Binding Ambitions

Back when Scott McIntyre entered Canadian publishing, the business still carried the aura of a gentleman’s profession. Deals were sealed with a handshake, followed by wine or martinis in a posh restaurant. Jack McClelland, one of the central figures in McIntyre’s revealing memoir, was at his height, publishing the writers who would constitute a national canon. Pierre Berton and Farley Mowat topped the non-fiction lists, while Margaret Laurence, Mordecai Richler, and Robertson Davies led in fiction — all under the McClelland & Stewart imprint. For many, this was the golden age of Canadian letters.

In June 1967, McIntyre left Vancouver for Toronto to join McClelland & Stewart’s trade advertising department at a salary of $7,000 a year. Toronto’s publishing world struck him as “somnolent”: most firms were little more than distributors for American and British houses. The only long-standing Canadian-owned publisher, Ryerson Press — founded in the 1820s and owned...