When Michael Posner began his oral biography of Mordecai Richler, his plan was to assemble a collection of entertaining anecdotes about the legendary Montreal writer, but soon realized that psychological insights about Richler would produce a more revealing portrait. “When I began to do the interviews, I thought, ‘This could be more than just anecdotes,…
Tag: Montreal
Leonard Cohen bio
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It seems so long ago that Leonard Cohen, the gravelly-voiced songwriter-poet from Westmount, first won international acclaim with compelling songs like Suzanne and So Long, Marianne, at once deeply romantic and mystical. With ten books of poetry, two novels and a dozen albums to his credit, and three more tribute albums of his songs in…
Morgentaler: a ‘difficult hero’
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As Catherine Dunphy was in the early stages of researching her newly-published biography Morgantaler: A Difficult Hero, Canada’s well-known abortion crusader asked her over lunch if she would like to “witness a procedure.” A short time later, Dunphy was chatting at Morgantaler’s Toronto clinic with a stripper named Dominique, eleven weeks pregnant, as the doctor…
Delisle exposes tradition of anti-semitism in Quebec
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Three years after her controversial book The Traitor and the Jew exposed anti-semitic and Nazi-sympathizing sentiments in Depression-era Quebec, Esther Delisle is working on a second book, this one about an underground “pipeline” that enabled French Nazi collaborators and war criminals to escape to French Canada after World War II. “I’m looking at the Canadian…
