The River Twice by John Bemrose
“The flag was a mistake, Miriam announced to her mother, though she was hard put to say why it bothered her so much. What, after all, did she know?”
Miriam is the daughter of Ada and the wife of Ted and the sister of Grace , all of whom figure prominently in Bemrose's tale of a town in Ontario during World War One, where the wounded are returning from the European battlefields and the lists of the dead has grown longer each day.
The flag referenced by Miriam is the old Red Ensign, which of course was replaced in 1965 by our current banner sporting the traditional red and white colours and the iconic maple leaf symbol. Miriam's mother wanted to hoist it in honour of Ted's return from what was once jokingly referred to as the war to end all wars. Fact is, the Red Ensign was our de facto national flag while the official one was the Union Jack of the United Kingdom. Miriam returned to the hall closet, its usual resting place until its resurrection come Dominion Day. Dominion Day? That's what we had before Canada Day came into being.
Ted Whitfield returned to his wife and home town wounded in both body and spirit. The novel takes us back and forth from the battlefields to the Canada of more than a century ago.
The River Twice by John Bemrose is from Thistledown Press in Saskatoon, which is interesting because Bemrose was born and raised in Ontario and currently lives in Toronto but he had to reach out to Saskatchewan to find a publisher for this, his third novel.
Thistledown Press can be reached at www.thistledownpress.com .
Norman's Conquest by Don Butler
“Christ on a bicycle.” Norman Pugsley hissed the words through clenched teeth. The dull ache in his chest was getting worse and there was no one to complain to about it. The white haired Greek man who shared his hospital room and snoring lustily in a nearby bed, deep in the grip of post-operative sedatives.”
Poor ol' Norm can't catch a break. He is the grizzled (aren't they all?) managing director of the fictitious Ottawa newspaper known as The Daily Advocate, which we first encountered in Butler's debut novel A Life Of Bliss.
In that book, the titular character is Bliss Browning, who is the shy travel editor of the Advocate. He has a life long fascination with opera in general and famed soprano Maria Callas in particular, and one day woke up decide he simply MUST travel to Greece, where Callas received her musical education. He did, and promptly vanished.
Now, Pugsley is in Greece searching for Browning. Norm didn't want to go, but his overlords at the newspaper gave him his orders, and off he went. Once there, he suffers a heart attack, which is followed by visits from Pierre Trudeau, spirit bears, travels to the lakes of Canada's oldest provincial park (you can look it up), and the possible solution to an ancient mystery.
As seems to be the case with plenty of Canada's baby-boom authors, Butler is a newspaper veteran, having served for over four decades with the Ottawa Citizen, which included six years as the publication's executive editor. He and Christina Spencer live in the Ottawa area.
Norman's Conquest came out in May of 2024, following A Life Of Bliss in 2021. Butler has been quoted as saying, “If all goes well, there may be a third.” Ottawa Press and Publishing is his publisher. Norman's Conquest has a cover price of $24.95.
Standing At The Back Door Of Happiness (And How I Unlocked It) by David Roche
“I was born with a vascular malformation. The veins in the left side of my face, head, neck, throat, and tongue have grown and grown throughout my life. My lower lip was removed at the Mayo Clinic in 1945 when I was fifteen months old.”
Roche himself will be the first one to admit he ain't the best looking guy on this planet, but he sees his facial malformations as a gift that guides him to look inward for beauty and self-worth. This is always a huge task for the best of us, but if you are also never going to be mistaken for Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt, the undertaking would seem especially onerous.
Born in Hammond, Indiana, into what he calls a “ strictly Catholic” family, Roche is one of seven siblings and at the time of his birth his father was in the wartime prison camp known as Stalag 17. He spent four years as a student in a Roman Catholic seminary and later obtained his BA in philosophy from St. Joseph's College in ( appropriately enough ) Collegeville, Indiana.
In this honest and revealing self-portrait, Roche muses on disability, activism, religion, and family. He is now an author, motivational speaker, and resident of Roberts Creek, B.C., but earlier he reports he weighed “115 pounds, smoked two packs of Kents a day ( they were low tar, you know ) and drank up to a pint of Royal Gate lemon flavoured vodka every day. I wasn't alcoholic because I only drank at night.”
The book tells us all about his transformation from following a strict doctrine to a more meaningful way of life. In fact, there's so much more to the author's story that you'll have to pick up the book, from Harbour Publishing at $22.95, and read it all for yourself. And be sure to visit him on line ( www.davidroche.com ) to learn about his Church of 80 percent Sincerity.
Fun Fact
Here's a fun fact in closing: the book mark I used when reading my copy of Standing at the Back Door is a ticket stub from a performance of the internationally famous musical comedy hit we have come to know and appreciate as Oh! Calcutta! From June 5 of 1979, at the Edison Theatre on West 47th Street (Broadway and 8th Avenue ) in New York City. The price was twelve dollars US. Thank you and may all the good news be yours.
