Myth and Misadventure

Kenneth J. Harvey is a multifaceted bloke. Writer of violent, deeply unsettling fiction, now big-league author of prodigious literary output, he founded the ReLit Awards in 2000 to shine a light on those Canadian small-press books overlooked by such richer purses as the Giller, the Governor General’s and the Charles Taylor prizes. He made the news a few years ago when he and his daughters went out west to save wild ponies from slaughter. With Eve Mills Nash, he co-wrote her 2002 biography, Little White Squaw, the story of a white New Brunswicker drawn to a life of addiction and abusive relationships with Native men. In 2000, to publicize Skin Hound: There Are No Words, he embedded flakes of his own epidermis in a limited number of book covers. Whatever labels stick to him, publicity hound, philanthropist, tireless self-promoter, arts patron, literary outsider, compulsive page filler of Dickensian passions, one fact is undeniable: this writer commands...