The Pierre We Hardly Knew

A word to the wise: should you be tempted to enter into a factual argument with Monique and Max Nemni about Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s life and times, make sure you stand on solid ground. Otherwise, they will shame you out of the room, albeit with a smile, because the two are a kind-hearted pair. But you will be toast nonetheless. The Nemnis simply know everything about Trudeau, as they enjoyed total access to the man’s private papers—a first in the annals of Trudeau scholarship—and consolidated their vantage point by conducting painstaking research on every aspect of their subject’s life. They already established their superiority over other Trudeau scholars—none of whom were dilettantes, I hasten to add—with the first instalment of their intellectual über-biography, Young Trudeau: 1919–1944. Son of Quebec, Father of Canada, published in 2006, which earned them the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing. It was a fine read, indeed...