Grief, Memory, Three O'Clock in the Morning

Dear Friends of Mavis:

I note with pleasure that Montreal Standard Time, the forthcoming selection (Vehicule Press) of Mavis Gallant’s early journalism, is among the fall-season books flagged as notable by the Globe and Mail. I guess that’ll be in the paper tomorrow, and it’s online now; not sure if it’s paywalled. We’ve had friendly nods from CBC Books and The Walrus, too.

Now, to confuse things, I’m a Substack double-dipper. I write here when I have something to say about Mavis Gallant — latterly, not very often, apart from promotional bleats as above — and I also maintain, in a now and again kind of way, what I call a “gain of function commonplace book,” The Bankhead Gleaner. It amuses the hell out of me, but I know very well that, as cups of tea go, it doesn’t have tremendously broad appeal. Anyway, for those of you who might be interested in following along — you can think of yourselves as part of a VERY select cult — I append the most recent Bankhead Gleaner posting. You can subscribe to it if you care to, and if not, well, this is why God, on the 8th day, invented transports of delete. My apologies to those of you who are receiving this twice. All best, friends. BR

William’s Substack

The Bankhead Gleaner, September 20, 2024

Here’s a little caprice, an absurd assemblage to end both the summer and the week. As is almost always the case, this began with something that diverted me while I was looking for something else; in this instance, the distracting agent was a newspaper story that was widely circulated in 1833. Here’s how the tragic outcome of Dr. Dixon, “the African trav…

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2 years ago · William Richardson