one of her boarders in the bedroom Mordecai and his mother shared, “the two of you humping together only 12 feet from a boy of 12.” And please don’t accuse me of being a spoiler: Foran announced the contents of the letter — complete with the quotes I cite, in The Globe and Mail, on the publication of his book.

For me, the true tragedy at the centre of Mordecai — aside from his sad decline and untimely passing in his final illness, which in this account more than ever resembles an alcoholic beset by a tragedy of medical errors — is all his mother’s. Maybe she was an embittered old woman. Maybe she was mentally ill. Maybe she had, as Mordecai wrote, humped her lover “only 12 feet from a boy of 12” (Would you really trust the accuracy of such a freighted, 33-year-old memory? Foran himself describes the great outcry within the Richler clan to Mordecai’s assertion that his Richler grandfather struck his own — the grandfather’s — children; even Mordecai’s brother “wonders if [MR] had got this wrong…But [concludes the brother] whatever his other flaws, Mordecai Richler did not fabricate [p.707].”) And then there was the fact that this letter was among a set of papers that weren’t to be made public until 20 years after his death…which to an outsider like myself makes the inclusion of this letter in the book an immoral act, despite the estate’s waiving of the condition.

Lily Rosenberg’s sin was to be born female in the home of a revered Chassidic Rabbi more than a century ago, and so be ineligible to follow in her father’s footsteps the way a favoured son might, despite being otherwise capable or worthy. She was relegated to the position of errand runner to her exalted father, “a slave to her Judaism…submissive to her father who deprived her of higher learning she could obviously have enjoyed and mastered (p. 497),” according to a review Foran cites of her fictionalized biography, The Errand Runner. In fact, her father did the best he could for her in the women-oppressive times into which she had been born — Lily was married off to an unsuitable boy from a prosperous family, an attempt to assure her financial future. Instead, the marriage was ill-starred and poverty-stricken. And then, her father dead, Lily cared for her mother, bed ridden from a stroke that left her incontinent and at risk for gangrene, for seven long years. She eventually had her marriage annulled — making her sons bastards, according to Jewish law.

Who wouldn’t be bitter, surviving such a scenario? (And here I include both Lily and her sons…)

I do recognize the above spin perhaps echoes the posthumous fate of Clara Charnofsky, the fictional Barney’s first wife. I also feel, after having read Foran’s book — and Lily Rosenberg’s — a better understanding for the way Mordecai wrote women (for example, the mother who does a strip-tease for the bar mitzvah bochers in Joshua Then and Now, the mother who died of Alzheimer’s, as Lily did, in Barney’s Version). The story of Lily Rosenberg, the story of Mordecai Richler…these are novular in their own right.

One thing I think neither Posner nor Foran mentions is that Duddy Kravitz was not the original I’d always thought he was.

In 2009, the writer and producer Budd Schulberg died. I must have read an obituary on him at the time, and put his seminal novel, made into a movie and even a highly successful musical — What Makes Sammy Run (1941) — onto my reading list.

Well, in 2010, I finally read it…hmm, I thought, why does this Sammy Glick person seem so familiar? Because Duddy Kravitz was an updated, menchified Sammy Glick. From the 1959 New York Times review of MR’s book by Florence Crowther (no relation):

“The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz is really the revved-up odyssey of a young man from the squalor of St. Urbain Street to the…stylish residential heights of Montreal’s Outrement. The young man is Duddy Kravitz, a Sammy Glick by any other name, but a broken-field runner rather than one with his eye on the long distance crown.

“Like Sammy, Duddy is bound to escape from the poverty and humiliation of his boyhood. But unlike Sammy, once Duddy has outgrown his childhood peculations…his urge is for the honorable, the legitimate, the man-to-man enterprise…”

In fact, Duddy is even referred to as Sammy Glick in the novel (on p. 165 of the version in Google Books—again, sharpening my appreciation for an e-reader…). Which underlined a thought that had occurred to me a couple of years back, on perusal of Irene Nemirovsky’s David Golder (which I couldn’t even bring myself to read, it sounded so horrific): you can never go wrong making your Jewish character a son-of-a-bitch.

But perhaps one of the most impressive lessons I learned from Foran’s book was the invisibility of women as writers in the era of Mordecai Richler (a defect somewhat repaired in Linda Leith’s new book, Writing in the Time of Nationalism, which rescues from obscurity the names of woman writers of the Richler era). Foran does his best to keep women’s names in the narrative, but other than the occasional editor and agent, and despite Florence’s primacy as Mordecai’s first and best critic, women are pretty much absent in the creative sense — other than as wives, lovers, babysitters. Oh, Foran does mention Mavis Gallant, Doris Lessing, and Margaret Atwood, but mostly in passing; it seems as though he’s worked hard to get them in at all (and if you want a real eye-popping view of what it was like to be a women even in professional society of several decades past, please read Stephen Kimber’s book Not Guilty, about politician and serial sexual predator Gerald Regan).


Pining for Barney, I went to the book launch for Mordecai: The Life & Times, the first launch I’d been at where the author declined to read from his book — and at $40 a pop, he should have! Before the proceedings actually got underway, Marvin Rotrand, a member of the Montreal’s civic government, circulated a petition among the paltry, grey-headed crowd (a number of young people were there, but only because they were buddies of Foran’s daughter, who attends a local university. A couple of them I spoke to: Americans who had never heard of Mordecai Richler). Rotrand has a petition going to “request that the City of Montreal make an appropriate gesture to commemorate the contribution of Mordecai Richler in naming a street, a public place or building in his honour.” It has garnered 2,000 signatures.

Meantime, a petition demanding Quebec’s premier resign has collected nearly 150 times as many names…

Foran and Rotrand joked about the possible canonization of Mordecai, riffing on Saint André Bessette, the former Brother André, who had recently been canonized. Which set me to thinking of an appropriate commemoration that might have Mr. Richler rolling in his grave — with laughter. St. Joseph’s Oratory is the shrine built through Brother André’s devotion, the largest church in Canada, and one of Montreal’s major tourist draws. Our jolly comrades of Quebec sovereignty and archetypal Richlerian foes, the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste, have episodically agitated to change the name of the street, Queen Mary Road, where the Oratory is located. I think it might be time to give in to the SSJB’s demands in exchange for one of our own: why not rename the Oratory in honour of the late lamented Mordecai Richler, the most successful writer Montreal — now and probably ever — and St. Urbain’s true horseman?

Foran is a strong writer and his book is a wonderful achievement, bringing a glimpse of so much of Montreal literary and social history — particularly, but not exclusively, Montreal’s Jewish history — to life. The prose is lively and powerful and moves at a great clip. I was sorry to finish it, moved to tears repeatedly while reading the last chapters, which is a remarkable feat, especially in biography. Foran’s book fittingly — and to the chagrin of Richler’s political foes — seeks to praise Richler, not to bury him, unlike some of MR’s literary fellow-travellers (see ELAN’s RAEV program, for example).

But even after reading it, I haven’t had my fill; I am still waiting for Barney. In so-doing, I know I am really waiting for a version of Mordecai. I’m waiting for a version of my father, for a version of Montreal’s late, lamented past, to reappear. And in this, I know, I am really, pace Beckett, waiting for Godot.

Unfortunately, I know something else — spoiler alert! — that despite our devotion to it, the past, like Godot, never comes.

(Originally published on The Rover, Montreal's online arts magazine)

Roddy Doyle, Genocide, and Docs that Boldly go where no Doc has Gone Before*: NOW for My 3 Latest Articles

I've been working on some interesting articles over at NOW, Concordia University's online news and events newsletter.

So I thought I'd share them with you:

First, an article about the Writers Read literary series which, along with the School of Canadian Irish Studies at Concordia, is set to welcome acclaimed Irish writer Roddy Doyle on Friday October 7th.

Doyle is the author of nine novels, including The Commitments, The Van, A Star Called Henry, and The Woman Who Walked into Doors. He has also written five children’s books, a collection of short stories, and a memoir. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, Metro Eireann and several anthologies. In 1993, he won the Booker Prize for Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha. He also writes for stage and screen, and won a number of nominations and awards for his work on the screenplay for The Commitments.

Second, some of the world’s foremost experts on the role of media in preventing mass atrocities will bring their latest insights to the upcoming conference, The Promise of Media in Halting Mass Atrocities: A Conference to Mark the 10th Anniversary of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P).

Concordia University’s Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (MIGS) is organizing the conference, which takes place October 20 and 21 at the Mount StephenClub, 1440 Drummond Street.

And third, a story about Cinema Politica, a made at Concordia documentary film series that has grown to 90 international locations since 2003:

In 2003, a small group of Concordia film buffs got together and decided they wanted to see some alternative, non-commercial documentary films. They started out in with small screenings every couple of weeks, says Ezra Winton, BA 05, MA 07, co-founder and director of programming for Cinema Politica (CP).

Word of the film series quickly spread and “it wasn’t long before it was standing room only and people were sitting on the floor. Students were hungry for alternative media and perspectives, for the under-represented stories,” explains Winton....

Hope you enjoy...


*(Okay, maybe that last part was a slight exaggeration...)