A new short story in The Razor!
May 1 | 2023
May Day, a celebration of spring, marks the appearance in The Razor of my …
The Smallest Objective featured on CBC Radio
June 22 | 2020
I was very fortunate yesterday to be able to share some thoughts about my memoir, The Smallest Objective, with CBC listeners. Many thanks to host Ainslie MacLellan and the entire team at All in a Weekend for this wonderful opportunity.
https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-78-all-in-a-weekend-montreal
The Smallest Objective in the news in Montreal!
June 18 | 2020
Please enjoy this week’s coverage in two Montreal newspapers:
www.westmountindependent.com/WIv14.6c.pdf (page 18)
Memory loss and selective remembering
June 15 | 2020
In my new memoir, The Smallest Objective, the themes of willed forgetfulness and selective remembering are foremost. Racism, now so much on our minds, entails both of these. In discriminating against others, we “forget” their humanity, their entitlement to equal rights and opportunities, and the suffering they endure. If we remember related history, we are apt to do so selectively, too often eliminating the events that make us ashamed or uncomfortable. The form of racism that afflicts some characters in The Smallest Objective happens to be anti-Semitism, but all forms of discrimination—whether arising from race, colour, gender, or sexual orientation—are to be condemned.
Seashells by the seashore—my father in Florida
June 11 | 2020
My father was known among his family and friends for “His love of kittens and fledgling birds. His obsessive collecting of seashells,” as detailed in my new book, The Smallest Objective. The shells shown here were both collected and arranged by my father. It’s on a beach in Florida, when he stoops to “claim a whelk of modest proportions,” that one of the most harrowing moments in the book occurs.
A date at high altitude—my aunt Carol in Mexico City
June 8 | 2020
In my new book, The Smallest Objective, my aunt Carol stars in the chapter titled “Lake Pátzcuaro,” named after a lake with mythical properties in the Mexican highlands. Carol had recently graduated from the physiotherapy program at McGill University https://www.mcgill.ca/spot/ when she and her best friend travelled to Mexico, where they joined two doctors Carol had met while interning. Shown here are Carol and her doctor friend dining in Mexico City in 1959. Inside the cardboard presentation folder for the photo, the young doctor composed a note: I hope that you will never forget this night and your friend, Rafael.
Ruby Foo’s restaurant—the lowdown
June 4 | 2020
The characters in my new memoir, The Smallest Objective, love to eat and drink—and, most of all, they adore Chinese food. Ruby Foo’s restaurant, opened in Montreal’s west end in the 1950s, quickly became the go-to place for egg rolls and chicken almond guy ding. And for the less adventurous, there was always a club sandwich. This restaurant on the Sunset Strip was where my teenaged mother, Rene, and her sister, Carol, were escorted by their beaus on hot dates. The image here belonged to Carol, a memento of the place where she and her first boyfriend met for special occasions when they were “going steady.”
https://www.hotelrubyfoos.com/dining.html
Jockey Fleming—the jockey without a horse
June 1 | 2020
In my new book, The Smallest Objective, an entire chapter is devoted to my mother’s great-uncle Jockey Fleming, the family black sheep. During his heyday in mid-century Montreal, Jockey earned his keep as a gagman, ticket tout, and holder of bets for hockey games and the racetrack. He was celebrated by many of the most renowned sports and gossip columnists of the era. Al Palmer, in his 1950 book Montreal Confidential, wrote, “[Jockey’s] rise to fame as one of the town’s official meeters and greeters has been meteoric—whatever that means.” https://www.vehiculepress.com/q.php?EAN=9781550652604 The image here is from a period postcard belonging to Jockey’s niece Carol, a genuine rider.
Today belongs to my mother!
May 28 | 2020
To mark today’s official release of my memoir, The Smallest Objective, I’m sharing this picture of my mother, Rene, the book’s central character. Here she is in her late teens (c. 1950), when she confided to her five-year diary: By the time I got in it was 2:30 a.m. Dad was standing with the broomstick. He told me I would have to break my date for tomorrow night & I knew my name would be mud.
A novel of the immigrant experience in America
May 25 | 2020
The Rise of David Levinsky, published in 1917, is an early example of a novel about the hardships and triumphs of immigration. In The Smallest Objective, the narrator discovers her grandfather’s copy of this book by Abraham Cahan, part of its cover image depicted here. The novel is still a fantastic read! In it, David, a newcomer to New York City, reflects on the real estate boom: “Deals were being closed, and poor men were making thousands of dollars in less time than it took them to drink the glass of tea or the plate of sorrel soup over which the transaction took place.”
It’s a postiche!
May 22 | 2020
Does anyone recognize this 1960s must-have hairpiece? In The Smallest Objective, the narrator recalls, “The postiche gave my mother’s beehive hairdo the thrust of a model skyscraper.” The original beehive was worn by Audrey Hepburn and Dusty Springfield, among others, and more recently by Amy Winehouse and Adele. Shown here is my mother’s postiche, along with the vintage case in its faux alligator finish.
