Character Study

Though he loomed large in my life, my father was difficult to know. He kept to himself, and he liked it that way. He was solitary and solemn. A storer of secrets.

One story he did share was that of his high school friendship with Mordecai Richler. The claim of their closeness always intrigued me. My father, Marvin, was not the least bit literary, and surely being an ally of Richler’s — even before he was known to the wider world as Quebec’s most opinionated and controversial writer — required an appreciation for the written word? At least that’s what I thought when my own interest in literature was developing. That interest, and my father’s past connection, led me to Richler’s work.

For a Jewish adolescent growing up in suburban Montreal, Richler, who had transformed the rough neighbourhood around St. Urbain Street into a vital and authentic setting for fiction, was a natural choice. His novels transported me to a past that had also belonged to my father...