My reviews in Canadian Materials

My review of Norah McClintock's Sea of Sorrows (a novel for those in their early teens) is in the current issue of Canadian Materials,  a weekly online magazine from the University of Manitoba, edited by Education professor Dave Jenkinson, at www.umanitoba.ca/cm/

 I have been reviewing books for Canadian Materials for several years now and  have reviewed quite a few novels for young people that an adult would find worth reading. Perhaps my favourite was the award-winning novel, The Landing, by John Ibbitson,set in Depression-era Muskoka.  For fun, my book club decided to add this novel to our list last year, and everybody liked The Landing. We liked the grandmother-figure, a woman "of a certain age", who wasn't your stereotypical cookie-baking, knitting Grandma and who turned out, in the end, not to be a fairy godmother.

Google Canadian Materials to find out about worthwhile books for young people on your holiday gift list.

Another review in "Compulsive Reader"

To read my review of Barbara Forte Abate's novel, Asleep without Dreaming, please visit
http://www.compulsivereader.com/html/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3183

My review in Compulsive Reader

My review of Face of the Enemy, by Dobson and Myers, is now posted on the Compulsive Reader website.

http://www.compulsivereader.com.html/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3170

Please and thank you: Lynne Truss's Talk to the Hand

Yesterday while browsing in a used book store, my husband came home with Lynne Truss's Talk to the Hand, her book about increasing rudeness in society. Its publication date is 2005, but it isn't out of date. Indeed, the problem she addresses has intensified since she wrote it.

When did society stop valuing basic courtesy and respect? Talk to the Hand (NY, Penguin, 2005)is not a guide to manners; rather, it is an attempt to define and analyse six areas in which we seem to be getting "more unpleasant and inhuman" in our dealings with each other. One of Truss's culprits is modern communications technology. "These systems force us to navigate ourselves into channels that are plainly for someone else's convenience, not ours...In our encounters with businesses and shops we now half expect to be treated not as customers, but as systems trainees who haven't quite got the hang of it yet." 

She also blames parents who are so determined to build their children's self-esteem  that they protect them from blame or accountability of any sort. In two hilarious paragraphs she depicts such parents setting their kids loose in a relative's home.

"Say Hi to Bob, kids. Yes, darling, this is the man we call Fatty Bob. How clever you are to remember. Now, why don't  you all run off and see how many things beginning with the letter H you can collect for mommy? All right, Freddie, you can use a screwdriver. Take your sticky drinks with you." Later, when the homeowner gets cross, the parent comforts the child, saying: "Fatty Bob is...materialistic, which means he prefers things to people. We prefer people to things, don't we? Fatty Bob shouldn't leave such irreplaceable heirlooms just lying about, should he? Silly Fatty Bob."

Despite the many instances of deteriorating behaviour that Truss describes, she hopes that if enough people demonstrate kindness and good manners they may change society.  I hope so too, but I'm not holding my breath in anticipation.

A great letter in the New Yorker

There is a great letter to the editor in the New Yorker of September 3, 2012, by by Bernice L. Youtz of Tacoma, Washington.  She writes of the days of "truly small government", specifically, 1929, when her father lost his job.  "We can do with a lot less government," she concludes, "but only if we are willing to go backward."  Read the whole letter. It's on Page 3

The Underling, by Ian McKercher

A review of The Underling, by Ian McKercher
Reviewed by Ruth Latta

Some novels bring to life a little known part of history. Others are memorable for their engaging central characters. Others offer humour, intrigue and suspense. Occasionally, a novel like Ian McKercher's
 The Underling, combines all of these features. (The Underling is published by General Store, Renfrew On, 2012, ISBN 978-926962-41-2).

McKercher, retired from Glebe Collegiate's English department, has written a novel that is conventional in form but full of surprises. One surprise is that his protagonist is a seventeen year old girl. As the novel opens in 1934, Frances McFadden, a secretarial student at Ottawa's High School of Commerce, has been asked by Prime Minister Bennett to establish a research bureau/archives of Canadian banking and business information in advance of the establishing of a central bank, so that the governor will have background resources on hand immediately upon his appointment.  Legislation to charter a Bank of Canada is before Parliament. In setting up this preliminary office, Mr. Grace needs an assistant with good skills but no previous work experience to "unlearn."

McKercher, who grew up in London, Ontario, based Frances, to some extent, upon his mother. Her stories about her days as a young employee made it clear that those who head organizations are not always the ones really running the show. An underling, working behind the scenes, often has a great deal of influence and contributes to the success of the enterprise in creative ways.

"The Market crash took [Frances's] family under," writes McKercher, who captures his heroine's circumstances and social status with well-chosen detail. Interiewed by Mr. Grace over lunch at the Chateau Laurier Hotel, Frances encounters an avocado. She has never seen one before but she recognizes it from a picture in a Ladies' Home Journal. Later, to refurbish her wardrobe in advance of starting work, Frances buys knee socks to match her skirts. Soon Mr. Grace gently suggests some new outfits "to make her look older."

While her boss is away on Bank business, Frances sets up their office, with amusing adventures. Later, she accompanies Mr. Grace to Toronto to meet luminaries of the business and finance worlds, to convince them of the need for the Bank of Canada. In response to their fear that a central bank will interfere with a free market economy, Mr. Grace replies, "Who is happy with the way the market is functioning now?"

The Bank of Canada came into being in March 1935. Thanks to the secretarial grapevine, Frances hears before her boss does that its first governor will be Graham Towers. Mr. Towers and other real people mingle with fictional ones in this novel. Fictional Frances has close encounters with two very real prime ministers.

Much of the novel is about getting things accomplished in a system with many fiefdoms and hierarchies. George Orwell, who once said that too few authors write about work, would applaud McKercher for recreating a work environment of the past. One significant difference between the 1930s and the present is shown when a young woman asks if she can keep her job after she gets married. She is permitted to do so - but only for the time it takes to train her replacement.

As 1939 brings the Dirty Thirties to an end, war clouds gather. Can Polish gold reserves be saved from the Nazis? Yes, and Frances plays a pivotal role. She sums up the novel when she says, "This trip has been frightening and exhausting and exhilarating and intriguing, all rolled into one. Pretty heady stuff for a girl from Rochester Street." 

A friend of mine, who died a few years ago in her nineties, started work as a secretary during the Great Depression and went on to a fascinating career with an international organization.  The Underling  implicitly pays tribute to the achievements of women like her.

poem published

Last week I received a copy of an anthology with one of my poems in it. Getting published is always a good thing, if for no other reason than that you get to mention your latest novel in your bio note. My poem  is a sonnet. While I don't necessarily agree with the illustrious Robert Frost, who said that writing poetry without rhyme and meter was like playing tennis without a net, I do take a certain pleasure in the technical achievement.

The only thing is, I don't think I can brag about this publication. If I tell people my most recent item in print is a poem titled "No" in the anthology, As One One Cradles Pain, I will undoubtedly get some odd reactions.  Will anyone rush out and buy the anthology?  I'm not counting on it.