Arrival: The Story of CanLit by Nick Mount (English) Paperback Book

Arrival

by Nick Mount

"The most important book to be written in more than 40 years about the rise of Canadian literature . . . Arrival: The Story of CanLit brims and crackles, in equal measure, with information and energy." -- Winnipeg Free Press

FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New

Publisher Description

"The most important book to be written in more than 40 years about the rise of Canadian literature… Arrival: The Story of CanLit brims and crackles, in equal measure, with information and energy." — Winnipeg Free PressA Globe and Mail Top 100 Book
National Post 99 Best Books of the YearIn the mid-twentieth century, Canadian literature transformed from a largely ignored trickle of books into an enormous cultural phenomenon that produced Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Michael Ondaatje, Mordecai Richler, and so many others. In Arrival, acclaimed writer and critic Nick Mount answers the question: What caused the CanLit Boom?Written with wit and panache, Arrival tells the story of Canada's literary awakening. Interwoven with Mount's vivid tale are enlightening mini-biographies of the people who made it happen, from superstars Leonard Cohen and Marie-Claire Blais to lesser-known lights like the troubled and impassioned Harold Sonny Ladoo. The full range of Canada's literary boom is here: the underground exploits of the blew ointment and Tish gangs; revolutionary critical forays by highbrow academics; the blunt-force trauma of our plain-spoken backwoods poetry; and the urgent political writing that erupted from the turmoil in Quebec.Originally published to coincide with the 150th anniversary of Canadian Confederation, Arrival is a dazzling, variegated, and inspired piece of writing that helps explain how we got from there to here.

Author Biography

NICK MOUNT is a professor of English literature at the University of Toronto and an award-winning critic. He regularly gives public talks on the arts in Canada, and has appeared on TVO's Big Ideas and CBC Radio's Sunday Edition. In 2011, he was awarded a 3M National Teaching Fellowship, the country's highest teaching award. He lives in Toronto.

Review

Arrival: The Story of CanLit is a fine gathering together of so many people — critics, publishers and, of course, writers — to explore and explain the eruption that took place in the 1960s and early 70s in our culture. . . . A kaleidoscope of fascinating people who shaped our country's growth into a literature respected around the world. * Globe and Mail *
[A] quick and genuinely informative read, even for those who think they know the story [of CanLit] well. * Toronto Star *
[Arrival offers] a vivid sense of the times. . . . Hats off to Arrival for its engaging coverage of a pivotal period in Canadian letters. * Literary Review of Canada *
Arrival: The Story of CanLit . . . transform[s] our literature into a hothouse of eye-catching personalities. . . . Not only is Mount's prose readable, but he has a Malcolm Gladwell–esque flair for mining history for little-known anecdotes. * The Walrus *
There's passion in these pages that's infectious to read . . . Arrival is Mount's second book and, in many ways, he's the only one who could possibly have written it. By turns professor, editor, advocate and critic, Mount's voice is rarely absent from any meaningful discussion of Canadian literature. * National Post *
The most important book to be written in more than 40 years about the rise of Canadian literature … Arrival: The Story of CanLit brims and crackles, in equal measure, with information and energy. * Winnipeg Free Press *

Promotional

REVIEW COPIES:

• Publishers Weekly
• Booklist
• Kirkus Reviews

REVIEW COPIES:

• Publishers Weekly
• School Library Journal
• Booklist
• Kirkus Reviews
• Horn Book

Long Description

"The most important book to be written in more than 40 years about the rise of Canadian literature... Arrival: The Story of CanLit brims and crackles, in equal measure, with information and energy." -- Winnipeg Free Press A Globe and Mail Top 100 Book National Post 99 Best Books of the Year In the mid-twentieth century, Canadian literature transformed from a largely ignored trickle of books into an enormous cultural phenomenon that produced Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Michael Ondaatje, Mordecai Richler, and so many others. In Arrival , acclaimed writer and critic Nick Mount answers the question: What caused the CanLit Boom? Written with wit and panache, Arrival tells the story of Canada's literary awakening. Interwoven with Mount's vivid tale are enlightening mini-biographies of the people who made it happen, from superstars Leonard Cohen and Marie-Claire Blais to lesser-known lights like the troubled and impassioned Harold Sonny Ladoo. The full range of Canada's literary boom is here: the underground exploits of the blew ointment and Tish gangs; revolutionary critical forays by highbrow academics; the blunt-force trauma of our plain-spoken backwoods poetry; and the urgent political writing that erupted from the turmoil in Quebec. Originally published to coincide with the 150th anniversary of Canadian Confederation, Arrival is a dazzling, variegated, and inspired piece of writing that helps explain how we got from there to here.

Review Quote

Praise for Nick Mount and Arrival: A GLOBE AND MAIL TOP 100 BOOK NATIONAL POST 99 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR "The most important book to be written in more than 40 years about the rise of Canadian literature . . . Arrival: The Story of CanLit brims and crackles, in equal measure, with information and energy." -- Winnipeg Free Press "Arrival: The Story of CanLit is a fine gathering together of so many people -- critics, publishers and, of course, writers -- to explore and explain the eruption that took place in the 1960s and early 70s in our culture. . . . A kaleidoscope of fascinating people who shaped our country''s growth into a literature respected around the world." -- Globe and Mail "[Arrival offers] a vivid sense of the times. . . . Hats off to Arrival for its engaging coverage of a pivotal period in Canadian letters." -- Literary Review of Canada "Arrival: The Story of CanLit . . . transform[s] our literature into a hothouse of eye-catching personalities. . . . Not only is Mount''s prose readable, but he has a Malcolm Gladwell-esque flair for mining history for little-known anecdotes." -- The Walrus "Arrival is Mount''s second book and, in many ways, he''s the only one who could possibly have written it. By turns professor, editor, advocate and critic, Mount''s voice is rarely of people whose real lives are stranger than fiction." -- National Post [A] fascinating overview of [Canadian literature] from the 1950s to the early 1980s. . . . Highly entertaining . . . Mount does an excellent job in showing the roles of the different regions in so much of the country''s writing." -- The Georgia Straight "[Arrival] provides a textbook''s richness with a tell-all''s familiarity. . . . Mount''s portraits are personal and artful." -- BookShelf "[A] quick and genuinely informative read, even for those who think they know the story [of CanLit] well." -- Toronto Star "An excellent view of the period in question . . . Arrival will not disappoint. . . . Mount brings it all together in a fresh and compelling way." -- Canadian Writers Abroad "If you want to know how Canadian writers and publishers slipped the noose of colonialism and created a vibrant international literature, including a Nobel Prize, this is the book to read. Impious biography, bureaucrats one-upped, politics, history -- Arrival has it all, and best is Mount''s outrageous sense of humour. Essential reading." -- Rosemary Sullivan, author of Stalin''s Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva "A kaleidoscopic, exuberant, ferociously well-informed reading of the social and psychic forces that erupted to create Canadian literature. Sharing Mount''s discerning enthusiasm for books and writers of the ''60s and ''70s is a rare pleasure. Arrival has the power to transform the way we see Canadian writing." -- Roy MacSkimming, author of The Perilous Trade: Publishing Canada''s Writers "Arrival is the CanLit account: wise, smart, sweeping, and rich in literary character and destiny. Nick Mount knows all and tells all width concision, snap, and a charming swagger. This important book itself arrives not a moment too soon." -- Charles Foran, author of Mordecai: The Life & Times and Planet Lolita "This is the absorbing and often exciting story of talented writers and determined publishers creating a crucial change in the life of Canada. Nick Mount wisely emphasizes the dozens of individuals whose separate ambitions came together in the making of a Canadian literature. His searching insights explain this important movement and set it in the larger context of Canadian social and economic growth." -- Robert Fulford, celebrated journalist and critic

Promotional "Headline"

REVIEW COPIES: Publishers Weekly Booklist Kirkus Reviews REVIEW COPIES: Publishers Weekly School Library Journal Booklist Kirkus Reviews Horn Book

Feature

AN INSTANT CLASSIC: Arrival is truly one of a kind; on publication it became the book on CanLit. There is nothing else like it in the marketplace. Moreover, many of the authors featured in the book do not have standalone biographies, so readers interested in the genesis of those authors will continue to pick it up for years to come. BEAUTIFUL PACKAGE: We received many compliments on the beautiful cover design and endpapers in the hardcover edition, and our paperback will be equally stunning! RESPECTED AUTHOR: Nick Mount is a hugely popular and well-connected figure in both literary and media circles. He will continue to be integral in promoting this book. IMPECCABLY RESEARCHED: Arrival is written with true wit and panache -- this is not a dry history of CanLit -- as evidenced by the strong reviews, which often highlighted Mount's accessible writing and sense of humour. FEATURES ICONIC AUTHORS SUCH AS: Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Michael Ondaatje and Mordecai Richler, among many others.

New Feature

AN INSTANT CLASSIC: Arrival is truly one of a kind; on publication it became the book on CanLit. There is nothing else like it in the marketplace. Moreover, many of the authors featured in the book do not have standalone biographies, so readers interested in the genesis of those authors will continue to pick it up for years to come. BEAUTIFUL PACKAGE: We received many compliments on the beautiful cover design and endpapers in the hardcover edition, and our paperback will be equally stunning! RESPECTED AUTHOR: Nick Mount is a hugely popular and well-connected figure in both literary and media circles. He will continue to be integral in promoting this book. IMPECCABLY RESEARCHED: Arrival is written with true wit and panache -- this is not a dry history of CanLit -- as evidenced by the strong reviews, which often highlighted Mount's accessible writing and sense of humour. FEATURES ICONIC AUTHORS SUCH AS: Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Michael Ondaatje and Mordecai Richler, among many others.

Excerpt from Book

[From Chapter 1: Surfacing] He had a small cross tattooed on his chest and a significant scar on his throat. He told different stories about how he got them. In one version, the tattoo was a grateful reminder of his education in a Canadian church mission school and the scar the remains of a childhood surgery. At another time, for another audience, he might say he picked up the tattoo while drunk on shore leave, the scar in a knife fight. Harold Sonny Ladoo emigrated from Trinidad to Canada in 1968, an early arrival in a wave of immigration made possible by a new point system that made Canada more open than ever before to immigration from non-European countries. Like most such immigrants, he came to Toronto. He came in his early twenties, already married, with children. And he came determined. You might doubt his stories, but no one who met Harold -- never Harry -- ever doubted he would tell them. Two years and a lot of dishwashing later, he met the new writer-in-residence of the new Erindale College at the new Islington subway station. As Peter Such tells it, he noticed a young man in a cheap coat several sizes too large for him, a man "staring straight ahead, looking at somewhere else completely." Whatever he saw out there, he wrote it down on the back of a TTC transfer. On a hunch, Such asked the young man if he was a writer; he said, yes, I am. Such invited him to see Erindale, and with the help of an equally impressed registrar, Harold Ladoo found himself enrolled as a mature student at the new Mississauga campus of the University of Toronto. The calendar said 1970 but it was still the sixties, and the talk in his corner of the student cafeteria was of Marx and Fanon, Lenin and Mao, Che Guevara and Angela Davis. Ladoo joined the battle as if he had been waiting for it his whole life (because he had), arguing about anything and everything, vigorously, intensely, to win. The other students called him Plato, partly out of respect, partly to mock him. He liked it. He was of them but apart from them, disdainful even, caring more for the words he was forever writing than the words and worries of others. A writer. At first, of course, his words were borrowed. He wrote carefully measured poems, finger exercises from the Empire''s song book. Peter Such told him about a Toronto publisher named after an African god; he sent the poems to them. Their editor rejected them and told Ladoo to write about what he knew. Ladoo wrote a spiteful letter back, but he also burned everything he had written to that point, two suitcases full of manuscripts. And a week later he showed up in Such''s office with a half-dozen stories about the village near which he had grown up. By the end of his first year at Erindale, he had the draft of a novel. He submitted it to the editor who had rejected his poems; they met at the Red Lion pub on Jarvis, the manuscript on the table between them. Again the editor said no, not yet. That summer, Ladoo learned on the day of his father''s death -- August 12, 1971 -- that the people of Canada wanted to give him money to write a book. He used $300 of his $500 grant from the Canada Council for the Arts to return to Trinidad, where he found his mother drunk, his brother a confirmed lunatic, and his sisters and neighbours fighting over the property. When he came back to Toronto in September, he had no money, his wife was unemployed, his son was sick, and they were about to be evicted. A relative let the family move into the basement of her bungalow on Victoria Park Avenue. Ladoo borrowed enough money to go back to school for his second year, making the long commute from the edge of Scarborough to the middle of Mississauga. And he wrote the book he was being paid to write, the book he had learned to write, the book he was born to write: In my long hours of aloneness, in my frustration and sorrow, in my sleeplessness and the painful awareness of impotence and doom, even during the illness of my wife and my son, I took to my typewriter to write a book. . . . For fifty days I heard only the groaning of my son as the keys of the typewriter went still. But I could not stop. This time the editor said yes. In the fall of 1972, Harold Sonny Ladoo from Trinidad became a published Canadian author. His first novel, No Pain Like This Body, edited by Dennis Lee, was published by House of Anansi Press in Toronto for $8.50 cloth, $2.95 paper. On the back, a photograph by Graeme Gibson shows Ladoo smoking, staring straight ahead. Harold Ladoo was part and product of a literary explosion unlike anything Canada has ever experienced, before or since. The long decade between the late 1950s and the mid-1970s saw the emergence of the best-known names in Canadian literature, writers to whom time (never mind subsequent events) has so far been kinder than it has to Ladoo. These are the names most people still think of when they think of Canadian writing, names like Margaret Atwood, Marie-Claire Blais, George Bowering, Leonard Cohen, Mavis Gallant, Margaret Laurence, Dennis Lee, Alistair MacLeod, Alice Munro, bpNichol, Michael Ondaatje, Al Purdy, Mordecai Richler, and Michel Tremblay. It wasn''t just literary. Canada awoke in the 1960s, shaken by the excitement leading up to the party in Montreal. But the explosion was loudest and echoed longest in print. By the 1950s, Canadian art had a "distinct canon of images": the lonely pine, the snow-covered village church, the canoe, the mountain. No such set of literary images existed in the national psyche until after the sixties -- no double hooks, no stone angels, no beautiful beasts or beautiful losers. That''s partly the problem addressed by the Massey Report, the government''s 1951 enquiry into Canadian culture: the realization that, as a means of national expression, literature had "fallen far behind painting." This book tells the story of when all that changed. It''s a story about writers, publishers, and readers, people who in one way or another played leading roles. It''s also the story of the culture that created and sustained them, a society finally comfortable enough to think about something besides trees and wheat. Postwar prosperity created both an existential backlash -- the nagging sense that this can''t be all there is -- and the means to buy what was missing or the leisure to produce it. Few realized it at the time, but that''s what the hippies of Yorkville shared with their parents, and with the politicians in Ottawa: the desire to redirect affluence into immaterial rewards, the "intangibles" that the Massey Report said make up a nation. You can''t get much more intangible than barefoot in the park.

Description for Sales People

AN INSTANT CLASSIC: Arrival is truly one of a kind; on publication it became the book on CanLit. There is nothing else like it in the marketplace. Moreover, many of the authors featured in the book do not have standalone biographies, so readers interested in the genesis of those authors will continue to pick it up for years to come. BEAUTIFUL PACKAGE: We received many compliments on the beautiful cover design and endpapers in the hardcover edition, and our paperback will be equally stunning! RESPECTED AUTHOR: Nick Mount is a hugely popular and well-connected figure in both literary and media circles. He will continue to be integral in promoting this book. IMPECCABLY RESEARCHED: Arrival is written with true wit and panache -- this is not a dry history of CanLit -- as evidenced by the strong reviews, which often highlighted Mount's accessible writing and sense of humour. FEATURES ICONIC AUTHORS SUCH AS: Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Michael Ondaatje and Mordecai Richler, among many others.

Details ISBN1487005431 Author Nick Mount Short Title ARRIVAL Pages 416 Language English ISBN-10 1487005431 ISBN-13 9781487005436 Format Paperback Subtitle The Story of CanLit Imprint House of Anansi Press Ltd ,Canada Place of Publication Concord Country of Publication Canada Illustrations two 16-page b&w inserts; sidebars with b&w images throughout UK Release Date 2018-09-13 Year 2018 Publisher House of Anansi Press Ltd ,Canada Publication Date 2018-09-13 Alternative 9781770892224 DEWEY 813.009353 Audience General AU Release Date 2019-04-08

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TheNile_Item_ID:150460358;

• Condition: Brand new
• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN-13: 9781487005436
• Author: Nick Mount
• Book Title: Arrival

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