Table of Contents

Preface

PART I: MUTTLE, MUTTY, MORDY
I. The Rebbe and the Shammas
II. The Simchat Torah
III. Richler Artificial Stone Works (No Success)
IV. 5257 St. Urbain Street
V. Battles
VI. Wars
VII. Comrades
VIII. Making Aliyah
IX. Room 41
X. Cut/Cutting Loose

PART II: APPRENTICE
I. The Right Age
II. C/O Bar Escandell, San Antonio, Ibiza, Spain
III. Girls, Girls, Girls
IV. Montreal, Dull and Anaesthetic
V. M, The Boy Writer
VI. Hampstead Parties
VII. General Progress Report
VIII. Canadian Club
IX. Roquebrune

PART III: HORSEMAN
I. I'll Show You the World
II. Montreal Meteor
III. This Year in the Salt Mines
IV. Tel Aviv, London, New York
V. For My Father
VI. Hillcrest, Kingston Hill, Surrey
VII. Like Herzog
VIII. Sitting Shiva
IX. Minority Man
X. Swiss Family Richler
XI. Rest, Rest, Perturbed Spirit

PART IV: LOOK AT ME NOW
I. An Affirming Flame
II. Return of the Prodigal . . . Again
III. Edgehill Road
IV. Filthy, Disgusting Fellow
V. An Old Jacket, Worn and Torn
VI. Dear Maw
VII. A Good House
VIII. Oh! Canada!

PART V: M.R. WAS HERE
I. A Very Complex Man
II. My Father's Life
III. One's Intentions Are Always Much Grander
IV. The Gursky Family Tree

PART VI: HANG IN OLD FRIEND
I. Back on the Map
II. Things Are Bad Enough without Nastiness from Mordecai Richler
III. The Golem
IV. Richler Calls It
V. Keep Fighting. Don't Despair

PART VII: PHILEMON AND BAUCIS
I. Boyishly Proud
II. Two Alter Kockers
III. Overtime

Epilogue

Bibliographic Essays
Acknowledgements
Photo Credits
Permissions on Quoted Texts
Selected Index

About the Author

CHARLES FORAN is a Member of the Order of Canada and a senior fellow at Massey College in the University of Toronto. He is the author of eleven books of fiction and nonfiction, and has won many awards and honours, including the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction, the Governor General's Literary Award, the Canadian Jewish Book Award, the RBC Taylor Prize, and the Writers' Trust Fellowship. He is currently the Executive Director of the Writers' Trust of Canada. He lives in Toronto.

Reviews

NATIONAL BESTSELLER
A GLOBE AND MAIL BEST BOOK

"A fine, intelligent, deeply historicized, compassionate, insightful, fair-minded and above all loving book." -Adam Gopnik, author of Paris to the Moon and Angels and Ages

"It was a full, rich life, and it's a full, rich book. . . . We judge a man by his life, a writer by his books. Charles Foran has done a thorough and thoughtful job of the first. Time will do the second." -The Walrus

"A massive work that examines this master novelist, wit and public curmudgeon in sympathetic but not uncritical style." -The Globe and Mail

"A comprehensive, panoramic portrait that will stand as the definitive Richler biography. . . . Foran is a master storyteller. . . . Ultimately, in Mordecai, Foran reminds us of how Richler managed to make Canadian culture relevant and sexy to the world." -The Gazette (Montreal)

"The great strength of Mordecai is in the much deeper picture Foran gives of Richler's relationships. . . . Foran gives a convincing and complex portrait of Richler." -Winnipeg Free Press

"A massive and enthralling biography." -National Post

"The definitive biography of Mordecai Richler. . . . So detailed, so exhaustive, so astute and authoritative. . . . This is a portrait of a dedicated artist who raged against the dying of the light. As I finished the book, I found tears rolling down my cheeks." -Ken McGoogan, National Post

"Easily the most thorough accounting of Richler's life. . . . An absorbing, sympathetic and often funny account of a fundamentally decent man who worked like a demon at his craft, and who brought the verve and engagement of an essayist to the sometimes aesthetically and tonally narrow world of Canadian literary fiction." -Toronto Star