29 September 2011

Where is Catherine Deneuve?



The Shrewsdale Exit
John Buell
New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1972

Read the book, see the movie. Always thought that was the way to do it, so I have only myself to blame for spoiling The Shrewsdale Exit. Buell's third novel, it begins blandly – intentionally so, I think – with a family vacation:
They ordered sandwiches and beer, a Coke for the little girl, and were served in good time. They weren't in a hurry. They were going to the coast, to work their way along the ocean, camping where possible and staying in boarding houses when necessary. They talked as they ate, and in a short time they were about finished.
Within an hour – it could be two – mother and daughter are raped and murdered by a motorcycle gang. The father is left for dead, but is really only knocked out. Things move quickly in this novel; six weeks follow, during which the man buys a gun, plugs the thugs, is sent to prison and escapes into a world of pastoral beauty.

I'm spoiling things here, but not nearly as much as my reading experience was spoiled by the 1975 movie adaptation, L'agression, posted on YouTube:



Jean-Patrick Manchette's screenplay moves the action from somewhere (but not anywhere) in the United States to southern France. Buell's unwashed, wild bikers appear as efficient, faceless contract killers – characters in conspiracy. Jean-Louis Trintignant is cast as the vengeful husband and father, playing opposite Catherine Deneuve, who brings beauty and talent to the role of Sarah.

Sarah?

Sarah is not in the Buell's novel. In fact, not a word or action from la déesse de l'amour features in the book. Silly me, turning the pages I kept expecting her to appear.

I'm placing too much blame on the film. The Shrewsdale Exit is a weak novel with a strong start; the shift from the mundane to the violent is jarring, horrific and uncomfortably real. But when our hero enters prison plausibility passes, and the sure hand that wrote The Pyx and Four Days becomes shaky. In the third act, it brings us as close as I ever want to get to a Jeanette Oke farm. It's no coincidence that L'agression draws on the beginning, and only the beginning. But don't see the movie, read the book... the first 166 pages, at least.

Trivia: The L'agression soundtrack was written, in part, by Robert Charlebois (who also plays a biker). I offer this brief sample:



The very music that made the Sex Pistols seem so very attractive.

Object: A hardcover with green cloth boards with a bland dust jacket by Larry Ratzkin. The English Angus & Robertson first edition cover image trades the green road sign for blue, but is otherwise identical.

Access: The Farrar, Straus & Giroux and Angus & Robertson editions received no second printings, though there were a couple of subsequent editions in mass market paperback: Pocket (1973), Carroll & Graf (1984). I've yet to find evidence that it was included in the 1991 HarperCollins Canada trade paper reissues of Buell's novels. Canadian library users are encouraged to visit their university libraries. As far as public libraries go, only that serving the suffering residents of Toronto satisfies. As always – well, nearly always – Library and Archives Canada fails.

19 September 2011

Ronald J. Cooke, No Blockhead



A final follow-up to last week's post on The Mayor of Côte St. Paul. Promise.

Cover copy describes Ronald J. Cooke as "one of Canada's most popular writers of realistic fiction". Don't you believe it. The man never wrote anything that could be considered "realistic fiction". And, let's be honest, he was never popular. Like The House on Craig Street, his first novel, The Mayor of Côte St. Paul was a paperback original – and, like his first novel, it was printed only once in this country. Readers were left hanging nearly three decades before they saw The House on Dorchester Street, the third (and final) Ronald J. Cooke novel. Who published this much-anticipated work? A vanity press located in Cornwall, Ontario.

While I expect that Cooke sold at least a few short stories in his time, I've come across only one: "Beginner's Luck", which was appeared in the August 1950 edition of Atlantic Guardian:


The wordsmith wrote several pieces for this self-described "Magazine of Newfoundland", most having to do with those who'd achieved success far from its shores. Makes sense – owned by a Montreal company, Atlantic Guardian was run out of offices on Toronto's Bay Street. The July 1950 issue, which would have hit news stands at about the same time as The Mayor of Côte St. Paul, contains an all too clever little piece on Cooke by Associate Editor Brian Cahill.*

That lady with the gams and the megaphone is Canada's Sweetheart Barbara Ann Scott, by the way.

Never mind, here's Cahill:


An inside joke certain to send subscribers scratching their heads, it's based on the idea that Cooke was well on his way in book-writin'. And why not? The House on Craig Street was published in 1949, The Mayor of Côte St. Paul followed in 1950. However, eight years passed before the next Cooke book – a tale for children titled Algonquin Adventure (Ryerson, 1958). An even larger gap followed, only to be broken in 1979 by How to Write & Sell Travel Articles. A self-published guide, at 29 pages it's not quite right to describe it as a book... more a booklet. Others came in rapid succession, all emerging from Cooke's basement in suburban Montreal. My favourite is the suggestively titled 20 Ways to Make Big Money with Your Camera, but most deal with making big bucks through writing: Tips for the Beginner in Self-Publishing & Mail Order! (1980), How to Write & Sell Short Articles (1981), Tips on Writing and Selling Romance Novels (1985), How to Publish & Promote Your Own Writing (1986), Here's How to Write and Sell Features & Fillers to Newspapers and Syndicate Your Own Work, Too (1986), and Self-Publishing and Mail Order Made Easy (1988).

Dave Manley would approve.

* A subject of personal interest, Brian Cahill may or may not have been married to journalist Marion McCormick (even her children aren't sure) the second wife of John Glassco.

Related posts:

16 September 2011

Write Short Stories the Dave Manley Way!



A follow-up to Tuesday's post on The Mayor of Côte St. Paul.

A friend asks why Dave "proudly" shows Cherie his stacks of rejected manuscripts. "Shouldn't he be embarrassed?" Not at all. Dave knows that he needs just one breakout story before the rest will sell – valuable info gleaned from a lecture by "the great novelist" Robert Patterson:
Paterson had explained how he'd written nine books – had them all rejected. Then wrote the tenth and had it accepted with much horn-blowing. Then he had promptly retired and merely doled out his rejects at the rate of two a year. All of which were accepted and made money.
"Those stories are like money in the bank", Dave tells his girl. And so, he keeps at it, churning out two each and every week. Dave shares his method with Cherie:
"I regard a story like a game of cards – poker for example. Only in writing a story you have all the cards in your hand before you start. You can make up your own hands. The beginning is probably the most important. Writers call it the narrative hook. Introduce a character and then place him in a difficult position, sort of a tough spot. After that the writer is just as anxious as the reader to see what happens, to see if he can get out of the jam and lick the problem. The characters usually take control and the writer just writes whatever the characters suggest. I guess that's about all there is to it."
We're later treated to a scene in which we witness Dave in action. It begins with my very favourite sentence from the novel:
"I wonder if there's any mail?" wondered Dave. He started to rise from his chair, then he sat back. "I'm just looking for excuses," he cried. "Why the devil is it that writers will search for any excuse to keep from writing. We put it off till the last possible minute, but once we do get started there's no stopping us. Ideas! Ideas! That's what I need!" He glanced around the room to see if he could spot anything which would act as a starter. He wanted to do a short detective story for the Weekly Advocate. The editor had said he was interested. The rate was only $25, but he'd get more kick out of getting $25 than from $250 from run-running.
He shivered in the cold grayness of the room and started tapping the typewriter keys idly. His gaze fell on the camera on the bureau and without thinking he typed a line, "The Clue of the Missing Camera."
Then he started typing, at first slowly, then with a steady staccato as his ideas took shape. He finished the first paragraph and then read it, "Mark Graydon removed one gloved hand from the wheel of the car and patted the small German camera in his pocket – he had the evidence – nice and clean as you please. His fat, beefy face broke into a smile. He glanced out at the foggy shoreline where a twinkle of lights marked the outline of the village. Lightning racked the sky and pelts of rain as sharp as bullets whipped against the windshield, suddenly..."
Dave continued his story. Impervious of the darkening room, and the increasing coldness of his surroundings.
The Mayor of Côte St. Paul ends before Dave has a chance to send out "The Clue of the Missing Camera", so we never know whether it's his breakout story. Somehow, I doubt it.


Related posts: