A Royal Farce

Let's face it. It would be almost impossible for any credible author to train his or her eye on the current Canadian political landscape and not write satire. Our regionalism, federalism, provincialism and pretty much every other “ism” one can name provide ample ammunition with which to assail the ticks and foibles of the true north strong and free. One glance at Stephen Harper or Stéphane Dion should get the invective flowing. Not that this country’s previous decades have been any less ridiculous or frustrating. In fact, there is a lineage of Canadian satire, which ranges from Stephen Leacock’s pastoral but deceptively amiable musings to Mordecai Richler’s epic take on Canadian identity in Solomon Gursky Was Here to Thomas King’s Green Grass, Running Water. Canucks, it seems, like to take their outrage sitting down, preferably with a book in hand.

Scott Gardiner’s King John of Canada is intended to follow in such illustrious foot-steps...