The Veteran and the Rookie

I eagerly opened the package that contained advance proofs of Paul Wells’s Right Side Up: The Fall of Paul Martin and the Rise of Stephen Harper’s New Conservatism, since I had always admired his astute reporting and enjoyed his witty writing, and this was his first book. Whatever quarrels I had to pick with him pertained to his questionable taste in jazz, but he could justifiably say the same about me.

Little did I realize, until I read the review copy’s accompanying note from Ruta Liormonas of McClelland and Stewart’s promotion department, that this volume was meant to be my professional obituary. Her letter described Wells as “the new Peter C. Newman” and claimed that “this book … will stake his claim to that title.”

We writers may not be good at home repairs or filling out tax forms, and shy away from any toys or gadgets that carry the warning “batteries not included.” But being Canadian scribblers, we know about survival. My first...