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Excerpted from The Montreal Review of Books' The Mile End Café feature "Too Sexy for the Canon" by Peter Dubé.
There are ways in which biographies, interesting ones at any rate, act as reference points; for better or worse, they turn a life (whether typical or atypical) into a marker for a particular historical moment, or use it to summarize events too complex for readers to grasp in other ways. Though this is not their only effect, it is a compelling one.
Certainly, the notion of reference points came to mind while reading Brian Busby’s engaging life of John Glassco, A Gentleman of Pleasure: One Life of John Glassco Poet, Memoirist,Translator, and Pornographer. Glassco is best remembered for his Memoirs of Montparnasse, a chronicle of his years as part of the expat literary milieu in 1920s Paris. His most successful title, it became a bestseller and earned high praise; the Financial Post called it a “masterpiece” and Malcolm Cowley characterized it as “fresher and truer to the moment” than even Hemingway’s version(s). It was not long, however, before Memoirs’ veracity came under attack by many, including such prominent critics as Louis Dudek. Similar doubts about truthfulness attached themselves to other books by Glassco. Happily, Busby’s biography is meticulously researched and catches many questionable details and variant accounts of events while never losing sight of the overarching structure of his subject’s project as an author.That’s no small strength when the project includes much playful self-mythologizing, because, however charming Glassco’s delight in fabulation and light touch with mere fact may be, it complicates things for biographers.
To learn more about A Gentleman of Pleasure, or to order online, click here.
To arrange an interview with the authors, contact MQUP Publicist Jacqui Davis.
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