Age Brings Knowledge

If we’re going to memorialize the history of Canadian publishing, let’s get the story right. In his review of Journey: Celebrating the Journey Prize, Robert McGill recounts the events leading to the creation of the Journey Prize, based on an introductory note by the McClelland & Stewart editor Anita Chong. He writes, “Your favourite Canadian writer’s favourite Canadian story prize got its start thanks to a Yankee making bank off Canadian history.” That’s not what happened. In 1987, James Michener himself, the best-selling author of more than forty books, telephoned M&S to inquire if the premier Canadian publisher was interested in publishing a section from his novel Alaska, cut from his manuscript by an American publisher.

At the time, I was the editorial director of non-fiction at M&S, and the call was eventually transferred to me after being turned down by other acquisition editors at the company. Talking on the telephone, Michener piqued my interest, but he didn’t wish to send me the manuscript by mail. Instead, he invited me to travel to Miami to meet with him and read the manuscript in person. Avie Bennett, who owned the company, was leery, yet his interest in books resided mainly in the star power of his best-selling authors of the day, including Peter C. Newman, Pierre Berton, Margaret Atwood, and Alice Munro. So Bennett decided to foot the bill for my travel to the United States.

I flew down to Miami. Michener’s assistant met me at the airport, after which I spent a number of days reading the manuscript and talking with the author at his home in Coral Gables. Michener was eighty-two and in bad health. He felt strongly about seeing “The Journey,” the section cut from Alaska, published in Canada, since the story takes place here, but primarily he wished to support emerging Canadian writers. Together, we devised a plan to ask for a $250,000 advance on royalties from M&S. Bennett obliged. He’d recently purchased the publishing company, believing he could turn it into a money-making powerhouse. After the publication date of the book, Michener donated the entire advance for the creation of the Journey Prize.

Michener’s Journey, released in 1988, never came close to earning back its advance, and by the next decade, Bennett’s interest in transforming M&S into a lucrative business, as he once had done with shopping mall developments, was waning. By 2000, he had sold one-quarter of the company to Random House Canada and donated the remaining three-quarters to the University of Toronto, for which he received a tax break of $15.9 million, estimated as equal to the losses he had accrued while managing McClelland & Stewart. Twelve years later, Random House purchased the University of Toronto’s shares for $1, bypassing all legislation blocking foreign ownership.

As for the Journey Prize, it has supported more than 350 writers — not only financially but also by introducing emerging writers to a Canadian audience. Without the distinguished James Michener’s mission to support new voices, there would not be a Journey Prize today or the collection of short stories recently edited by Alexander MacLeod and Souvankham Thammavongsa.