At 07:22 PM 12/04/2007, you wrote:
>Unfortunately Mark, I made one other big mistake:
RCMP. With all of the
>developments in the past year alone it would be
easier to sell now there¹s
>been more media focus on RCMP corruption, officers
convicted of murder, etc.
Back in the 70's, when the RCMP were also the country's
secret service, they were convicted of breaking into union
offices and the offices of political parties, and arson, when
they burnt down a barn where a meeting was scheduled for the
separatist Parti Quebecois. It's a long history.
>
>
>The thing is, no organization or country comprised of
human beings is
>perfect, or noir-exempt. Kerry rightly points to the
Stonechild case is
>Saskatoon.
Meant to ask too, how Colin Thatcher was these days. Getting
by, so I hear.
>The ms isn¹t professionally edited but if you ever
want to read it I¹ll send
>you a print out.
It's a tough go, Sandra. There is a reluctance to publish
certain types of stories, and perhaps the publishers are
right to be wary of books that won't find an audience in
Canada. There's a willful ignorance at work, IMHO.
It's a more open society in the US, relatively speaking,
people more honest about their motives
(get rich and be happy) and there is also that famous sense
of hospitality. I'm always amazed at what complete strangers
will tell me in bars when I go south, where at home you'd be
lucky to get a smile let alone a conversation. In Canada
there's more respect for authority, which makes positions of
authority more susceptible to corruption and more attractive
to the corrupt. About ten years ago the country's largest
family fortune had originated with prohibition era
bootlegging. Significant fortunes are now being built in
similar fashion. It is estimated that marijuana is BC's
biggest export. But we're too polite to talk about this
stuff. Never know who's listening.
I had recently hoped to serve as editor for a book, very well
written, nice gritty style, the narrative involving street
gangs here in Hamilton. There's a long history of gang
activity in this city. None of the larger publishers would
touch it, probably because they felt there wasn't a market
for it outside Hamilton. There's a lot of Canadians figure
this city is exceptional for this type of thing. My Hamilton
publisher wouldn't touch it because it wasn't their type of
story. The book had almost been sold earlier in the US, but
there the publisher wanted the location changed to Pittsburgh
(another blue-collar steel town.) The writer didn't want to
do that, so it still goes unpublished. Too bad. It was a good
book, insightful and beautifully written. But it goes against
the image so many Canadians have of themselves, and interest
outside the country is minimal. I hear the same thing again
and again.
I was thinking again about how noir fits into mainstream
literature in Canada. Richler's Duddy Kravitz walking the
fine edge, finding out his father is a pimp and having to
compete with the local mobster for the real estate deal that
finally makes his fortune. Then in Joshua Then and Now,
Joshua's father is a professional thief, and he's gone on
some jobs too, it appears. In St. Urban's Horseman, it's been
so long, but doesn't the protagonist have dreams about the
Mounties coming to get him? And there's Solomon Gorsky of
course, based on the Bronfman's history. Then, in The English
Patient, remember the Canadian was a thief? Didn't he also
appear in Skin of a Lion? Richler described his work as
satire, but he was showing how crime was woven into the
fabric of Canadian society, and I think Ondaatje nodded in
that direction too. Noir, in my opinion, but we don't seem to
like the covers pulled all the way back. And so often in
Canadian genre mysteries the villain is telegraphed- he's the
one who's politically incorrect.
Best, Kerry
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