Is it too late for a new year’s resolution? I didn’t come up with anything until last week. Before then, my mind had been otherwise occupied. Mostly with snot. I had that interminable head cold that’s been going around. Then there was a trip to Victoria, BC to visit a new niece. Whenever I’m in Victoria, I do the rounds to various places of worship. First, there’s Munro’s Books. I didn’t buy anything there but I thought I should pay my respects to a store that bears the name of Canada’s first and (so far) only Nobel laureate for literature. Then there’s Russell Books which is arguably the best used book store in the country. Finally, there’s Renaissance Books in Bastion Square, my personal favourite for rare and used books. It was somewhere between the shelves of Renaissance Books that I came up with my new year’s resolution.
The last time I was in Renaissance Books (two years ago) I found four early books by BC native, Brian Fawcett:
– The Opening (New Star Books, 1974)
– Creatures of State (Talonbooks, 1977)
– Tristram’s Book (Capilano Review No. 19, 1981)
– Aggressive Transport (Talonbooks, 1982)
I’m not sure how writers feel about readers who read them chronologically backwards and end up mucking around in their early work. I hope my interest doesn’t creep out Mr. Fawcett. I hope he receives it as enthusiasm rather than as stalking.
My first encounter with his writing was his 1994 novel, Gender Wars. Among other things, I love the way he played with split text, layout, font, and font colour to challenge the reader to read better or deeper or whatever. Next I found a copy of Unusual Circumstances, Interesting Times and Other Impolite Interventions, 1991, a collection of essays which I’ve mentioned here. Then there was Cambodia: A Book For People Who Find Television Too Slow, 1986 which I have blogged about here. And there’s his 2011 memoir, Human Happiness which includes a reflection on oral sex in retirement homes.
This time around, I went straight to the (co)owner of Renaissance Books and asked: “Hey, you got any books by Brian Fawcett?” He said that, yeah, they’d just repatriated a bunch of books from Berkeley, stuff by Irving Layton, Gwendolyn MacEwen, Al Purdy and … Brian Fawcett. Then he smiled and pointed to a photo of Brian Fawcett clipped from a newspaper article and pinned to a board beside the counter: “People think it’s me.” In fact, I had assumed it was a picture of him (the (co)owner). Or maybe (I thought) Brain Fawcett owns Renaissance Books and he’s pretending to not be Brian Fawcett when he sells me books by Brian Fawcett. Wait, that’s stupid. That’s the kind of thinking a conspiracy theorist would come up with.
The (co)owner found four books and I bought them all. The most egregiously early (and therefore voyeuristic) purchase is Friends. In the back, it says “400 copies printed July, 1971 at York Street Commune” and is signed “with love, Brian”. I’m not sure about the “with love” part, but whatever turns his crank. It’s a stapled collection of photocopies of 8 ½ x 11 typewritten sheets and a very cool photo on the cover. The other books are:
– Permanent Relationships (Coach House Press, 1975)
– The Secret Journal of Alexander MacKenzie (Talonbooks, 1985)
– Public Eye: An Investigation Into the Disappearance of the World (HarperCollins, 1990)
Since returning home, I’ve also bought The Last of the Lumberman (Cormorant, 2013). By my estimation, that leaves me with seven more of his books to hunt down.
So here’s the resolution: to find them all, read them all, blog about them all, and then, when I’m done, to throw together some kind of summation/reflection on why I like Brian Fawcett’s writing, why you might want to invite him into your head.
Have a good 2014. Read often. Read well.