The Canada Post20 April 2010

Cover to CoverCMYK

The ImperfectionistsTom RachmanQuercus Books£12.99

RARE is a voice as original asTom Rachmanʼs. So comicand so keenly observed is hisfirst novel that his publisherhas printed it in ten countries!The Imperfectionists is thestory of an English-languagenewspaper, founded in Romein the early 1950s, its fortunesand its unforgettable cast ofcharacters.

Born in London, raised in Vancouver and shooled at theUniversity of Toronto and the Columbia School ofJournalism, Rachman has been a correspondent for theAssociated Press stationed in Rome and worked as aneditor from 2006 to 2008 at the International HeraldTribune, providing him with a goldmine of experienceused here with splendid results.

His fictional newspaperʼs history is related through thestories of a dozen or so of the personalities who populatethe newsroom – expats, Americans mainly but alsoCanadians and Australians – intercut by brief itemsbetween chapters relating pivotal moments in its ongoingdevelopment.

Founded by a rich American who thought it was a goodidea, fast forward to today and the newspaper is strug-gling to survive. Enter Lloyd, a once successful and multi-married reporter now past his sell-by date and workingdesperately to sell a story – any story – to the paperʼshard-bitten editor Kathleen. This while trying to patch uphis disconnected relationship with his son Jerome.

Next up is Arthur, the obituary editor, assigned to visit aonce famous Austrian writer and one of Kathleenʼs literaryicons nearing death from lung cancer in Geneva.

“How entertaining it would be to know how Iʼll beremembered,” Gerda tells him. “The single article Iʼd mostlike to read is the one I never can! Ah, well.” She weighsthe cigarette pack in her hand. “People must grow terriblyupset when you turn up with your notepad. No? Like theundertaker arriving to measure the dowager.”

Then thereʼs Winston Cheung whoʼs auditioning for thejob as the paperʼs stringer in Cairo, only to find himselfhilarious sabotaged by a character youʼll never forget –Rich Snyder, a gonzo leech who preys on Cheung toadvance his own mendacious career.

“You been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize?” Winstonasks Snyder, impressed.

“Suggested,” Snyder specifies. “Suggested for one.What pisses me off is that the international communityrefuses to act. Itʼs like nobody cares about Gypsy AIDSbabies. In terms of the Pulitzer.”

He points to his carry-on bag. “You mind lugging that tothe car? Iʼve got serious veterbrae issues. Cheers.”

Snyder then asks Cheung his age. Twenty-four, comesthe reply.

“Little baby,” Snyder sneers. “When I was your age,where was I? In Cambodia reporting on the Killing Fields?Or with the rebels in Zaire? I forget. Whatever. Get thecab door? My back is a total mess. Appreciate that.”

Snyder stretches across the backseat of the taxi.“Dude,” he declares. “Letʼs commit some journalism.”

The results of which are never revealed as Snyder pro-ceeds to rifle Cheung of everything he needs to live andwork, including his flat and laptop computer, before disap-pearing for days of unexplained mayhem.

And so it goes. Vignettes packed with poignant insightsand laugh out loud dialogue, the reader is left amazedand delighted by this new author whose prose is reminis-cent of Perlman and Vonnegut yet wholly and wonderfullyhis own. Buy this book! Paula Adamick

Marshall McLuhanDouglas CouplandPenguin Canada$26

KNOWN for the catch phrase“The Medium is the Message”iconic educator and mediaguru Marshall McLuhan wasborn in Edmonton, Alberta, in1911 and died in 1980. This is not the first McLuhanbiography but it is the onlyone written so far by a truestudent of the “message”. In a brisk 250 pages,

Vancouver-based Douglas Coupland delves not only intothe historical circumstances of McLuhanʼs accomplishedlife but also into his personal traits, the factors that influ-enced his intellectual development and even theories onhow his brain may have been “wired”.

McLuhanʼs early education in Winnipeg was followed bypostgraduate studies at Cambridge where his instructorsincluded I.A. Richards and F.R. Leavis, then emergingleaders in the school of “new criticism” which held that thewords on a page were what counted, not the authorʼsintentions.

This, says Coupland, was the trigger that fired Marshallto study the real world with the same sort of lens used toview the literary world. Having married and finished hisstudies in England, McLuhan returned to North America toteach at St. Louis University in Missouri, AssumptionCollege in Windsor, Ontario, finally ending at the Universityof Torontoʼs St. Michaelʼs College in 1946.

It was here that McLuhan rubbed shoulders with scholarsand confidants such as Fr Louis Bondy (who hired him)Etienne Gilson, George Grant and Glenn Gould.

Meanwhile, in another turret of that ivory tower residedvociferous enemies Northrop Fry, A.S.P. Woodhouse andmost of the English faculty who considered him a nutbar.

In 1937, the Protestant-raised McLuhan was receivedinto the Catholic Church, an event that devastated hisdomineering mother, Elsie, who insisted it would hinder hiscareer. Nevertheless, Marshall maintained that his newfaith provided him with the tradition, intellectual rigour andliturgy that helped him shape his world view. At Cambridgehe had been an admirer of G.K. Chesterton, anotherCatholic convert with whom he shared his world view evendown to his love of puns and aphorisms.

As Coupland observes of Marshallʼs new hardcore faith:“Above all, he believed that because God made the world itmust, in the end, be comprehensible, and that a sense ofthe divine could lead to an understanding of the mundane.”

Still, McLuhanʼs written work was often seen as denseand convoluted. Yet despite his often prickly personality andimpatience with slower minds, he foresaw fifty years agonot only the “global village” but what he called “electronicinterdependence” overtaking the print culture: “A computeras a research and communication instrument couldenhance retrieval, obsolesce mass library organization,retrieve the individualʼs encyclopedic function and flip it intoa private line to speedily tailored data of a saleable kind.”

All that seems obvious today but McLuhan wrote that in1962 when the punch card was the computing standard.Whatʼs intriguing, as Coupland points out, is that he cameto these insights not by studying IBM or NASA but arcane16th century pamphleteers and Renaissance and classicalwriters. McLuhan was also better at engaging an audiencethan writing about his media theories. Maybe thatʼs why helanded a cameo role in Woody Allenʼs film Annie Hall.

Quotes from Marshall abound throughout this book, usu-ally opening the roughly delineated chapters. Hereʼs one:“Most of our assumptions have outlived their uselessness.”

A lively and entertainingly quirky book, the choice ofthe visual artist, writer and sculptor Douglas Coupland to

write this bio and interpret McLuhanʼs scholarship isimmediately obvious since Coupland could easily beMcLuhanʼs contemporary or intellectual heir, right downto his family upbringing.

And numerous references to Couplandʼs own work rein-force his connection to McLuhanʼs theories. As anyonewith a Blackberry can attest: “The Medium is theMassage.” Marshall would grin and heartily approve.

Jerry Todd-Jenkins

Out from UnderDawn StefanowiczAnnotation Press$15.95

DAWN Stefanowiczʼs fatherwas a sexually hyperactivegay man who remainedmarried to her mother untilDawn was well into herteenage years. His private life, which fea-tured countless partnersand at least two suicides,had an enormous and last-ing impact on her and onher two brothers.

This is her story, told simply, evocatively, and unforgettably.

It also contains a foreword and afterword by threephysicians, including forensic psychiatrist Dr. JohnRaney. “In an imperfect world, one would expect to seesome problems to most households, regardless ofwhether the parents are involved in same-, or opposite-sex relationships,” Dr Raney writes. “Unfortunately, thereare those who, with misguided political correctness,would like to silence any description of problems amongthose with homosexual relationships.”

What comes through her harrowing story, sensitivelyedited by Herman Goodden, is the apparent banality ofher familyʼs day-to-day life in Toronto while, at the sametime, catastrophic psychological damage was beinginflicted. And yet no one seemed to notice. Dawn couldhave been your next door neighbour.

“The purpose of writing this book is to deliver an open,honest, and balanced account of what it was like growingup with a homosexual father and a weak, subservientmother,” she writes. “As a child, I struggled to deal withall the vivid and explicit sexual experiences, conflicts,and confusion I faced within this family setting.”

While researching her manuscript, Dawn also cameacross individuals who shared publicly aspects of theirpersonal stories of growing up with a same-sex attractedparent, and the difficulties that arose for them in thatenvironment.

Her work and her distressing account leave it painfullyobvious that her sufferings went far beyond the usualexperiences and expectations of youngsters in apparent-ly normal homes. But it is also a testimony to the amaz-ing resilience of the human spirit that not only does shestill love her father, who died of AIDS in 1991, and hermother, who died a decade later, but also had the forti-tude to write this book.

And to present a brief to the Canadian SenateCommittee as they deliberated on adding sexual orienta-tion as a protective category under hate crime legislation.

“Most are aware of the judicial and legislative atemptsto redefine marriage as an institution unrelated to chil-dren,” concludes Dr. Michelle Cretella of the AmericanCollege of Pediatricians in the endorsements.

“This is why the message from Out from Under is socritical now. May society heed Dawnʼs courageous testi-mony and spare other innocents the suffering she andher siblings sustained. We must refuse to sacrifice ourchildren on the altar of diversity.” PA