Category Archives: Behind-the-Scenes

Tom Wolfe at the Door

by Douglas Gibson

I have always been a fan of Tom Wolfe, ever since his first book came out in 1965 with the modest title The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby. I have followed his work through the years with admiration , as he combined his Yale Ph.D. analytical intelligence with his journalist’s love of getting deep into sweaty crowds, and his shameless . . . Heeeewack! . . . love of dramatic utterances on the page.

It deserved the title, “The New Journalism,” and he was the ultimate master of the form.

I was delighted when after The Right Stuff, in 1979,  he turned his hand to fiction, and was not surprised when his first novel, The Bonfire of the Vanities (1987) was a spectacular success, selling 800,000 copies in hardcover and being hailed (to the rage of the Updike, Mailer, and Irving old guard) as the great American novel of the decade.

When a not very successful movie was made of his fine book, Wolfe was asked, anxiously, how he felt about the movie. His reply was perfect: “I cashed the cheque.”

And of course, he has made a success of his novels since then, turning his laser-like attention to different groups in a variety of American cities. His latest book, set in Florida, is entitled Back to Blood. An unusual title, and it rang faint bells. I went back to my edition of The Bonfire of the Vanities, and started to read the opening scene. The Jewish Mayor of New York is up in Harlem at a public meeting, and is getting a very rough ride from the hostile crowd. As the volume of racial hostility swells, he thinks about how basic all this is:

“Oh, she’s afraid like all the rest! She knows she should stand up against this element! They’ll go after black people like her next! They’ll be happy to do it! She knows that. But the good people are intimidated! They don’t dare do a thing! Back to blood! Them and us!”

Fascinating. That phrase occurs on page 6 of a 659-page novel published  in 1987. In 2012 the phrase Tom Wolfe invented re-appears as the title of his new book. Has he been waiting all those years to use it again, this time as a title?

How authors arrive at titles is often surprising and revealing. Not many people know, for example, that although Two Solitudes seems to be such a perfect title for Hugh Maclennan’s 1945 novel, he only came across it (in a book review!) when the novel was two-thirds written. Surely there must be room for a worthy Ph.D. thesis here . . . did Scott Fitzgerald try the phone book, aware that The Great Smith didn’t really work? Did Morley Callaghan comb through the Bible, rejecting And His Ox and His Ass in favour of More Joy in Heaven? And did some authors fixate on a perfect title, then invent a book to go with it?

Start your engines.

A final Tom Wolfe note. When I was a boy editor, around 1970, my company, Doubleday Canada, distributed Tom Wolfe’s books. So when he came to Toronto to give a speech promoting one of his new books (it may have been Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers) I joined the carload taking him up to York University. In those days York was perched away on the edge of Toronto, more part of the flat hinterlands than of the (now-encroaching) city. As I explained the history of the young university to our visitor, he gazed around at all of the widely spread new buildings. He thought hard, then said: “It’s kind of like Brasilia, isn’t it?”

My York University friends, including my daughter-in-law Lauren, who teaches there, are restrained in their enthusiasm for this comment.

“Apart from the incident, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the show?”

by Douglas Gibson

It was around 1960, and I was an irreverent kid in high school. Part of the irreverence involved me and a friend in writing comedy sketches for our (very traditional) school pantomime. So I paid keen attention to what was happening in the world of jokes.
In America Mort Sahl was happening, and a great revolution was producing the very first “sick joke” . . . which you can see above. When I first heard it,  I had the “watcher of the skies / when some new planet swims into his ken” feeling — as P.G.Wodehouse, a very different type of humourist, once put it, to describe a sense of discovery of something totally new. The Lincoln joke showed that suddenly nothing was out of bounds. There were no things that you “just couldn’t joke about.” Not anymore.

I rode the new wave enthusiastically. Even in my first university year at St. Andrews, I was involved in writing and performing comedy sketches with a group of friends. There was no money involved, but we got free tickets to the fancy, formal Balls for which we provided the half-time entertainment. By the second year I was the MC of an occasional student night-club in an empty church hall. For reasons hidden in the mists of time we called it GAP (too bad there was no copyright on the commercial use of the title we invented) and although we didn’t bother with a liquor licence, we drew packed crowds to dance and enjoy the music and the unforgettably witty sketches. (We even drew unruly crowds at the door, but that, and the fight with a head-butting sailor, is another story.)

These were the days when “That Was the Week That Was” ruled BBC  TV on Saturday night, and satire was a big part of what we wrote and performed. Sick jokes made an occasional appearance: I remember one “bedtime story for little ones,” read by a leering uncle figure. It was a variant on the traditional story of Greyfriars Bobby, the little dog that charmed all of Edinburgh by his daily trips to sit sadly at his master’s grave. Our variant, I’m sorry to say, involved Bobby (a bone-loving little dog) in seeking daily sustenance at the grave. The howls of outrage as the implications dawned on the crowd were very pleasing to us.

Later in that second year I had a minor role in a real stage performance (Ionesco’s The Leader) which involved me in shouting, “The leader, the leader” very loudly and excitedly. The director was a student friend, Alan Strachan, who in later life went on to be the famous head of The Greenwich Theatre in London. Alan formed a group of us — four men and two women – to produce a comedy revue, a little like “Beyond the Fringe.” We took over the town theatre, The Byre, for a week of evening performances. We even ran matinees of “Six After Eight” on Wednesday and Saturday, when the show proved to be a hit.

I wrote and performed  and even sang! One of the high points was when I appeared, front and centre, to produce a Malcolm-Muggeridge-style lecture on “Trends in Humour.” I told the audience that “Satire has come and gone. Now, many experts in the field are predicting that the new trend will be slapstick.” Before I could continue, a bare arm reached around the curtain and smashed a large cream pie into my face. Blackout and delighted laughter! I had to be led, blinded by banana cream, off-stage by a kind stage manager. Even in the dressing room as I gasped to clear my face to breathe again, I could hear the audience still laughing.

When people who see the current stage show Stories About Storytellers ask if I’ve done much stage work in the past, I tend to say, “Not really, but I did a little back in university.” Now all of the interest in the new movie about Lincoln has brought back memories of the impact of that original Mrs. Lincoln joke. Lincoln may have been involved in things like waging the American Civil War, and freeing the slaves. But, as you can see, he had a continuing role in what we might call my dramatic life.

Editing Tips from Douglas Gibson (#29)

by JK

In this recurring feature, we’re sharing tips for editors from the desk of Douglas Gibson. Good for those starting out or old hands who need a reminder, these guidelines form an engaging guide for sharp-eyed wordsmiths.

Tip #29: Partial to Partial

Because the adjective “partial” implies “fond of” or even “biased towards,” the adverb “partially” should not be used as a synonym for “partly.”

In fact, “partly” should be the editor’s choice every time, unless bias is specifically involved, and implied. So, no more buildings “partially destroyed” by a great wind, please.

Fred Bodsworth

by Douglas Gibson

Reading of Fred Bodsworth’s death reminded me of three occasions when our paths crossed. The first time was when I was being interviewed for my very first job in publishing, as an editor. “What, exactly, does an editor do?” I asked David Manuel, the man who was considering me. By way of an answer he gave me a copy of his edited manuscript of Fred Bodsworth’s The Sparrow’s Fall. The respectful editing suggestions penciled on this fine novel of a native family surviving in the North (through starvation so harsh that the hunter baits a fishing hook with a slice of his own flesh, to catch a life-saving fish through the ice) so impressed me that I decided that this was what I should do with my life.

The next episode marked a tragic failure on my part. I inherited Fred as an author, and in the early 1970s he was at work on a book that would have made him a household name, possibly another Rachel Carson. His background as a student of nature, and as the author of Last of the Curlews, made him aware of just how important what we now call “the environment” is to all of us. In his own words, quoted in the Globe’s fine obituary by Nora Ryell, “man is an inescapable part of all nature . . . he cannot continue acting and regarding himself as a spectator looking on from somewhere outside.”

That was the vitally important theme of the book he was working on forty years ago. Yet he was such a dedicated scientist and research-driven journalist that as new evidence of the growing environmental crisis kept flooding in, Fred tried to keep up with it, and to incorporate it in his new book. In the process, when he suggested that “There is no away!” to which we can consign harmful products, we thought that we had a title; but in the end, as the book, like the subject, kept on growing, there was no book. And the world was left unaware of what a great environmental thinker Fred Bodsworth was.

But he remained a quiet general enthusiast. I remember him, well into his 80s, toting a bird-sighting scope at Ashbridges Bay, his eyes alight at the prospect of seeing a reported Harlequin Duck. I was sorry to have to report that it had just taken off across the lake for parts unknown.

Editing Tips from Douglas Gibson (#28)

by JK

In this recurring feature, we’re sharing tips for editors from the desk of Douglas Gibson. Good for those starting out or old hands who need a reminder, these guidelines form an engaging guide for sharp-eyed wordsmiths.

Tip #28

A good editor should remove clichés. Yet all too often the clichés hide in plain sight, the adjective-noun combinations so accepted by the reader’s eye and mind that they become almost a single-word notion.

What “fiasco” is not “total”? When is an “inferno” not described as “raging”? When is a “defeat” not “ignominious”? When is “ado” not preceded by “further”?

A good test for the editor is to supply the adjective (“Ignominious . . . hmm”) and see what noun springs to mind. If the answer is automatic, we have a cliché to be avoided.

All Roads Lead to Terry Fallis

by Douglas Gibson

Recently I wrote about my visit to Wolfville, where I stayed at The Blomidon Inn. A recent chat in our kitchen with Terry Fallis, author and neighbour, revealed that in October, precisely 25 years ago, the Blomidon Inn held Terry’s wedding reception. He had just married a Wolfville girl named Nancy Naylor who was on her way to become not only the mother of Calder and Ben, but a major figure in Ontario’s public service.

In her government role Nancy encountered Jane (now my wife, and at the time another senior civil servant), and they became close friends. This meant that when Jane and I got together, we would regularly have dinner with our friends Nancy and Terry.

Some of my stage performances have featured a section on “TERRY FALLIS: Saint, Little Red Hen, and Prizewinner.” Let me explain that.

First, the “Saint.” When Terry shyly started to try his hand at writing fiction, with a political satire named The Best Laid Plans, he never once asked me to “take a look at” his new novel. Even when he was facing months of silence from literary agents, and from other publishers, he never raised the question. He didn’t want to trade on our friendship, you see. This, in a world where people accost me at funerals, or bang into my cart at supermarkets hoping that I’ll read their manuscript, comes pretty close to sainthood.

In time, he decided to advance the situation, not by approaching his friend Doug, but by reading the first chapter on the podcast he ran as part of his PR professional life. People really liked it. So he kept going. Then he started to blog the chapters, to his usual audience, which was not used to fiction from him. But people really liked that, so he kept going. People liked the whole book so much, in fact, that he decided, what the hell, to turn into The Little Red Hen. You remember her? When no one would help her in any task she would say, “Very well, I’ll do it myself!”

So Terry decided to publish the book himself, using an electronic self-publishing system that worked well, supplying him with electronic books as well as real, paper ones. He happened to have 10 copies lying around when he read the entry rules for The Stephen Leacock Prize for Humour, and saw that self-published books were eligible, if you submitted 10 copies. It was the ultimate “Little Red Hen” moment.

The book made it to the short list, along with King John of Canada by my author, Scott Gardiner. So I was at the Leacock lunch where the prize-winner was announced . . .“Terry Fallis!”

I went up to him and said, “Terry, now you really need a publisher. Let me read your book.” And I did, and I liked it very much, and I made a few tiny tweaks to the Scotticisms employed by his irascible hero Angus, and rushed to bring the novel out as a Douglas Gibson Book.

And people loved the story of the outsider who took on the staid publishing world, and it went on to great success. There was a follow-up novel, The High Road, in 2010, which I published in a more conventional way, and which  did well. But the high point was Spring 2011, when The Best Laid Plans won the Canada Reads competition. Tick the “Prizewinner” box.

This September his third novel, Up and Down came out. The reviews have been good for this “poignantly funny third novel” (Ottawa Citizen) and “a breezy, gentle satire . . . he might have a shot at another Leacock” (Globe and Mail). But what marks Terry as a truly remarkable author is how hard he works at getting to know his readers, and how much people like his public appearances. At that kitchen meeting last week, as his editor/publisher I asked him to take me through the promotion tour he has been undertaking for Up and Down.

He told me that in just under two months he has already made 42 public appearances . . . readings, question and answer sessions, bookstore chats, inside library events, convention speeches, and so on. And in every case, he finds to his delight that he sells, and signs, not only the new book, but also the previous two books. People are catching up to this author, and they like all of his work.

This is great news for me, of course, as the proud publisher of my friend Terry.

But there’s another reason for my special pleasure in his success. He works notably hard at promoting his book. And he’s very, very good at it, because you can see the very likeable enthusiast shining through.

Like his other books, Up and Down will leave you feeling “up.”

The Embedded Biographer

by Douglas Gibson

The recent travails of David Petraeus and “the other woman,” his biographer, Paula Broadwell (no jokes, please, and stay away from jokes about the book title, All In) remind me of the perils of close literary association. I have been involved in many projects that worked, with the author and the subject getting along well, and others that almost produced violence.

I remember, for example, when a ghost writer for Garth Drabinsky’s book, Closer to the Sun, had a crisis meeting with him in his office one Sunday.

While Avie Bennett (the Chairman of McClelland & Stewart) and I watched glumly, the writer and Garth stood nose to nose, screaming at each other. Avie whispered to me that we were wasting our time. I counselled patience, that maybe they could work this out.

Avie was right.

On occasion the relationship between the ghost writer and the author of record, or the writer and the biographee, produces such strains that the luckless editor or publisher has to step in as referee, almost wrapping his arms around one of the combatants like a hockey linesman. The strains can extend far beyond the romantic. I remember the wife of a prominent man whose biography was in the works who came to my office to threaten suicide if the book was not to her liking.

Sometimes, as with David Petraeus and Ms. Broadwell, a dangerously close relationship develops between author and subject. Interestingly, Ms. Broadwell had a co-author on the Petraeus book named Vernon Loeb, who was “dumbfounded” by the news of the romantic liaison. But then, Mr. Loeb’s wife has described him as “the most clueless person in America.”

Sometimes, instead of an attraction developing, the opposite happens — a husband and wife author team split up in the course of writing the book. This was the case with George Jonas and Barbara Amiel, who were in the thick of writing their true-crime book about Peter Demeter, By Persons Unknown, when they broke up. They courteously came to my office to inform me of this development. Taken aback, I said predictable things about being sorry to hear it. When I politely offered to do whatever I could to help in this situation, George (an old-fashioned man with a quick wit) mentioned that he now would have a problem with his laundry.

There is a Canadian angle to all this. When Jill Kelley (suspected by Ms. Broadwell of being the other “other woman”) started to receive threatening e-mails (which brought in the FBI, and then the world), they included the words “Who do you think you are?”

It’s clear that all of the best stories prove to have links with Alice Munro.

Editing Tips from Douglas Gibson (#27)

by JK

In this recurring feature, we’re sharing tips for editors from the desk of Douglas Gibson. Good for those starting out or old hands who need a reminder, these guidelines form an engaging guide for sharp-eyed wordsmiths.

Tip #27

A tip for all writers is to avoid the use of the word “there.” If it’s used as a noun to denote location (“When we got there, we stopped.”), it’s fine.
But as soon as it enters the narrative as an adverb with the chilling words “There is” or “There are,” it serves to encourage sloppy, boring writing, usually full of static nouns, and reminding the reader of a government report.

Instead of “There are many examples . . .” try “Examples abound . . .” or “Many examples show . . .”

Editors should hunt down these “there”s, and writers should avoid them.

Will Ferguson’s Translation Tale Sparked Another Fine Story

by Douglas Gibson

My friend Bob McArthur was inspired by Will’s encounters with the Japanese language to recount this story from Toronto in the late ’80s. He was working at City Hall and had the pleasure of dealing with foreign delegations arriving to study major projects in Toronto.

In Bob’s words:  “One of the biggest of these delegations was from the Japan Building Centre. We organized a serious program for them . . . with architects and so on . . . but at that moment, many people were trying to claim credit for having been instrumental in building the SkyDome. A well-known architect who had a marginal role in the project learned of the delegation and astonishingly came to the Committee Room where we were meeting . . . and took my chair at the head of the table and began to pronounce in English about himself and his firm’s important role.”

ENTER THE JAPANESE INTERPRETER.

Bob continues, “I explained to the tour guide/ interpreter that this gentleman was not one of our presenters and was not invited to speak (unlike Rod Robbie and others who had designed the building). He kindly told the delegates so, and that they should ignore him, and when he was done we would get on with our planned program.”

Can you imagine the delights here for a bilingual observer? Here’s my unkind reconstruction:

ARCHITECT (in English): “. . . very proud of the contribution made by our firm in helping to construct this historic . . .”

TRANSLATOR (in Japanese): “You can ignore what this man is saying. He has no role here and is just boasting.”

ARCHITECT (smiling): “ . . . a great opportunity for me to explain to you just how experienced our people are in handling international projects . . . and now I’ll just pause to allow my translator to catch up . . .”

TRANSLATOR: “I have really nothing to say. We’re just waiting for this rude man to stop talking, so that we can get on with the real meeting. He should be stopping soon.”

ARCHITECT: “So if there are no questions . . . no? . . . I’ll just thank you for your attention and look forward to doing lots of business with our admired Japanese friends. And by the way, I really like sushi! Thank you.”

TRANSLATOR: “He has stopped talking. Now the man moving into the chair is our friend Bob, and we can get on with the planned meeting.”

Bob ends his story with the pleasing words, “I believe that gentleman and his famous architectural firm did not win any work in Japan.”

There’s a special pleasure in imagining the architect getting back to his office and reporting, “Yes, I got to make a pitch to them . . . and I think it went pretty well!” There may be a whole book about translation stories. A good title might be Lost in Translation.

Will Ferguson Almost Made It into My Book!

by Douglas Gibson

I was delighted when my friend Will Ferguson won the Giller last night. He and I and the film world’s Michael MacMillan were the only three people at the Giller Dinner in kilts, and it sure seemed to work for Will. (When we compared knees, his were sturdier, but mine were browner, and the hairiness was a manly tie.)

In kilted solidarity, Jane and I cleaned up in the side betting at our table, by putting our money on 419.

Although I have never published Will, we have had a friendly acquaintanceship for some years, and a story about him almost made it into Stories About Storytellers. It was in the original version, which (and I know this is hard for my most dedicated admirers, and my mother, to envisage) seemed to be a little too long. So, with the assistance of my editor, Jen Knoch, I edited out some stories.

Including this one:

After getting an Arts degree, like so many young Canadians Will headed off to teach English in Japan. He lived in an English-speaking bubble, so his use of Japanese was restricted to the usual tourist stuff: “Men’s room?” “How much?” “What time train to Yokohama?” and so on. And everyone he met socially was determined to practice their English on him, so he stayed at a basic tourist level.

When he came back to Canada, after the usual spell of hanging out with friends, it became necessary to get a job. A newspaper ad for a job with the Tourism Board in PEI, caught his eye. He met the general requirements – a B.A., and a willingness to relocate to P.E.I. (sounds great!) and an ability to write. But what caught his eye was a line about “the ability to speak Japanese” being an asset.

Will is like the rest of us, and he really wanted the job. So in his application, and the subsequent interviews he did not, let’s say, “understate” his fluency in Japanese. And he got the job!

He spent a number of happy months in PEI until the day his boss came into the office, rubbing his hands. “Great news, Will. You know how keen Japanese tourists are to come here to visit Anne of Green Gables sites. Well, next week, a whole busload of Japanese Tourist Agency owners are coming here, and you’ll have a chance to use your Japanese language skills on them!”

It was a dreadful week for Will. He spent hours secretly combing through phrase books and dictionaries.

Then the day came, when the busload of smartly dressed Japanese men filed off their bus, and stood attentively before Will’s boss. He welcomed them, in English, then proudly introduced “my colleague, Will Ferguson, who will address you in your own language.”

Will stepped forward, and said, in Japanese: “As you can hear, I not really speak Japanese. But my boss here, he not know that. So please not to tell him.”

There was a gale of laughter.

Then Will said, in Japanese, “Many thanks, nice to see you here, welcome to Prince Edward Island, and now I talk in English.”

When he finished, he was warmly applauded. A number of the Japanese visitors even came up, congratulated him, and said loudly to his boss, “Very good Japanese.”

When the successful visit was over, his boss was very pleased. “That went really well, Will. But tell me, what was the joke you made early on that really got them laughing?”

“Ah,” said Will, “It’s kind of hard to translate.”