Stories About Storytellers: Publishing Alice Munro, Robertson Davies, Alistair MacLeod, Pierre Trudeau & Others [Hardcover]

Anyone who thinks Canadians are all dull, lackluster and very, very polite, needs to read this book. In fact, if you're the slightest bit interested in Canadian literature, the publishing business or even just bizarre stories (such as publisher Douglas Gibson's deadpan description of witnessing Farley Mowat, on his hands and knees, in a kilt, crawling along a table top at a dinner; or hearing Roddy Doyle, at a conference at the Banff Centre, spotting seasonal warnings about not getting in the way of elks rutting, that the dangers facing a touring writer had never before included "being f**** by an elk", with the relevant Irish accent to the asterisked word...) you'll want to insist your library buys a copy or beg, borrow or steal one for your own personal collection.

At its core, this gem of a book is a literary memoir by one of the deans of Canadian publishing, shaped around chapters devoted to some of the notable authors Gibson has worked with over many decades. You won't find Margaret Atwood here, but you will learn more about Robertson Davies, Alic Munro and Mavis Gallant. Gibson also writes about his relationship with authors who have fallen from the public eye, including Hugh MacLennan, Morley Callaghan (a friend of Hemingway's from their days in Toronto and Paris) and Barry Broadfoot. (The latter, Gibson writes, typed a history of Canada's Depression years on paper Gibson hypothesizes could have come from a Russian tractor factory, making the manuscript "arguably the ugliest ever submitted in the history of Canadian publishing", although it smelled good as it was shipped in apple carton boxes!) Some authors, like Peter Newman or Peter Gzowski, are likely to be unfamiliar to non-Canadians, but that doesn't make the glimpses of the editing process any less intriguing. Gibson's digressions -- into hockey and politics, for instance -- are just as interesting as his recollections of the authors with whom he has worked.

Above all, you may end up with a better understanding of what makes Canada tick than you would by reading a book ostensibly about Canada. Mavis Gallant, for instance, discovered that when she moved to Paris, she had found a place where she could describe herself as a writer and not be asked for three months' rent in advance, Gibson writes; he also pokes fund at the Canadian propensity for refusing to be impressed by accomplishment. It also shows just how small Canada really is: Charles Ritchie, diplomat, diarist and sometime lover of Anglo-Irish novelist Elizabeth Bowen, was the godfather of both Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae, sometime rivals for the leadership of Canada's Liberal Party. This is a great book for bibliomaniacs to pick up and read, perhaps one section at a time. I'd be very surprised if anyone finished the whole opus without discovering at least seven books that they felt the urge to read Right Now. (For me, some of those are by Hugh McLennan; I remember reading one of his some 30 plus years ago, then never picking up another one.)

Full disclosure: I obtained a review copy of the book from NetGalleys; I'm planning to pick up a copy for my library, however; in this case, the price is worth it to me.

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