If I Could Turn and Meet Myself
The Life of Alden Nowlan
Description
At his death in 1985, Alden Nowlan stood in the first rank of Canadian writers. Today, his poetry is beloved by Maritimers and popular across Canada and in the US as well. If I Could Turn and Meet Myself tells his life story, from his birth to a 14-year-old mother in 1933 through his impoverished childhood, his disturbed adolescence, his newspaper career, his struggle with cancer, and his tenure as writer-in-residence at the University of New Brunswick. Nowlan founded his success and peace of mind on his belief that he was a composite of many selves. In 12 books of poetry, two novels, a book of stories, and 15 years of weekly columns for the Saint John Telegraph Journal, he fictionalized his own life. At the same time, he hid some of the most significant facts about his background from everyone, including those closest to him. His overall personal honesty ensured that even today people accept his "authorized version" as the full and only story. In If I Could Turn and Meet Myself, Patrick Toner portrays a more complex and more richly humane Nowlan than any previous commentator, including Nowlan himself.
Reviews
Alden Nowlan was born near Windsor, Nova Scotia, in January, 1933, to a girl not yet fifteen years old and her hard-drinking husband. At his death in 1983, he stood in the first rank of Canadian writers. With a grade four education, Nowlan turned himself into a journalist and, after Bread, Wine and Salt won the 1967 Governor General's Award, one of Canada's most prominent poets. He also became writer in residence at the University of New Brunswick, a speech writer for Richard Hatfield, a playwright, and a nationally respected fiction writer. Nowlan escaped the suffering of his early life, but he never escaped its grip on his emotions and imagination. He wrote his own life in twelve books of poetry, two novels, a story collection, and fifteen years of weekly newspaper columns, yet he hid some of the most significant facts from everyone.
If I Could Turn and Meet Myself sorts reality from fiction to portray a more complex and richly humane Nowlan than any previous commentator, including Nowlan himself.
"Patrick Toner's contribution to our appreciation of this rare and appealyingly hybrid creature is well worth the read."
"A pleasure and a revelation. The melancholy but triumphant life of Alden Nowlan has found a perfect chronicler in Patrick Toner. This wonderfully readable biography assembles and clarifies all the elements of love, hate, resentment, and ambition that made up the personality and art of a fine Canadian poet."
"A good biography — better, in fact, than what we have about Earle Birney and Gwendolyn MacEwen . . . Patrick Toner treats this rich material judiciously, sympathetically engaged but keeping his distance from the cultlike devotion Nowlan often inspired."
"A good biography — better, in fact, than what we have about Earle Birney and Gwendolyn MacEwen . . . Patrick Toner treats this rich material judiciously, sympathetically engaged but keeping his distance from the cultlike devotion Nowlan often inspired."
- <i>Globe and Mail</i>
"A pleasure and a revelation. The melancholy but triumphant life of Alden Nowlan has found a perfect chronicler in Patrick Toner. This wonderfully readable biography assembles and clarifies all the elements of love, hate, resentment, and ambition that made up the personality and art of a fine Canadian poet."
- Robert Fulford
"Patrick Toner's contribution to our appreciation of this rare and appealyingly hybrid creature is well worth the read."
- <i>National Post</i>