Author Archives: JK

Stories About Storytellers Companion Reading (#2)

by JK

Many early readers of Stories About Storytellers have remarked that they finish reading it only to rush to pick up one of the other books Doug has so lovingly described. So to make it easier, this recurring feature revisits some of those books and reminds you why they’re worth a read. Last time, we revisited Dickens of the Mounted, and this we’re featuring . . .

Broken Ground by Jack Hodgins (1998)

Many readers think of Jack Hodgins as a fine, good-humoured writer  whose strength lies in writing cheerful stories set on Vancouver Island. Not this time. This novel is set on the Island, but in a “soldier’s settlement,” where veterans who survived the First World War have been given land by a grateful nation. Of course the land is marginal, dominated by giant tree stumps that have to be blasted out in a landscape that reminds the men of the trenches in France they escaped so recently.

The war is a constant dark, brooding presence to the men  and women whose voices tell this story, with many scenes set at the Front. Then the horror of an advancing forest fire brings the present dangerously alive.

When you read it, you’ll see why this book won the Drummer General’s Award, given to protest the fact that such an excellent book failed to win the Governor-General’s Award or the Giller Prize. It is a remarkable blend of the two worlds, the trenches and the pioneer settlement, and it is told with immense power. Don’t miss it.

For more on Broken Ground, see page 149 of Stories About Storytellers.

Praise for Stories About Storytellers in the Edmonton Journal

by JK

This Sunday, the Edmonton Journal published a very fine review of Stories About Storytellers. Reviewer Robert Wiersema writes,

“For Gibson, in life and in this book, it all comes back to the writers. The writers and their books are central to Stories about Storytellers, and Gibson shows them to their best advantage, as he has been doing for 50 years. Every writer should be so blessed as to have an editor like Gibson in their corner; every reader should spend some time with his stories.”

Read the full review here.

The Zen of Authordom

by JK

I was pleased to see that this Sunday’s Toronto Star ran an excerpt from my Epilogue, which consists of Awful Warnings to new authors about the terrible things that will happen to them when their book is published. My piece is very cynical, and outsiders to the book world find it very funny, and totally unrealistic. Interestingly, the Star’s Insight Editor takes a different view. Under the title “Authors, be warned . . .” his subtitle runs “Book publisher covers a glorious CanLit career in a new memoir, including bang-on author advice.”

“Bang-on”? My cynical description of all of the possible review horrors seems to Dan Smith to be “bang-on”? And Dan was the Star’s Book Review editor for over a decade. Very interesting.

One of the good things in an author’s life is that, if you are very lucky, your book may produce fascinating new information from readers. For example, Ralph Hancox, who worked with Robertson Davies at the Peterborough Examiner, elaborates on my line about the great leap forward in Davies’ work to Fifth Business:

“I asked him,” writes Ralph from Victoria, “what had brought about the change . . . his study of the works of Freud, Jung?”
“No,” he said. “I could not have written such material before my mother and my father had died. I would have been a sorry outcast to them both.”

We all shake our head at the thought of Davies, aged 57 when the book came out, until that point being constrained by what his parents would think.  And then I realize that at 67, I (as my W.O. Mitchell chapter reveals) am still subject to what my 98-year-old mother will say when she encounters “bad language” in my book.

So you’ll find me chickening out of a Bill Mitchell line by saying “. . . well, let’s just say the term Bill used resembled ‘sock-kickers.’” There’s room for a really useful Ph.D. Thesis here. And what, dear reader, would you do?

One of the bad things in an author’s life is that eagerly-awaited reviews don’t appear because book review editors plead that they don’t have enough space to run all the reviews they have. This produces unworthy thoughts in unworthy authors. Thus my first reaction, on hearing that the authorized biography of Steve Jobs has been rushed through to come out late in October, was to lament the fact that the line-up for review space had just got more crowded, dammit. I will have to try for a more zen-like approach to this author business.

— Doug Gibson

An excerpt on Pierre Trudeau on the Canadian Encyclopedia blog

by JK

It’s Friday, and with it comes another excerpt of Stories About Storytellers on the Canadian Encyclopedia blog. This week, find out how Doug was tested by Pierre Trudeau. To read the excerpt, head over to the Canadian Encyclopedia.

(Have you missed the previous excerpts? You can still read the selections on Alistair MacLeod, Stephen Leacock and Alice Munro.)

Winnipeg Free Press praises the “Delighftul” Stories About Storytellers

by JK

Winnipeg Free Press Books reviewer Morley Walker praised Stories About Storytellers this past weekend, noting,

Here’s the thing about Douglas Gibson, Scottish immigrant and Toronto publisher extraordinaire. He has a greater appreciation of regional Canada than 99 per cent of those of us born here.

This genial memoir of his 40 years in the publishing racket, including 16 years at the helm of the country’s top literary house, McClelland & Stewart, takes readers from coast to coast and everywhere in between. . . .

Gibson joins such American giants as Michael Korda and Bennett Cerf in penning a gossipy memoir of his publishing life and times.

His delightful volume enriches the Canadian shelf beside Jack McClelland’s more selective letters, Imagining Canadian Literature (1998), and Roy MacSkimming’s stuffily comprehensive history, The Perilous Trade (2003). Anyone interested in CanLit will find much to enjoy here.

Read the full review here.

An excerpt on Alistair MacLeod on the Canadian Encyclopedia blog

by JK

Enjoy another taste of Stories About Storytellers this Friday courtesy of a weekly feature from the Canadian Encyclopedia. This week, find out why Alistair MacLeod accused his editor of “a home invasion” to retrieve the manuscript for No Great Mischief. To read the excerpt, head over to the Canadian Encyclopedia.

(Have you missed the previous excerpts? You can still read the selections on Stephen Leacock and Alice Munro.)

Stories About Storytellers Companion Reading

by JK

Many early readers of Stories About Storytellers have remarked that they finish reading it only to rush to pick up one of the other books Doug has so lovingly described. So this recurring feature will be dedicated to highlighting Gibson-edited books you might have missed. First up . . .

Dickens of the Mounted: The Astounding Long-lost Letters of Inspector F. Dickens, NWMP, 1874-1886, Edited by Eric Nicol (1989)

It is true that Francis Dickens, son of Charles, was a long-serving Mountie in Western Canada. It is also true that he was a disaster in the role. The Canadian Encyclopedia  states: “Dickens can be blamed for worsening relations between the Blackfoot and the NWMP and for the growing antipathy of the officer cadre towards Englishmen.” What is not true is that Eric Nicol “edited” these letters home written by Frank.  Chuckling at his desk in Vancouver, Eric made them up, from the very first sentence “It was not the best of times, it was not the worst of times, it was Ottawa.” But he carried the joke off so brilliantly that the well-researched book appeared on both Fiction and Non-fiction best-seller lists in Canada, while I rubbed my hands with glee. It still makes for delightful reading.

For more on Dickens of the Mounted, see pages 76-78 of Stories About Storytellers.