A special pleasure for me was seeing the success of No Great Mischief as early as October and consequently urging Alistair to let us publish his collected short stories in the spring. On that subject, let me note that there have been very few criticisms of any aspect of the novel, but some critics have complained that the dialogue in Alistair’s work does not always sound realistic to their ears. My reply is that they have never talked much with Alistair MacLeod.
As far as I can reconstruct it, the phone conversation about the next book went as follows:
“Alistair,” I said. “Would you have any other stories besides the fourteen that are in the two story collections?”
“Yes,” he said, “I would.”
“And how many do you have?”
“I have two,” he said.
“And what are their names?”
“One is called ‘Island,’” he said, “and the other is called ‘Clearances.’”
“And are they short or long?”
“Oh, they are both quite long.”
“Well,” I said, “in the spring I think we will bring out a book of your collected stories and we will call it either ‘Island’ or ‘Clearances,’ and we will do very well with it.”
“Do you think so?”
“Oh yes,” I said. “And I have been right before.”
And we both laughed.
I had indeed been right about the success I foresaw for No Great Mischief, and I was right, too, about the success of the collected short stories. I called that book Island, since the other possible title, Clearances, might have appealed to people with Scottish Highland heritage, but would have had unfortunate commercial connotations in the bookstores. As it was, Island: The Collected Stories of Alistair Macleod was such a hit that it instantly joined Alistair’s novel on the same bestseller lists that spring.
Since then Alistair and I have met on many occasions to celebrate his success; the awards and honorary degrees really are too many to list here. But I remember our visit to Dublin, for example, in 2000, when his novel won the worldwide IMPAC annual award. The ceremony was held at Dublin Castle, and I enjoyed seeing the great entrance flanked by the Irish and Canadian flags. I strode in alongside Alistair, Anita, and their six grown-up children, including Kenneth, a musician who brought along his fiddle, just in case. The black-tie formal event began with a reception held in a spacious Georgian room, full of giant portraits of periwigged proconsuls, and the well-handled music of a string quartet. After the grand dinner and the speeches (including impressive talks by Irish politicians, all of whom seem able to quote literature by the yard, and poetry, some might say, by the metre), the string quartet was replaced by a group of young folk musicians in jeans. Kenneth went over to join them, and soon the red-haired Canadian in a tuxedo was giving a lively demonstration of what inspired the simile “like a fiddler’s elbow.”
Even better, under his influence, a Cape Breton square dance set was formed. With Canadian novelist Jane Urquhart gamely joining in to make up the numbers, the MacLeod family reeled and jigged to the music, while the encircling Dublin literati clapped and yelled delighted encouragement. Even the London-based organizer, a sophisticated PR man who had seen it all, was impressed. “In future years,” he shouted to me above the Celtic whoops, “people will say, yes, this was a fine evening — but you should have been here the year the Canadians came!”
Closer to home, I have attended official celebrations in Windsor, where Alistair is warmly greeted on the street, as befits a dedicated teacher who has given so much to the city over the years and a writer who has made them proud. His time as a Windsor parent features years spent watching sports, including the track and cross-country events that later informed his son Alexander’s Giller-nominated collection of short stories, Light Lifting. Another notable case was young Daniel’s high school basketball team, which was heavily African-Canadian in its make-up, and very successful. Alistair recalls returning in the car from one triumph with red-haired Daniel, who has the milk-white skin that often goes with very red hair. To Alistair’s amusement, Daniel was exulting that “those white guys” on the other team “can’t jump like we can.”
I can report that any Windsor literary evening event is likely to turn into a ceilidh at the MacLeod house, with daughter Marion at the piano and voices raised in song, including mine. And a 2010 summer visit to their Cape Breton home led to Jane and me being invited to a square dance that night in the fire hall at Scotsville. We did our best, and had great fun, inspired by the example of Anita and Alistair whirling their way sedately through the dances with quiet pleasure, among friends of all ages.
I was with Alistair in Kitchener-Waterloo at the climax of their first “one book, one community” event, now a popular annual feature, where everyone is encouraged to read, and discuss, one chosen title — in this case, No Great Mischief. Alistair was shown a blizzard of paper comments by citizens who had read his book. He asked if he could keep one. It said: “This is the first book I ever read. I liked it so much I think I will read another one.”
I have attended with pleasure many of Alistair’s unforgettable readings. Once I even stood in for him (he was in Calgary) at a reading in the old Chapters store on Bloor Street in Toronto. The plan was that the five finalists for a first-novel award would appear in turn from their hidden place backstage, read, and return backstage. No problem. Except that as I stood backstage the incredibly stupid MC (and I’m about to prove that) introduced No Great Mischief in a few words, then said: “Anyone who has ever heard Alistair MacLeod read from his work knows how much he brings to the reading. When we hear his voice, it opens . . .” And on and on, while my shoes filled with my heart’s blood, and the audience craned forward in their seats, eager for this great treat: Alistair MacLeod himself! Finally, she said, briskly, “Unfortunately he can’t be with us tonight, so here to read in his place is Douglas McIntyre!” I walked on to see the audience slumping back in stricken disappointment. I was just getting into my “rise above it” stride, moving into the reading, when the MC dashed on again, grabbed the mike, and said “Um . . . Gibson!” (Ah well, in recent years Alistair and I have both been selected as “Canada’s Scot of the Year,” so it’s good for us to have experiences that keep us humble.)
At a York University event I once intervened to help him. I attended the reading with Avie Bennett, York’s chancellor, and he and I were introduced from our prominent seats, front and centre, in the packed auditorium. After Alistair’s fine reading, he asked for questions, noting that like any student before an exam he had tried to anticipate the questions he would be asked, so he had prepared a number of fine answers. Questions?
Shy silence.
Then more silence.
Finally I stuck up my hand.
“You?” Alistair was surprised, but ready for my now-welcome question.
“What is your first answer?” I asked.
General hilarity at this zen-like question, not interrupted by the sound of one hand clapping. But it broke the logjam, and the questions flowed.
In Vancouver, in 2009, Alistair generously travelled to speak at the Writers’ Festival’s special tribute to Alice Munro. At a lunch beforehand, speaking for Alice (who was unable to attend) I thanked all of the participants and explained that my editorial role with Alice was simply to tell her to stop writing, and to extract the manuscript from her. This prompted an explosion from Alistair, who told the table, “Ah, he’s very good at that!”
With the passage of time my beneficent visit to Windsor to encourage him to deliver the manuscript has been upgraded to, in his words, “a home invasion.” That is, when he is not taking the opposite tack, teasingly describing how for many patient years he would vainly try to get me to take a look at the manuscript of No Great Mischief. People like that version. I worry that some may believe it.
Since Alistair is so busy giving speeches and accepting priz
es around the world, he is not doing much writing, dammit — or, to be precise, he is not admitting to me, when I ask, that he is doing much writing. Some years ago, in 2004, knowing how eager the world is for more Alistair MacLeod, I set out to turn his Christmas story “To Every Thing There Is a Season” into a fine little illustrated book, with the same title. I found an excellent traditional Cape Breton illustrator (Peter Rankin, a relative of Alistair’s) and asked him to provide drawings of the lanterns and the sheep and the horses and the sleighs mentioned in the story. All was going well, and Peter had provided drawings that tied in perfectly with the text, so that — according to my careful plan — every double-page spread of text would have at least one little piece of illustration appearing beside its mention in the text. Hard to arrange, but possible. Yet when, late in the afternoon, the designer began to lay it all out, it didn’t work. It was so bad that we decided to quit at the end of the day and try again tomorrow.
At 4 a.m. — as my wife will attest — I sat bolt upright in bed, saying, “The cows! The cows!” Somehow the illustration of cows in the early pages had gone missing, throwing all the later pages off. An editor’s life is one that stretches the full twenty-four hours — till the cows come home, you might say.
In September 2009 Alistair and I both went on the Adventure Canada cruise from Ungava Bay down Harold Horwood’s Labrador coast, and Alistair gave a lecture about his work, while I gave a talk about just how Alistair and I worked together in shaping his novel. Introducing me, Alistair went so far as to say that “no one has done more for Canadian Literature than this man, Douglas Gibson.” I was almost wordless in response to this overly generous assessment.
A month later I was at a conference in Scotland, where I spoke about Alistair’s work, and about my pleasure at seeing his work prominently displayed in bookshop windows in Scotland. It turned out that Alistair is so well known — and loved — in Scotland, even in tiny places like Ullapool, that when in my speech I asked the rhetorical question, “Has success changed Alistair MacLeod?” it met with a ripple of laughter.
His genuine modesty was on display when I took French scholar Christine Evain to interview him at a Windsor restaurant. My role was to introduce them, and then sit, smiling, while she asked him penetrating questions about his work, and Alistair fought his modest inclinations to shrug off questions about his art (a very un-MacLeodish word) and tried to answer them. My smile became a beam when Alistair reminded us — and I had forgotten — that he added the last paragraph of “Clearances” at my suggestion. This meant, of course, that the final line in the book is one that can be applied to all of the stories of Alistair MacLeod: “They will be with you till the end.”
His success around the world has not, of course, changed Alistair one little bit. He is perhaps the most grounded man I know. So he is still the sturdy, heavy-striding, flat-capped, ruddy-faced figure that Scottish and Irish journalists have variously compared to “your local publican,” and to “a farmer come to town to sell his cows.” As soon as he appears on a platform to read (which he does far too often, in the eyes of an editor desperate to get him writing again), everyone in the room realizes that this not-completely-comfortable man is, above all, authentic, with no false airs. Humour and laughter, yes, to be sure, and solemnity when appropriate, but nothing false.
And when, after much throat-clearing, this shy man begins to read in what Elizabeth Waterston shrewdly calls an “incantantory” way, you realize —along with neighbours who have never heard the words “oral tradition” — that you are in the presence of a great artist.
It is true that “All of us are better when we’re loved.” What is also true — and people seem to sense this — is that all of us are better for being in Alistair MacLeod’s presence. Even a phone conversation with him will leave me feeling that the world is a better place, after he has talked about his family, and I have told him about the latest deeds of my tiny grandchildren, Lindsay and Alistair.
My experience working with Pierre Trudeau and Brian Mulroney recommended me to Paul Martin, and I was pleased when he approached me in 2006 to edit and publish his memoirs. I liked the idea that a pattern was developing where working with Doug Gibson on your memoirs was a necessary rite of passage for former prime ministers. In that light, I was sorry that Jean Chrétien had broken the pattern and become The One That Got Away, his memoirs ghost-written by the skilful Ron Graham and published elsewhere.
On the other hand, I had done the next best thing by publishing Chrétien’s protegé, Eddie Goldenberg. Eddie had worked with Jean Chrétien for over thirty years, was his principal secretary for all of his time as leader of the Opposition, then had held the role of senior policy adviser or chief of staff for the prime minister throughout his time in office. In short, Eddie, while an ideas man, was also the man who made Jean Chrétien’s trains run on time, making sure that things got done, and that troubles — and troublemakers — went away.
His book, The Way It Works: Inside Ottawa (2006), was a masterly account of the power system in the nation’s capital, and suggested how Eddie, the brightest and the liveliest of companions, could conceal an iron fist inside his neat velvet gloves. More than one reviewer admiringly compared his book with the works of Machiavelli. Eddie, although in private a prince of a guy, had absorbed the prerogatives of power so completely that after making many last-minute changes to the book — to my open exasperation — he greeted the couriered arrival of the very first, hot-off-the-press copy of his book (always a thrilling moment for any author) with the response, “Doug, I’ve got the book. It looks great!” Two beat pause. “I guess this means it’s too late for any more changes.”
At the launch party for Eddie’s book, held in Ottawa’s Rideau Club, with the Peace Tower looming outside its windows, the retired but far from retiring Jean Chrétien was in loud, jovial attendance. I took a couple of awestruck McClelland & Stewart colleagues over to introduce them. He was well primed for the encounter. As a simple guy, he explained, he was ignorant about the ways of Canadian publishers. So he went on to wonder aloud how anyone could publish a bad book like Jeffrey Simpson’s The Friendly Dictatorship (a book that I had commissioned, about the dangers of a Canadian parliamentary system that was increasingly allowing power to centre in the prime minister’s office, specifically his PMO). Surely I had nothing to do with a terrible book like dat, he smilingly assumed. It was not actually a “Shawinigan handshake,” with his choking hands around my neck, but it was the Rideau Club cocktail party equivalent.
I cleared my throat and affirmed that I myself was the publisher. Somehow, in the general hilarity that ensued, I never got around to defending Jeffrey Simpson’s accurate thesis (dramatically confirmed by a later occupant of the all-powerful office). Or to mentioning the interesting fact that the book’s striking cover — a full-colour photograph of a Latin-American dictator in full white, medal-bedecked uniform, with Jean Chrétien’s smiling, “friendly” face super-imposed — was actually a photo of me. The broken finger on my left hand — an old sports injury — is evident in the book cover dictator’s cheery wave to bookstore browsers across the nation. (The background to this lies in the fact that my M&S colleagues — appalled by my mischievous idea for a very eye-catching book cover — had objected that getting a male model for such a photo would be prohibitively expensive. No problem, I assured them, and my quick visit to Malabar’s, the costume people, was soon followed by an equally quick visit to my pal Peter Paterson’s photographic studio. A publisher’s life is full of variety.)
Naturally, the fact that through Douglas Gibson Books I had published this lively, opinionated book by Jean Chrétien’s right-hand man made my relations with my new author, Paul Martin, potentially difficult. A publication-day cartoon by the wicked Globe and Mail editorial cartoonist, my friend Brian Gable, didn’t make my life any easier. Entitled “Book Launch,” it showed a giant copy of The Way It Works strapped to a rocket-launching vehicle, arrivin
g at the door of a home labelled “Hon. Paul Martin,” while a delivery man hammered on the door, shouting “Special Delivery from Jean Chrétien.”
Everyone even vaguely aware of Canadian politics during the last twenty years knows how hostility between the Martin team and the Chrétien forces split the Liberal Party into two opposing camps. Yet Paul Martin never assumed that by publishing Eddie Goldenberg’s book (which, coming from a Chrétien partisan, is not exactly kind to Mr. Martin), I had in any way taken sides in the feud.
Throughout my publishing career, in fact, I always took great care not to take sides. Publishers, I believe, should be like the Red Cross — carefully neutral, available to all sides, and able to bring a degree of civility to every dispute by allowing all sides to make their case to the wider public. To understate matters, it seems to me that, in a democracy marked by free speech, this is a fairly important role.
That belief lay behind my contacting Barbara Amiel, way back in 1979, when I saw her (ironically, on television) complaining that the Canadian media was so biased against her right-wing views that she would never be able to publish a book about them. In 1977 I had worked with Barbara and her then-husband, George Jonas (a witty, languid chap, always drawling epigrams while waving a cigarette holder as if rehearsing for a new Oscar Wilde play), on their award-winning true-crime book, By Persons Unknown, a strange story involving one Peter Demeter. So I had no hesitation in calling her up the next morning to throw down a challenge.
“What you say about Canadian publishers is not true, Barbara. If you want to write a book about how you’ve arrived at your political views, I’ll publish it.”
And so we did. Working with Ms. Amiel was always an interesting experience, since you never knew which Barbara was going to show up in the office to deliver the next chapter. It might be the smiling, charming, even winsome Barbara. Or the narrow-eyed, brisk, efficient, professional Barbara. Or the troubled Barbara, so troubled that a routine enquiry about her health could lead to a back-of-the-hand-to-the-forehead response, whispered in tragic tones, “Oh, I’ve just been throwing up blood into my wastebasket at Maclean’s.”
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