What is Stephen Harper Reading?

Dedication:

To Stephen Harper,
Prime Minister of Canada,
I hope this book makes you laugh, remember and look forward,
from a Canadian writer,
with thanks,
Steven Galloway

Letter:

The Right Honourable Stephen Harper

Prime Minister of Canada

80 Wellington Street

Ottawa ON K1A 0A2

Dear Mr. Harper,

Please don’t be disappointed. I know that for some time now you’ve been receiving books in the mail from Yann Martel, and I suppose you’ve grown used to this. Even though his letters have yet to garner a response, I like to imagine you reading them in your robe and slippers in the morning over coffee. Is that an odd thing to imagine of one’s Prime Minister? Perhaps. I apologize if so—you are, however, the leader of our country, and leaders exist as much in our imaginations as in physical being.

As you’ve probably figured out by now, I’m not Yann. My name is Steven, and I’m a writer from Vancouver. Yann sent you one of my books, The Cellist of Sarajevo. I hope you liked it. If you didn’t, thanks for not letting on. Our friend Yann is out on the road promoting his new book, Beatrice and Virgil, and he’s asked me to fill in for him. I’m happy to do so, because I fancy myself a helpful sort of guy, and because even though a lot of writer types think Yann is tilting at windmills in sending you these books, I like to think that maybe you look at some of them, and maybe you read or have already read some of them, and that no one, anywhere, would think that receiving seventy-five free books in the mail with a letter from an internationally renowned author would be a bad thing. In a way, you’re in what must be the world’s most exclusive book club, albeit somewhat unwillingly. I bet Mr. Obama is jealous!

There’s a band from Winnipeg called the Weakerthans that I really like. They have a song called Night Windows, written by John Samson, that is about the sensation you get when you think you see someone who’s died, and for a moment, before you remember that person isn’t alive any more, you feel about them like you did when they were alive, you see them as they were when they were alive, and for that moment it’s like they never died. This sensation, which is rare and wonderful and sometimes sad, is why I love reading. It’s also for this reason that I’ve chosen to send you Paul Quarrington’s novel, King Leary.

It’s a hockey novel. One of our best ones. I read somewhere that you like hockey, and recently saw you on TV at the gold medal game sitting next to Wayne Gretzky. That must have been a fun experience. I was at home sitting next to my aunt and a guy named Jay and it was still pretty great. Anyhow, in the novel, Percival “King” Leary was once the best player in the NHL. He won the cup in 1919, scoring the winning goal after dodging Newsy Lalonde and executing a perfect St. Louis Whirlygig. Except for a glass of champagne on that occasion, he has never in his life drank alcohol. His beverage of choice is ginger ale, which he maintains makes him drunker than anything else ever could. The novel opens with him as an old man in a rest home with his pal, newspaperman Blue Hermann. He’s offered a whopping sum of money to go to Toronto to make an ad for a ginger ale company. The story unfolds from there, and I don’t want to ruin it for you, but our King is in poor health, and he has demons in his life that he’s been trying to keep at bay but are catching up to him. He has many moments where he sees the dead, and in his case the dead have much to say about the way in which he’s lived his life. It’s a funny novel, a sad novel, and the sort of novel that only a Canadian would write.

Paul Quarrington died recently of cancer. He was only 56. He was a terrific guy. Sometimes, reading his work, I feel for a second like he’s still alive. Most people never knew Paul, or any living or dead author for that matter, but when you read a book you often have that moment Samson describes—I bet the Germans have a name for it—with a voice in your life, or the collective lives of everyone. I suppose a cynical person would call it a sort of nostalgia, but I like to think of it as a reminder. A reminder of how things were or are or could be.

Sometimes these reminders cost billions of dollars. Take the Olympics. Though I’m not a fan of the cronyism that accompanies them, I think the stories they create, and their illustration of the bond we share as Canadians, makes that money well spent. But there are other ways to do this as well, ways that don’t fizzle if Crosby doesn’t score in overtime (phew). Books are one of the best examples of this, and they’re a whole lot less expensive. Sometimes free. I hope you like King Leary.

Sincerely,

Steven Galloway

encl: one inscribed paperback

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