Raymond Fraser — aka the man with five books in Clare & Adams’ Atlantic Canada’s 100 Greatest Books — just released a new 2-in-1 book. Basically, it is two novellas, and the book is titled The Trials of Brother Bell, because as Ray tells me, “the rascally character Brother Bell appears in both novels.”
In 2009, Fraser won the the inaugural Lieutenant-Governor’s Award for High Achievement in English Literary Arts, a 20,000$ award designed to “recognize the outstanding contribution of individuals to the arts.” He also released his eighth novel in 2009, In Another Life, of which Leap Magazine said “Think Catcher in the Rye meets Hemingway and Bukowski.” (Click here to read another Salty Ink article on Fraser.)
If I’ve done my math right: 9 novels + 7 books of poetry + 2 biographies + a memoir + co-editeing the anthology East of Canada, The Trials of Brother Bell is the man’s 20th book!
Salty Ink: Hot off the heels of In Another Life, you release a two-in-one novel. Tell us about The Trials of Brother Bell.
Raymond Fraser: Well now, The Trials of Brother Bell consists of two novels, Repentance Vale and The Struggle Outside. There’s quite a long story behind The Struggle Outside which I’ll just touch on. I started it in 1969 at the time the Tupamaros guerillas were active in Uruguay, their most publicized tactic being kidnapping politicians. I thought it would be interesting to introduce a fictional movement of the kind to my home province of NB – start writing it and see where it led…. I finished a version in 1970 and it was probably good enough by Governor General Award or Nobel Prize standards, but it wasn’t up to my own standards so I took it apart and re-did it very carefully, making the characters and scenes as vivid as possible in a somewhat surrealistic atmosphere – what you might call surrealistic realism (as life often is). While I was working on this second version, Hugh Garner who had read my first fiction book The Black Horse Tavern, wrote me via my publisher Ingluvin to say he considered me the best of the Montreal Story Teller writers, and indeed one of the best of my generation, and a writer he predicted would make it big one day (still hasn’t happened) and offered to recommend my next book to his publisher McGraw-Hill Ryerson. I took him up on it and sent it to them when it was ready and the editor there said he loved it and they would publish it and he kept telling me this and then one day a year later the MS came back in the mail with a note saying he was sorry but they weren’t going to publish it after all. I was naturally quite irate and wrote a detailed account of the outrage and sent it around the country including to the president of McGraw-Hill Ryerson and he wrote back apologizing at how I’d been treated and asked to see the novel again and I sent it and they gave me a thousand dollar advance and published it in hardcover the next year, 1975. When it came out they had me up to Toronto and I was on Canada AM and so forth doing various interviews and I think the book sold about 1,200 copies and disappeared … and now it’s back (with further improvements!). I could go on, but I’ve gone way past my word limit.
I wrote Repentance Vale more recently. It’s not long but it took me at least a year and half to do it to my satisfaction. The original impulse came from a story I wrote for the tabloid Midnight in the sixties. The editor used to call me up with a headline and a description of the photos they had and with that information I’d compose a news story. The headline for this particular one was something like “Jilted Lover Kills Bridegroom, Feeds Corpse To Wedding Guests.” Years later I bought my first computer and would write things on it to learn how to use it, and one thing I started was a short story based on that old “news” story which I’d run across in my files. It didn’t amount to anything, but from that germ I later did this short novel which has nothing at all to do with the original tabloid piece.
P.S – The book is called The Trials of Brother Bell because the rascally character Brother Bell appears in both novels.
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Margie,
I think the book on Legere you’re looking for is called “Murder and Mayhem on the Miramichi” or something like that by Rick MacLean. If I run into it I’ll let you know. Thanks for the support.
Well my dear young man you outdid yourself again. I hope you keep writing because I am at a loss without your books to read. I am beginning to read them over again becaust they intrigue me so much and they are so well done. You write things as you see them and this is what I call a true artist. i am looking for the book on Allen Legere, I read it briefly when I went home for mom’s funeral but really wasn’t into it. I heard from Gloria they took it out of print but I know a lot of people in that book and would like a copy of it. Keep an eye out for me if you would be so kind. Can’t wait for your next book. I know the book on Allan L. was not written by you but I would like it because it has so much about people I know and would like to give it an honest read this time. Gog Bless and big Hugs, Margie!