Atlantic Books

Atlantic Books

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#78 Summer 2015

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Berni StapletonFor 25 years, actor, playwright and author Berni Stapleton has delighted audiences with her unique take on Newfoundland and Labrador’s heritage. She’s worn the titles of artistic director at the Grand Bank Regional Theatre Festival and playwright in residence at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. Her latest book, This is the Cat (Creative Book Publishers), is a darkly humorous tale that examines the foibles and failures of memory through the lens of one woman’s life.

What do you consider your best quality?

Embracing my lesser qualities.

A quality you desire in a partner:

Companionable with silence, fresh breath, fresh humour. Must like reading, me and cats, my cats in particular. Must play well with others, enjoy long meandering walks and likewise conversations. I’m listing more than one quality in case he is reading this so he will recognize himself and get in touch with me.

What do you appreciate most about your friends?

They have greater and lesser qualities that are compatible with mine, they love me no matter what, they are usually smarter, wittier and more accomplished than me, thusly constantly massively yet annoyingly inspiring.

Your worst quality:

I am a master procrastinator. I would win the procrastinating Olympics except I’d miss the entry deadline. I can procrastinate procrastinating.

Your favourite occupation:

Reading while in the bathtub. I wish that could be my job.

What is your idea of happiness?

Oh my God, that moment when the procrastinating is about done and the time has come, the walrus said, and then the writing commences.

Your idea of misery:

Trapped in small talk at a party wearing a dress that makes me feel fat. Trapped in small talk anywhere. I prefer tiny talk. No talk. Listening.

If you could be someone else for a day who would it be?

I would be my truest self, the one who hides deep within.

Where you would most like to live?

I would most like to live in a small house on a hill in Italy with a bathtub for reading in every room, a vineyard to one side, the ocean on the other, a garden for the cats on the other, and with a chef who comes to cook and never makes any small talk.

Favourite colour:

I love riots of colours.

This is the CatFavourite animal:

I love cats because they are beautiful, mysterious, silly, natural-born killers.

Your favourite poet(s):

I love Agnes Walsh, most especially Going Around With Bachelors.

Favourite author(s):

I adore Kathleen Winter, Lisa Moore, Alice Munro, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jean Rhys and Stephen King.

Your favourite fictional heroes:

Cleopatra (as played by Elizabeth Taylor) and Morgaine le Fay.

 Your real life heroes:

My mother and my son.

Your favourite food & drink:

Red wine and any sort of food that compliments the wine.

What is your greatest fear?

That all my tiny fears will one day morph into a giant fear.

A natural talent you’d like to possess: 

I wish I could speak Italian.

How you want to die:

Older than the oldest, in my right mind, in my own bed, in the house described above, lying next to the fellow described above.

Your present state of mind:

I am filled with hope.

Favourite or personal motto:

So Hum. I am.

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A History of Nova Scotia in 50 ObjectsObject #31 — Joseph Howe’s Printing Press: 1819

In the foyer of the Nova Scotia Archives building, this old iron printing press stands alongside a row of computers. In a few years’ time the computers will have become obsolete, replaced by newer models, and discarded. But this press will continue to be preserved because of the important part it played in Nova Scotia’s history.

From Gutenberg’s time in the fifteenth century onwards, texts have been printed on presses that allow multiple copies to be produced at ever-increasing speeds. While they have varied in design over the years, until recently, commercial presses all operated on the same principle: type was set, letter by letter, and transferred to the press where ink was applied, transferring the ink to the paper. […]

A printer named Bartholomew Green brought the first printing press to Halifax, from Boston, in 1751. While Green unfortunately died soon after his arrival, his business associate, John Bushell, took over his press and type and set up a printing shop on Grafton Street. It was here that the first newspaper in Canada, The Halifax Gazette, was printed in 1752. It was well received, and soon other newspapers sprang up to rival it in popularity. […] Numerous printers were working in the downtown area by the mid-nineteenth century, and not only newspaper publishers. The Halifax printing industry grew quickly: some printers were stationers, selling ruled ledgers and account books; some printed books; and some were booksellers.

One of Halifax’s early printers was John Howe, also from Boston, a Loyalist who established a print shop on the corner of Barrington and Sackville Streets in 1780. There, he published a newspaper, The Halifax Journal. Howe was the most successful of the Halifax printers of his day, and in 1801 he was appointed King’s Printer, responsible for printing official government documents. But it is his son Joseph, born in 1804, who is now remembered as one of Nova Scotia’s distinguished printers, publishers, and journalists, and this is his press.

The press was designed and patented in 1819 by John Wells of Hartford, Connecticut, and Joseph, who had established his own printing business, bought it in the 1820s from a fellow Halifax printer. It served him well. Marjorie Whitelaw summarizes Howe’s printing career in her book, First Impressions:

“On this machine Joe Howe, as publisher of The Novascotian, printed the editorials in which he developed his political philosophy; this was the very press on which the mighty battle for responsible government was argued and won.”

[…] Howe went on to a political career in which he stood up for the interests of citizens against the self-interest of officials. He was first elected as a member of the Assembly in 1836 and became speaker in 1841. He continued to write for The Novascotian and Morning Chronicle, and his editorials between 1854 and 1856 vigorously promoted the Reform Party’s efforts to achieve responsible government for the province. The highlight of his career was a successful campaign that made Nova Scotia the first of the British colonies to achieve this status.

A History of Nova Scotia in 50 Objects
by Joan Dawson
$21.95, paperback, 208 pp.
Nimbus Publishing, May 2015

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King of Keji by Jan L. Coates, illustrated by Patsy MacKinnon“I ever tell you about the time I was king?” When Gramps tells Jacob about being King of Keji (Kejimkujik Park) the two decide to plan their own camping trip to the park. Jacob makes a list of treasures that kings might have and the two happily traipse through the woods, along the seashore, to the seaside and the open salt marsh in search of riches. To Jacob’s delight, they find an abundance of precious gifts: emerald green leaves, diamonds sparkling on the water, the seemingly endless stretch of turquoise ocean waters. Gramps takes pictures of their numerous discoveries and soon he deems Jacob ready to be dubbed the new “King of Keji.”

This beautifully-illustrated picture book highlights the natural wonders that Keji is known for, as seen through the keen eyes of Jacob and his grandfather. Coates invites readers to see the beauty in every leaf and every shell, in the waters, waves and wildlife. Patsy MacKinnon’s exquisite watercolour illustrations are gently luminous and aptly portray the riches that Jacob and Gramps encounter on this trip. A loving tribute to a magnificent place, this book is also a moving depiction of time shared by a boy and his grandfather.

The King of Keji
by Jan L. Coates, illustrated by
Patsy MacKinnon
$12.95, paperback, 32 pp.
Nimbus Publishing, May 2015

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Munsch books

Children across Nova Scotia can now read seven iconic children’s books in their mother tongue

A grandmother tucks a child into bed and sings a song from a book with a tune she creates herself. The words are by Robert Munsch. “Ksalultes iapjiw, ta’n teli-pkitawsi. Ksalultes iapjiw, nijanites ki’l” she sings, her voice warbling sweetly. The child feels loved.

The book is Ksalultes Lapjiw. You may know it as Love You Forever, one of the most popular among Munsch’s dozens of children’s books. It’s one of seven that were recently translated into Mi’kmaw by MK, or Mi’kmaw Kina’matnewey, the organization that has coordinated the Mi’kmaw education system in Nova Scotia since 1997.

MK was founded three decades after the closure of the disastrous Shubenacadie Indian Residential School as the provincial education system continued to fail Mi’kmaw students. It put the power for Mi’kmaw education in the hands of the Mi’kmaq and encourages the education and employment of Mi’kmaw teachers. This way, students can grow up understanding their own culture and speaking their own language, opportunities that were often denied to their parents and grandparents.

An essential component in this effort is language immersion. But MK struggles to find enough teaching resources in Mi’kmaw. “In 2010, the school principals asked us to look for everyday books in Mi’kmaw,” Janice Ciavaglia, MK’s literacy specialist, recalls.

Zophia Nicholas and Stephanie Isaac read Ksalultes Lapjiw, which you may know as Robert Munsch’s Love You Forever. Photo courtesy of Mi’kmaw Kina’matnewey.
Zophia Nicholas and Stephanie Isaac read Ksalultes Lapjiw, which you may know as Robert Munsch’s Love You Forever. Photo courtesy of Mi’kmaw Kina’matnewey

There were several Mi’kmaw books but they weren’t the ones most Canadian children would know. While it’s important to encourage original and traditional Mi’kmaw stories, the teachers also wanted fun, familiar material to get kids excited about reading their language.

Ciavaglia and her colleague, Blair Gould, cast their memories back to their childhoods and thought of Munsch. His frenetic, kid-centric stories have helped raise millions of Canadians since 1979.

He’d visited one of their Cape Breton schools. At the time he was making 50 appearances a year, meeting kids and sharing stories with them, creating them orally and refining them with repeated telling. Even the Elders were fans of Munsch. “We went on his website and asked if he’d be willing to let us translate his books,” Ciavaglia says.

Munsch said go right ahead. MK hired translators Elizabeth Paul and Barbara Sylliboy to navigate dialects from 13 different Mi’kmaw First Nations. “They met regularly with Elders for a year,” Ciavaglia says.

The translators hit some snags in the process. Munsch’s Angela’s Airplane was to be one of the translated books but there is no Mi’kmaw word for airplane. Another Munsch classic, I Have to Go, was translated into the more literal I Have to Go Pee in order to make sense in Mi’kmaw.

But in other ways, the excitable children and adults in Munsch’s stories were a natural fit for the Mi’kmaw language, which is dynamic, action-based, heavy on the verbs and based on interrelationships between people, animals and things. “He uses a lot of moving words and his noise words [VAROOMMM] work well,” Ciavaglia says. “His words are super dynamic and we like that he’s a Canadian author.”

In all, MK translated seven books including I’m So Embarrassed, Andrew’s Loose Tooth, Thomas’ Snowsuit, A Promise is a Promise, Mud Puddle, I Have To Go and Love You Forever. MK worked with Eastern Woodlands Publishing in Truro to produce 1,000 copies of each book, half for schools and libraries and the other half to sell. “A Munsch book is now a staple present in the Mi’kmaw community.”

MK also produced a teacher-lesson plan to accompany the texts. The books and lesson plans have been in use since the start of the school year.

Ciavaglia and Gould had hoped Munsch could come for the launch but “he had had a stroke and couldn’t join us,” Ciavaglia says. Since his stroke in 2008, Munsch has significantly cut down on public appearances. Ciavaglia thinks he’d be pleased at the reception from all over the world, including from a similar immersion program for Maori students in New Zealand. “We had to hire somebody just to ship out all the orders.”

The most important reaction comes from home. Elders are happy to read the stories and children are thrilled to listen to the cadence and humour of their own language. The jokes are even funnier in Mi’kmaw. “And the kids are super proud to hear Mi’kmaw in the public library and other places where it’s not normally spoken,” Ciavaglia says.

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Sable Island Home - Pottersfield Our Sable Island Home opens on April 23, 1951 as the O’Hara family board the Edward Cornwallis in Halifax with all their worldly possessions. They were bound for the famous (and isolated) sandbar in the Atlantic where Ernest O’Hara was to take up duties as a wireless operator.

The back cover states that “the book tells stories that bring to life the hardships, worries, desperation, fears and uncertainties that come with such isolation.”

Our Sable Island Home delivers what it says. Yet in spite of being ill-equipped to handle every misfortune, (and there were heartbreaking situations), the story never gets mired in pity or regret. It’s a casual, conversational read that is interspersed with information about island life through the eyes of Sharon and Mary O’Hara, ages six and seven.

Bonus: there’s a lovely chapter that includes an endearing letter from the authors’ father to their mother, 33 years after they left Sable Island.

Our Sable Island Home
by Sharon O’Hara with Mary O’Hara
$19.95, paperback, 176 pp.
Pottersfield Press, November 2014

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The Canny Scot: Archbishop James Morrison of Antigonish Peter Ludlow McGill-Queen’s University PressArchbishop James Morrison of Antigonish (1861–1950) was one of Canada’s last ascetic and powerful churchmen. Historian Peter Ludlow’s The Canny Scot, the latest addition to the McGill-Queen’s Studies in the History of Religion series, is Morrison’s biography. In addition to examining Morrison’s personality, Ludlow also considers his tarnished legacy in relation to the internationally lauded Antigonish Movement, which he helped to create.

Ludlow does an excellent job of situating Morrison within his time and place. Today we forget the threat of communism, the viciousness of coal miners’ strikes, the thinness of the social safety net. A biography is only as strong, however, as the information the writer is able to glean. Ludlow is a fine researcher and a clear writer, but the lack of personal letters and papers, especially from Morrison’s early years, keeps us from knowing the man as well as we might.

The Canny Scot: Archbishop James Morrison of Antigonish
by Peter Ludlow
$34.95, paperback, 352 pp.
McGill-Queen’s University Press, March 2015

 

 

 

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Ghost of the Southern Cross Nellie P Strowbridge Flanker Press

Whatever feelings readers hold about Newfoundland and Labrador’s seal hunt, two recent books from Flanker Press will be sure to move them with the harsh, historical economic realities that drove men onto the ice in a desperate effort to provide for their families.

Gary Collins’ Left to Die recounts the tragic story of 78 sealers from the Newfoundland who froze to death on the ice during the seal hunt of March 1914 while Nellie P. Strowbridge writes of the devastating aftermath of the sinking of the Southern Cross that same month, which took the lives of 174 sealers.

Unlike Collins’ book, which takes readers out on to the ice, this historical novel stays on shore with the outport families who gather anxiously to await news of the ship’s arrival in St. John’s. Weaving together several plot lines, it follows two friends, Elizabeth and Maggie, the sister and fiancée of Jamie, first time sealer who’d joined the hunt aboard the Southern Cross to earn enough to build a house.

Using their lives as a vehicle, Strowbridge documents a compelling social history of women’s lives in the outports of the early 1900’s, of the daily struggle to merely exist and of the cruel choices they were sometimes forced to make. Harsh climate, limited medical care, backbreaking work, malnourishment and disease, restrictive social mores and almost continuous child-bearing, combined to wear down body and mind, making death when it came often before the allotted ‘three score and ten’, a blessed release for the soul. That these women survived at all, and even managed to find brief moments of joy, is a testament to their strength of character that lives on in their descendants.

Inspiration for Ghost of the Southern Cross came directly from the Stowbridge’s own family history. The character ‘Elizabeth’ is based on her grandmother, Elizabeth Emma Maley who married Jacob Kennedy. She bore 12 children, three of whom died at birth and another of meningitis. ‘Jamie’ who drowned when the Southern Cross sank was her great-uncle James Maley. ‘Maggie Taylor’, however, is a fictionalized version of the young woman he planned to marry.

Ghost of the Southern Cross
by Nellie P. Strowbridge
$19.95, paperback, 342 pp.
Flanker Press, February 2015

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Immortal Air - Tracey RomboughFrom Chapter 7

Desperate now to have the basket, he gestured for Madeline to remain seated while he went back to rummage through the steamer trunk. There had to be something in this jumble of forgotten items – something worthy of exchange. He noticed a blue velvet pouch tucked into the corner of a smaller box of thread and wool. He pulled open the knotted cord and found a tarnished pair of antique sewing scissors. Hand-forged and stamped with pivoted blades and elaborately decorated handles, the scissors had come over from Scotland on the Hector. His great-grandmother Janet had given them to her daughter who in turn gave them to Jessie Cameron. Useful. Beautiful. Satisfied that this was a fair trade, he handed the woman the preserves and the velvet bag containing the scissors.

“Wela’lin.”

“My mother thanks you. She loves these berries. This fruit will be a delicious treat for us. Wela’lin.”

“Tell her that I will cherish this basket. It will remind me of home.” He lifted the basket gently and inhaled its sweetness.

The woman smiled and nodded. She opened the velvet bag and pulled out the silver instrument. She looked pleased. She inserted her thumb and forefinger into the handles.

“My mother cuts thin strips of sweetgrass for her weaving. These scissors will be very helpful when she prepares the dried grasses for basket weaving.”

The older woman pointed at the steamer trunk and said a few words in her native tongue.

“My mother says that you are going on a journey soon. A journey that brings you great excitement and great sadness.”

“Yes … I am going to school in Boston.” George spoke directly to the mother and then waited for Mabel to translate before he spoke again.

The woman frowned and pointed to the deep line that formed between her brows. She spoke to her daughter again in urgent tones, but Madeline hesitated. The mother waved her hand at her daughter and pointed to George.

“Pardon me for being forward, but she insists that I tell you this. She says you worry too much about things.”

“This is true. I am leaving my loved ones behind.”

“Your friend will be saddened by your departure.”

“Wantaqo’ti.”

And with that final wish for peace, the women walked down the driveway and turned onto the road in the direction of the shanties by the river. Away from the public eye, the little girls danced in the dappled sunlight, weaving in and out like the fine braids of sweetgrass. Clockwise they circled with quick, shifting steps around Madeline so that their forward progress was slowed to the measured movement of ticking gears. The ribbons of their laughter trailed behind them, floating back to George like whispers. How beautiful, he thought, to be free of expectation.

As he stood on the porch and watched the parade of retreating figures, the full weight of his own departure became as tangible as the basket in his hands. It was a fair exchange – his secret defiance against his mother’s indifference toward their sacred weaving, a ceremonial cutting of ties. Now, further down the road, the group – barely recognizable as human forms – drifted into the amber light. Their shapes blended with the curves of the distant land in an abstract configuration of pastel dots gliding imperceptibly into George’s memory. They hovered for a brief moment on the horizon. The tall girl looked over her shoulder at the disappearing farmhouse. George blinked once and they were gone.

Immortal Air, A Novel
by Tracey Rombough
$19.95, Paperback, 274 pp.
Cape Breton University Press, September 2015

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The Grey Islands-John StefflerBrick Books celebrated its ruby anniversary with a classic edition of former Parliamentary Poet Laureate John Steffler’s masterpiece, The Grey Islands, featuring a new introduction by Adrian Fowler.

Despite being a mainlander, Steffler captures the spirit and ruggedness of the place like an islander.

Toronto’s Steffler writes, “the ground is solid rock. the clouds are solid rock./ the trees are solid rock. the snow is solid rock./ the sea is solid rock. the sun is solid rock”.

A place known world-round as The Rock, Steffler’s in-depth mining of Newfoundland’s unique culture and heritage is both truthful and fabricated, a tightrope of myth and memory. He toys with Newfoundland’s lyrical dialect, and embodies the windswept coastal weather and isolation.

Steffler understood Newfoundland, its ruggedness, wildness, and untameable landscape. At the very core of  The Grey Islands  isn’t cartography of its geography, but a portrait of its people, who are as rare and remarkable as the island where they dwell.

The Grey Islands
by John Steffler
$20.00, paperback, 203 pp.
Brick Books Classics 2,  February 2015

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Jo-headshotA new Nova Scotian bookstore owner explains what drove two authors and an illustrator to dive into the book business

“Why open a bookstore now? In this economic climate and when online shopping rules the universe?” is a question we – Alice Burdick, Anne-Marie Sheppard and Jo Treggiari – hear a lot as proud co-owners of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia’s brand-new Lexicon Books.

But the question we three most ask ourselves is: when did our lives not revolve around books?

We are all voracious readers. We are the type of people who can’t walk past a bookstore – new or used – without stopping in and (almost certainly) buying something. We judge towns and cities by their enor- mous, quaint or eclectic bookstores. We revel in the smell of books and the comfort found among them. We share great finds with friends and are passionate about seeking out new authors, stumbling across them or
having someone whose expertise we trust recommend them to us.

The written word informs a great part of our lives.

“Do what you love” is a wonderful mantra, but it is not enough. You also have to be skilled at what you love. Two of us have many years of experience in retail sales and management, and two of us have many years of experience start- ing and nurturing
new businesses.

Transforming our starry-eyed dreams of own- ing a bookstore (“Imagine being surrounded by books all day every day!”) into a viable business model was not easy.

Lexicon BooksOur space is a mere 500-square-feet. Figuring out our starting inventory versus blowing our entire budget, bearing in mind that the store has to appear fully stocked, is one of those nightmarish math problems we all thought we’d left behind in high school. How many are too many? How few are too few? What’s the ratio between cur- rent literature and classic? Bestsellers and overlooked gems? Which genres to focus on? What do we love and what will our customers love? What selections will best reflect the area in which we live? How can we provide the optimum customer service and the best shopping experience?

And how to compress all that information into something that makes sense? A bookstore is not just a store that sells books. It identifies the people who live and work around it. It is a warm and comforting place to go to. It is a com- munity hub, a culture and arts centre hosting author events and book clubs. It is an information source and a social gathering place. Staffed by knowledgeable people who love books, it is a friendly place to engage with others.

There is no algo- rithm devised by a technician and directed by a computer program that can replace a recommendation from someone who knows your tastes, likes and dislikes, who can make leaps from one author to a similar one, or from one subject to something equally intriguing. The relationship between a bookstore customer and a bookseller is, dare we say it, a sacred one. There is trust there. Trust that the recommendation will be – if not spot-on – at least pretty damn close. And that’s what we’re aiming for.

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Kathleen Winter and Christine McLean
Kathleen Winter and broadcaster Christine McLean in conversation about “Journey to the High Arctic” in front of a full house at the Café Delta Beauséjour. Photo credit: Louis-Philippe Chiasson

Writers new and well-known mix it up at this bilingual literary celebration

Josephine Watson is a triple threat at Moncton’s 16th annual Fry Festival, “I’m bilingual, biracial and bicultural!” She is this year’s poète flyée. During festival week, she flits and flies among the events, gathering material for the original poem she will compose and deliver on the last day of the festival. For Josephine, this is a week to see and be seen, to entertain and engage as well as soak up the vibes from the many well-known writers gracing stages around the city.

Named in honour of Pine Street’s pre-eminent literary critic and theorist, the late Northrop Frye, the Frye Festival-Le Festival Frye bills itself as Canada’s only bilingual, international literary festival and the largest literary event in Atlantic Canada.

Ian Wier
Ian Wier reads from his novel Will Starling at the Beer and Books event at the Tide & Boar Gastropub. Photo credit: Louis-Philippe Chiasson

What sets the Frye apart is the sheer joie de vivre of everyone involved from the authors to the Frye staff and volunteers to the approximately 16,000 people who come out to the year-round festival events. In addition, more than 10,000 children are reached annually through the festival’s school-youth program.

Readings take place in pubs, workshops in libraries, debates and lectures in theatres and restaurants. Live music is also on offer, with this year’s festival featuring Jenn Grant and Caroline Savoie at the Soirée Frye evening.

Emma Donoghue (Frog Music) delighted middle school children with her Irish lilt, telling the kids at Salisbury Middle School what it’s like to be a writer and how they can become writers, too. Montreal playwright/novelist/poet Simon Boulerice had the audience in stitches at a panel discussion with tales of his larger-than-life mother, the inspiration for a good deal of his work. Here was Kathleen Winter (Annabel, Boundless); there was Giller-winner Sean Michaels (Us Conductors) and Jane Urquhart (The Night Stages) and so many others, including Nova Scotia-based poet Brian Bartlett (Ringing Here and There), the luminous Beth Powning (A Measure of Light), and Acadian musician/writer Daniel Léger (Objectif Katahdin).

It’s the kind of festival where you’ll find Newfoundland poet George Murray reading his first children’s book (illustrated by Michael Pittman), Wow Wow and Haw Haw, to a roomful of rapt four-year-olds, where you can find yourself chatting with New Brunswick poet and former Lt-Gov. Herménégilde Chiasson (Autoportrait) about Andy Warhol and Marilyn Monroe.

Musicians Jenn Grant of Halifax and and Caroline Savoie of Dieppe, NB, shared the stage at the Soirée Frye evening. Photo credit: Louis-Philippe Chiasson
Musicians Jenn Grant of Halifax and and Caroline Savoie of Dieppe, NB, shared the stage at the Soirée Frye evening. Photo credit: Louis-Philippe Chiasson

There is a place for everyone at the Frye, including those just getting started. Prèlude, sponsored by the Writers’ Federation of New Brunswick, featured six emerging writers – three English and three French. Saint John’s Julia Wright was on the bill. The editor of the Hard Times in the Maritimes ‘zine stood in the spotlight at the Aberdeen Cultural Centre and delivered an essay about what it’s like to be a young writer here: “New Brunswick is simultaneously a great place, and the worst place ever, to grow up as a writer… It trains the powers of observation, and the imagination, to live in a place that’s both stuck in the past and endlessly looking to reinvent itself. And figuring out how to actually stay in this place and do what you love also takes a really good imagination.”

And so it went throughout the week, emerging writers rubbed stanzas with the more established among them. Everybody took something from the experience – the chance to grow, to connect with each other and their readers, and the chance to celebrate the power and the glory of the written word. As Northrop Frye said, “The world of literature is a world where there is no reality except that of the human imagination.”

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History of Canadian Rock N RollIn typical Canadian fashion, the American success of Joni Mitchell, The Band and Neil Young came not because the musicians had conquered their homeland, but because they had to leave if they wanted to succeed.

Bob Mersereau’s detail-packed, propulsive journey through 50 years of Canadian music flows with style and ease, dipping in and out of places –Toronto, Winnipeg, Halifax, Laurel Canyon, Greenwich Village— and scenes effortlessly. He keeps an eye on a chosen handful ­–Young, Mitchell, Robbie Robertson, Paul Anka—sticking to the rock/folk realm with respectful asides to French (Celine Dion), pop-country (Shania Twain) and the more recent rises of Alanis Morissette, Avril Lavigne, Broken Social Scene and Arcade Fire.

A pervasive Canadian inferiority complex is unfortunate —stop pointing it out and maybe it will go away— but it doesn’t hurt the wealth of information, knowledge and trivia-night fodder on display here.

The History of Canadian Rock ‘N’ Roll
by Bob Mersereau
$24.99, paperback, 320 pp.
Backbeat Books, March 2015