Wherever I Travel I'm Too Late. The

This Is An Age Of Scientific Wonders. You Miss Somebody So You Pick Up The Phone To Say Hello. Three Minutes For Sixty-five Cents. Nobody Goes Broke.

I Must Speak The Truth, Even At The Risk Of Being Ostracized By My Fellow Scribblers. In Fact, Anticipating Their Rage, I Have Already Applied For A Place In The Canada Council's Witness-protection Program. This Because, Much As It Pains Me To Turn On My Kind, I Fear The Time Has Come To Admit That Far Too Many Celebrated Writers Were Outrageous Liars, Philanderers, Drunks, Druggies, Unsuitable Babysitters, Plagiarists, Psychopaths, Parasites, Cowards, Indifferent Dads Or Moms And Bad Credit Risks.

Wherever I Travel I'm Too Late. The Orgy Has Moved Elsewhere.

In, 1950, At The Age, 19 I Dropped Out Of St. George William College In Montreal, As It Then Was, And Sailed For England On The Franconia. Foolishly, No Arrogantly, Believing I Could Put Canada And Its Picayune Problems Behind Me, Never Dreaming It Would Become The Raw Material Of Most Of My Fiction And Non-fiction. Or That I Would Care So Deeply About Its Surviving Intact.

So Far As One Can Generalize, The Most Graciouis, Cultivated, And Innovative People In This Country Are French Canadians. Certainly They Have Given Us The Most Exciting Politicians Of Our Time: Trudeau, Lévesque. Without Them, Canada Would Be An Exceedingly Boring And Greatly Diminished Place.