In response to my comments about Steve Hamilton's lack of
knowledge about hockey, Kevin wrote:
>I hate to sound like Rick Mercer here, but Hamilton
seems to show a
similar dodgy (and occasionally patronizing) knowledge of not
just hockey but of Canada in general. The line that got me in
BLOOD IS THE SKY was something about how Toronto was a large
city "by Canadian standards."
Like, it's one of the largest cities on the continent, easily
larger than most American cities last time I checked, but
it's only large
"by Canadian standards"?
And fellow Michigan writer Loren Estleman displays a similar
iffy knowledge of Canada in a recent western of his, where he
has the Mounties roaring into the battle in the 1800s waving
the maple leaf flag that first made its appearance in the
1960s.
And his latest Amos walker novel, RETRO, while another solid
read, is marred (at least for me) by a similarly cartoonish
vision of Canada, with a Toronto detective agency actually
calling itself the Loyal Dominion Enquiry Agency and sporting
both a maple leaf flag and a Mountie in its Yellow Pages
display ad. What, no hockey players or moose?
I dunno -- Detroit isn't that far from the Canadian border.
Maybe it's just the Michigan school system.
(Yeah, I know. Some guys get all out of shape over mistakes
about guns, I get miffed about errors about Canada. Maybe we
can "educate"
>a few of them "foreigners" at Bouchercon this
year...)
One writer who does get it right about Canada is Peter Bowen
in his series about Montana cattle brand inspector Gabriel Du
Pre. Du Pre is a Metis (mixed French/Indian blood) from
Manitoba whose ancestors moved to Montana. In his first book,
Coyote Wind, Bowen has Du Pre return to Manitoba as part of
the plotline while in Specimen Song, book two and my
favourite, Du Pre and company follow an old fur trade route
by canoe from Saskatchewan to Ontario. Du Pre also is a
fiddle player who plays the old Metis tunes and the Metis
heritage is a constant part of the series. I am a couple of
books behind in the series that I think is now at 11 books.
Highly recommended.
As for Bouchercon, I wish I could be in Toronto to help
Kevin, Bill, Marianne, etc. "educate" the foreigners about
Canada, but an emergency trip to England in August tapped out
the travel budget. Those $225 a night hotel rooms certainly
scared me off and my one experience at Bouchercon in St. Paul
in 1996 convinced me that you have to stay in the convention
hotel.
Kent Morgan
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 03 Sep 2004 EDT