Background
Morley Callaghan was born on February 22, 1903, in Toronto into an Irish Roman Catholic family.
(It was the fabulous summer of 1929 when the literary capi...)
It was the fabulous summer of 1929 when the literary capital of North America moved to La Rive Gauche--the Left Bank of the Seine River--in Paris. Ernest Hemingway was reading proofs of "A Farewell to Arms," and a few blocks away F. Scott Fitzgerald was struggling with "Tender Is the Night." As his first published book rose to fame in New York, Morley Callaghan arrived in Paris to share the felicities of literary life, not just with his two friends, Hemingway and Fitzgerald, but also with fellow writers James Joyce, Ford Madox Ford, and Robert McAlmon. Amidst these tangled relations, some friendships flourished while others failed. This tragic and unforgettable story comes to vivid life in Callaghan's lucid, compassionate prose.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1550963619/?tag=2022091-20
(In a story set against the backdrop of a seedy but glamor...)
In a story set against the backdrop of a seedy but glamorous Toronto hotel, the author focuses on an extraordinary woman whose life has a profound impact on the lives of everyone she meets
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312590547/?tag=2022091-20
(pp. 42, from the publisher: " I have had printed of this ...)
pp. 42, from the publisher: " I have had printed of this edition five hundred and twenty-five copies on Verge de Rives, of which five hundred numbered copies for subscribers, and twenty five copies, numbered 501-525, for the press. The entire eidtion is signed by the author. This copy is not numbered, but SIGNED by
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000Q6NWKS/?tag=2022091-20
( This audacious and intriguing new version of the story ...)
This audacious and intriguing new version of the story of Christs trial, crucifixion, and resurrection is based on the writings of Philo of Crete, a secretary to Pontius Pilate. Throughout his time as Pilates scribe, he attended Christs trial, mingled with city prostitutes and desert bandits, and became acquainted with Judas Iscariot. It was through Judas that he learned the real story of the betrayal and what actually happened to Christs body. His convincing account is a radical and dramatic version of the commonly accepted story.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1550966375/?tag=2022091-20
(Based on a real-life character, More Joy in Heaven is a g...)
Based on a real-life character, More Joy in Heaven is a gripping account of the tragic plight of young Kip Caley, a notorious bank-robber released early from prison and feted by society as a returning prodigal son. Earnest, optimistic, and fired by reformist zeal, Kip eventually comes to realize that the welcome of his supporters is superficial and that their charity is driven by self-interest. More Joy in Heaven was first published in 1937.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0771099568/?tag=2022091-20
( North America's first gangster noveloriginally publish...)
North America's first gangster noveloriginally published in 1928this page-turning thriller features characters both charming and terrifying. Set in Toronto during the era of speakeasies and underworld vendettas, the tale centers on Harry Trotter, an amoral figure who loses his job and his wife in quick succession. He soon evolves from a bootlegger into a reputable gangster, doing as he pleases and strong-arming anyone who stands in his way. Reviving the narrative that set the literary stage for the hard-boiled crime genre, this is a seething noir tale of crime, murder, betrayal, and knuckle-bruising politics.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1550961551/?tag=2022091-20
(One of the great novels of the 1930s, Such Is My Beloved ...)
One of the great novels of the 1930s, Such Is My Beloved recounts the tragic story of two down-and-out prostitutes and the young priest who aspires to redeem their lives. The novel is at once a compassionate portrait of innocence and idealism, and an emphatic condemnation of a society where the lines between good and evil are essentially blurred. Such Is My Beloved is widely considered to be Morley Callaghans finest novel.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0771034911/?tag=2022091-20
Morley Callaghan was born on February 22, 1903, in Toronto into an Irish Roman Catholic family.
He graduated from the University of Toronto in 1925. In 1925 Callaghan enrolled in law school at Osgoode Hall in Toronto and was admitted to the Ontario bar in 1928.
During his college years Callaghan held a summer job as a reporter with the Toronto Daily Star, where he met Ernest Hemingway. The two exchanged stories, and Hemingway encouraged Callaghan in his writing.
First Successes Callaghan's career as a writer began in 1921, when he sold a descriptive piece to the Toronto Star Weekly. In 1926 he published his first short story in the Paris magazine This Quarter, had another accepted by transition, and started on his first novel, Strange Fugitive. At this time Callaghan visited New York, and his friendships from this and subsequent visits included William Carlos Williams, Allen Tate, Ford Madox Ford, Katherine Ann Porter, and Sinclair Lewis. Callaghan also attracted the attention of Maxwell Perkins of Scribner's, and his stories began to appear regularly in American and European magazines. In 1928 Scribner's published Strange Fugitive and in 1929 a collection of short stories, A Native Argosy. He completed a novel, It's Never Over (1929), and a novella, No Man's Meat (1931). From the Depression to World War II The 19306 were an active and prolific period for Callaghan. He published four novels: A Broken Journey (1932), Such Is My Beloved (1934), They Shall Inherit the Earth (1935), and More Joy in Heaven (1937). He produced a second collection of stories, Now That April's Here and Other Stories (1936), and wrote two plays in 1939, Turn Again Home and Just Ask for George. Callaghan's work of this period was strongly affected by the experiences of the Depression. But partly owing to the influence of the French philosopher Jacques Maritain, whom Callaghan knew in Toronto in 1933, it began to show a strain of Christian humanism and a strong sense of personal virtue coupled with deinstitutionalized Christian values. Father Dowling, the idealistic and naive Catholic priest who is the hero of Such Is My Beloved, is a good example. During World War II Callaghan was attached to the Royal Canadian Navy and served on assignment for the National Film Board of Canada. He also became a well-known radio figure. Change in Outlook In 1948 Callaghan returned to writing with a fictionalized account of life at the University of Toronto, The Varsity Show, and a juvenile novel, Luke Baldwin's Vow. But it was not until 1951 and the publication of the Governor General's Award-winning novel, The Loved and the Lost, that Callaghan truly restaked his claim in the field of Canadian fiction. In 1959 Morley Callaghan's Stories, a book comprising his best short fiction, appeared. Two novels followed, The Many Coloured Coat (1960) and A Passion in Rome (1961). That Summer in Paris (1963), an autobiographical reminiscence, deals with Callaghan's eight-month stay in Paris in 1929. It tells something of the novelist's relationship with the Paris expatriates and the complicated friendships of the leading writers of that day, prominent among whom were Hemingway and James Joyce. Callaghan also reveals his own ideas about writing and the writer's craft. This stage in Callaghan's artistic development showed a more refined, if sharper and more tragic, sense of moral responsibility presented in prose of richer texture and occasional symbolic overtones. In 1967 Callaghan was named in the first Order of Canada honors list. In 1970 he won the Molson Prize and the valuable and prestigious Royal Bank of Canada Award for his contribution to the artistic and intellectual life of Canada. While Callaghan's short stories continued to garner praise, his later novels met with mixed reviews. Ambitious ideas were often marred by clumsy plotting, stilted dialogue, and clichéd characterizations. In A Fine and Private Place (1975), Callaghan adopted the persona of a bitter novelist, Eugene Shore, to attack critics who refused to take him seriously as a writer. His next novel Close to the Sun Again (1977) shed the caustic veneer for a return to the humanistic themes of his earlier work. The novel relates the last days of Ira Groome, a widowed chairman of a municipal commission who comes to lament the loss of passion and joy in his life. Sitting in his hospital bed after a serious car accident, Groome drifts away into his wartime memories, recalling a time when sacrifice and suffering made his existence worthwhile. After experiencing a moment of epiphany, he dies. The unsuccessful works A Time for Judas (1983) and Our Lady of the Snows (1985) did little to enhance Callaghan's reputation, or his bankbook. But he did have one last good novel in him, the vigorous swan song A Wild Old Man on the Road (1988). Set in Paris and Toronto, the novel returns to familiar Callaghan terrain in more ways than one. The story of an idealistic young Canadian writer who befriends-and grows steadily disillusioned by-his hero, a left-leaning British journalist turned neo-conservative, the novel brims with compassion and moral inquiry, the very stuff that had made Callaghan such a vital artist for so many years. A longtime Toronto resident, Callaghan remained doggedly independent until the end of his life. He broke a hip in 1989 at the age of 88, but still persisted in walking to his neighborhood grocery store to do his shopping. He died of natural causes in Toronto on August 25, 1990.
(Based on a real-life character, More Joy in Heaven is a g...)
(In a story set against the backdrop of a seedy but glamor...)
( This audacious and intriguing new version of the story ...)
(One of the great novels of the 1930s, Such Is My Beloved ...)
(It was the fabulous summer of 1929 when the literary capi...)
( North America's first gangster noveloriginally publish...)
(Book by Callaghan, Morley)
(pp. 42, from the publisher: " I have had printed of this ...)
Quotations:
"There is only one trait that makes the writer. He is always watching. "
"I had my success too soon. Three books published with Scribners in New York before I was 30. "
"I know it may sound silly, but I think my short stories have a life and identity of their own. They crop up in all sorts of places. "
Callaghan married Loretto Dee in 1929 and went to Paris for eight months. They had two sons.