Selling The Unfulfilled

A dry study in international relations? I thought so when I unearthed this book last month. After all, author W.G. Hardy was a professor – at the University of Alberta, no less. And just look at the thing. The flap copy informs, but does not inspire:

What do Canadians really think about Americans? An outstanding Canadian novelist here shows the full impact of the United States upon her nextdoor [sic] neighbor [sic] across the famous "undefended border" – and upon the consciousness of the free world. In a compelling novel, Dr. Hardy has done for the character of Canada and the Canadian what no other Canadian or American novelist has done so effectively.

Image and cover copy come from the 1951 McClelland and Stewart first edition. The first American edition, published the following year by Appleton-Century-Crofts, uses the very same cover and spelling.

The paperback houses knew better how to sell a book. Here's the first paper edition, from Harlequin:

No mention of "the character of Canada", nothing about "the consciousness of the free world", the young publisher sells sin – more than one, apparently.

The American paperback, published in 1952 by Popular Library, is hotter still. Odd, adultery isn't even mentioned in the hardcover flap copy. An "Abridged edition", it's rid of dead wood, but still fails to satisfy.

Related posts:

Selling The Strange One

Selling The Nymph and the Lamp

Ontario Gothic Romance (with the scent of Brut)

Satan's Bell

Joy Carroll

Markham, ON: Pocket Books, 1976

190 pages

This review now appears, revised and rewritten, in my new book:

The Dusty Bookcase:

A Journey Through Canada's

Forgotten, Neglected, and Suppressed Writing

Available at the very best bookstores and through

Biblioasis, Amazon, Chapters/Indigo, and McNally-Robinson.

Bottoms Up, Shy Photographer

Reading The Queers of New York a couple of weeks ago got me thinking about Jock Carroll, under whose editorial direction the book was published. A fine photographer, but not much of an editor, he's at least partly to blame for the novel's failings. Truth be told, Carroll wasn't much of a writer either, though he did have a number of titles to his credit. The first edition of Bottoms Up (1961) is the most sought-after, but only because it was published by the infamous Olympia Press. Carroll's only novel, it is perhaps the blandest piece of writing Maurice Girodias ever passed off as "erotica".

It's a wonder that Bottoms Up thing ever made it into print – that it was republished seems not improbable, but impossible. And yet, for more than a decade the novel was available in one form or another. There were at least thirteen editions, published in six counties, making Bottoms Up one of Canada's all-time best selling novels. Carroll once boasted that it had moved close one million copies. The editions below go some way in backing up his claim.

Bitte recht scharf

Bremen: Schünemann Verlag, 1963

Not only the first translation, but the first hardcover edition in any language. The German was followed by Italian (Il Fotografo Timido, 1967) and Danish (Den blufærdige fotograf, 1969) translations.

The Shy Photographer

New York: Stein & Day, 1964

Retitled, Carroll's novel kicked off Stein & Day's "Olympia Press Series". Short-lived, ill-fated, the series actually began and ended with The Shy Photographer. The cover was also used on the first British edition, published in 1964 by Macgibbon & Kee.

The Shy Photographer

New York: Bantam, 1965

The first and only legal American paperback edition. "Candy with a camera!" exclaims, um... whoever wrote the cover copy, I guess.

The Shy Photographer

London: Panther, 1965

"The novel that's loaded with heaven-ly nudes". Not true.

The image was also used for the 1970 German paperback edition.

Bottoms Up

Covina, CA: Collectors Publications, 1967

A pirated edition produced by the notorious Marvin Miller. "FIRST AMERICAN PRINTING" is the claim. Again, not true.

The Shy Photographer

London: Panther, 1967

A droog takes a photograph. Whoever designed the second Panther edition seems to have been intent on representing both titles.

Wholly unappealing. And is not superimposing the author's name across some guy's ass just a tad insulting?

Il Fotografo Timido

Collana: Longanesi, 1970

The first Italian paperback edition recycles the hardcover image (which was in turn borrowed from the Bantam paperback). Of all the translations, the Italian is by far the most common.

Il Fotografo Timido

Collana: Longanesi, 1972.

A later Italian edition, the last in any language, continues the tradition of misrepresentation. Protagonist Arthur King does not become a photographer for Playboy, and at no point does he don a pair of purple panties.

There has never been a Canadian edition.

Related post:

Canada's Olympians (Part IV)

My Career as a Teenage Rock Photographer

From the archives, these handbills and related photographs from my aborted career as a concert photographer. I never was serious and asked for no special favours. In fact, these were all taken using an old 35mm Canon (with broken light meter) that was smuggled into each show in a friend's purse.

Gang of Four's Jon King at Montreal's Beer Garden, 4 July 1981. thirty years ago today. I've since seen the band three more times, but have never once heard them play "5:45", my favourite of all their songs.

Dave Allen, Hugo Burnham and Andy Gill. It's my understanding that this was the last time Allen played with the band until the 2005 reunion. Here it looks like he's packing up:

Durutti Column with American Devices. Véhicule Art, Montreal. 2 April 1982. With an audience of twenty or so, it was much harder to go unnoticed at this show. Still, no one seemed to mind. Damn that light meter.

The great Vini Reilly.

Montreal was their first ever Canadian gig, squeezed between New York and Toronto on a three-date North American tour. They've never been back – no return of the Durutti Column.

Sorry.

A bootleg recording of the Véhicule Art show is out there under the title dcmtl 1982. It includes this, for three decades my favourite Reilly composition:

Two Hurrahs for the New Dominion

Two poems in celebration of Canada Day, both titled "Hurrah for the New Dominion", both by Scottish immigrants. The first, penned by Alexander McLachlan, comes from his Poems and Songs (Rose, 1888):

McLachlan's verse was later included in Selections from Scottish Canadian Poets; Being a Collection of the Best Poetry Written by Scotsmen and Their Descendants (Rose, 1900), in which we also find this somewhat disturbing photograph of George Pirie.

Considered "one of the ablest writers in Canada" by Prime Minister Alexander Mackenzie, a foe, on 1 July 1867 Pirie was editor of the Guelph Herald. His "Hurrah for the New Dominion" is, I think, a bit more fun:

Hurrah for the New Dominion!
'Tis founded on public opinion;
Mid the blessings of peace
May the nation increase,
Till the twin oceans bound the Dominion.

Sadly, Pirie didn't live to see the young country reach the Pacific Ocean; he died in July 1870, just one year before British Columbia joined Confederation.

A happy Canada Day to all!

Related post: Roberts' Dominion Day Collect