A Very Merry Christmas, Harper’s Bazaar, December 1937
All Right, Flatfoot, Maclean’s, August 1948
The New Kid, Saturday Evening Post, September 1948
The Duel, The New Yorker, September 1934
The Thing That Happened to Uncle Adolphe, John O’London’s Weekly, November 1939
The Sentimentalists, Harper’s Bazaar, November 1938
Emily, Household Magazine, January 1933
Big Jules, Yale Review, September 1940
The Fiddler on Twenty-Third Street, John O’London’s Weekly, October 1936
Mother’s Day at the Ballpark, Morley Callaghan: The Complete Stories, Volume Four, 2003.
Just Like Her Mother, Chatelaine, 1957
A Boy Grows Older, Esquire, December 1937
The Man with the Coat, Maclean’s, April 1955
Questions for Discussion and Essays
1. What are the essential ingredients in a Morley Callaghan short story? What does he choose to include and what does he choose to leave out that makes his stories successful? In her introduction, Margaret Atwood discusses Callaghan’s style. What are its attributes?
2. How does Callaghan create a sense of realism in his stories? Does this style leave the reader intrigued, or puzzled, or unnerved?
3. What are the key differences between some of the shorter stories in the volume and some of the longer stories? How does Callaghan create a short short story, and when necessary what ingredients go into creating and sustaining a longer short story
4. Margaret Atwood calls Callaghan “a profoundly ironic writer.” What makes Callaghan’s stories ironic or, at least, what makes his voice, sensibilities, and style ironic? From reading the stories, how does Callaghan present and define what is “ironic?”
5. Critics such as Wayne C. Booth have pointed out that there are two modes or approaches to presenting a story: showing (the dramatization of events in real time through dialogue and direct action) and telling (the voice of an omniscient authorial presence in the narrative who is able to collapse time and editorialize on events and ideas). Is Callaghan a showing author or a telling author? What makes his stories one or the other?
Selected Related Reading
Allen, Walter Ernest. The Short Story in English. Oxford University Press, 1981. (Contains a chapter on Morley Callaghan.)
Anderson, Sherwood. Winesburg, Ohio. Introduced by Malcolm Cowley. New Edition. Milestone Editions, 1960.
Callaghan, Barry. Barrelhouse Kings. McArthur & Company, 1998.
Callaghan, Morley. A Literary Life. Reflection and Reminiscences 1928–1990. Exile Editions, 2008.
Conron, Brandon. Morley Callaghan. Twayne, 1966.
Dennis, Richard. British Journal of Canadian Studies, 1999. (Contains an essay by Richard Dennis: “Morley Callaghan and the Moral Geography of Toronto.”)
Farrell, James T. Studs Lonigan (A Trilogy). Pete Hamill (editor). Library of America, 1998.
Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary. Margaret Cohen (editor). Norton Critical Editions, 1998.
Hemingway, Ernest. The Complete Short Stories. Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1998.
Joyce, James. The Dubliners. Penguin, 1999.
de Maupassant, Guy. The Complete Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant, 1955. Artine Artinian (editor). Penguin, 1995.
May, Charles Edward. The Short Story: The Reality Of Artifice. Twayne, 1995.
O’Connor, Frank. The Lonely Voice: A Study of the Short Story, with an introduction by Russell Banks. Melville House, 2011.
Snider, Norman. “Why Morley Callaghan Still Matters,” Globe and Mail, 25 October, 2008.
Walsh, William. A Manifold Voice: Studies in Commonwealth Literature. Chatto & Windus, 1971.
White, Randall. Too Good to Be True: Toronto in the 1920s. Dundurn, 1993.
Wilson, Edmund. O Canada: An American’s Notes on Canadian Culture. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, l964.
Woodcock, George. “Callaghan’s Toronto: The Persona of a City.” Journal of Canadian Studies 7-2 (1972) 21-24.
Exile Online Resource
www.ExileEditions.com has a section for the Exile Classics Series, with further resources for all the books in the series.
Editor’s Endnotes
In April of 1955, Ralph Allen, the now legendary editor of Maclean’s magazine, published — complete in that month’s issue — a Maclean’s $5000 novel award — The Man with the Coat, by Morley Callaghan. There were nine pages of full-colour illustrations painted by Oscar Cahén, as well as the essential bones of the regular magazine. Maclean’s sold for 15 cents. The prize, in present day terms, was in the area of $50,000. Astonishing.
Particularly so, because there had never been a Maclean’s prize for fiction, short story or novel, and after The Man with the Coat, there never was such a prize again. Ralph Allen had read the story in manuscript, had loved it, and had created the prize so that he could print it. And print it he did in the weighty issue of April 16: pages and pages of wide-column type, and then some narrower columns snaking between ads for Nugget Shoe Polish, Beaver Power Tools, Christie’s Cremo Biscuits, the ’55 Dodge V-8 or V-6, and articles about General Isaac Brock and “How He Founded the Canadian Myth” and the honey-blonde school teacher, “Jacqueline MacDonald, Who Wants to Be the World’s Strongest Woman.”
The Man with the Coat is a novella, but it began as a short story, and it ended up as a full-length novel, The Many Coloured Coat. The intended short story — it lasted as such for about two days — was the last short fiction he attempted. “I just grew bored with the form,” he said.
After he died, a little story was found among his papers as they were being prepared for the National Archives. It cannot be dated exactly, but it must be from 1923-4. If The Man with the Coat is the last of his shorter fiction, then “On the Way Home” is his first story in a “modern” style, written when he was twenty or twenty-one.
On the Way Home
The wire fence was low at the dip in the hill. Lou put one foot on the top wire and stepped over and down the embankment to the railway track. He walked along the track lifting his bearded face to the sky. It looked like rain. It was getting dark and he wanted to be down to the grocery story before it rained.
He heard voices on the bank above the track. A young fellow and a girl had come up from the wooded ravine to the right and were climbing the wire fence. Lou wondered what they had been doing down in the ravine so late. The young fellow tossed a coat and a leather bag and a book over the fence before helping her over. The girl had riding breeches under a long coat and she had a black band around her head. They did not see Lou. They walked along the top of the bank hardly speaking to each other. Lou could see that the fellow was very angry about something. He was swinging the bag at the tall weeds. The girl kept looking over her shoulder at him. They walked straight ahead. She tried to put her arm around his waist but he pushed it away. She laughed and started to tease him.
Lou didn’t want them to see him so he walked slowly along the path by the tracks. It started to rain a little. The girl snatched the fellow’s cap and put it on her head, the peak to one side. The fellow still pouted. Lou could have laughed out loud. He didn’t mind the rain. The fellow and his girl came down the bank to the track. The street lights were a little way ahead.
Lou could hear her say, “Give me your handkerchief, and . . .”
“Go chase yourself,” the fellow said.
The girl strutted along the ties. Lou saw her take a handkerchief from her pocket and knot it in the four corners. It was almost dark and raining steadily. The girl waited until the fellow came up even with her and slyly put her arms around his neck and kissed him until he let her put the knotted handkerchief on his head and turn up his coat collar. He put his arm around her waist, lifting her on to a track rail, balancing her while they walked. Lou followed vaguely excited.
The bank on the right flattened out. They stood on the track looking down the dark ravine. The girl must have been poking o
r pinching the fellow because he yelled, “Ouch, damn you,” and she ran along the track, laughing out loud. Lou wanted to laugh out loud. The fellow chased her and caught up with her. She struggled while he tried to twist her over his knee, but finally submitted and he slapped her behind. She ran ahead again, to run and yell mocking, “Oh my big bad man, you’re so strong.” She came back giggling and put her head on his shoulder. He wouldn’t say a word.
Lou wanted to lift up his head and whistle happily but he had never been a very good whistler. They didn’t mind the rain and he didn’t mind the Kingston Road radial car southeast of the track that hooted mournfully. The fellow and the girl were past the ravine and the track became a ridge on the level ground. Then they saw Lou and straightened up, walking respectably and rapidly along the track. By a guard rail on the track a path went down the bank to the end of a street. Lou started down the path and stopped, watching the fellow and the girl going along the track in the rain, the girl with the fellow’s hat pulled over her ear, the fellow with the handkerchief knotted on his head. Lou turned up his coat collar and went down the path to the street and along to the grocery store. He could have kicked himself for thinking of the fellow and the girl trudging along the track to the stars. It was raining hard.
THE EXILE CLASSICS SERIES ~ 1 TO 27
THAT SUMMER IN PARIS (No. 1) ~ MORLEY CALLAGHAN
Memoir & Essays 5.5x8.5 280 pages 978-1-55096-361-8 (tpb)
It was the fabulous summer of 1929 when the literary capital of North America had moved to the Left Bank of Paris. Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, Ford Madox Ford, Robert McAlmon and Morley Callaghan... amid these tangled relationships, friendships were forged, and lost... A tragic and sad and unforgettable story told in Callaghan’s lucid, compassionate prose. Also included in this new edition are selections from Callaghan’s comments on Hemingway, Joyce and Fitzgerald, beginning in that time early in his life, and ending with his reflection on returning to Paris at the end of his life.
NIGHTS IN THE UNDERGROUND (No. 2) ~ MARIE-CLAIRE BLAIS
Novel 6x9 190 pages 978-1-55096-015-0 (tpb)
With this novel, Marie-Claire Blais came to the forefront of feminism in Canada. This is a classic of lesbian literature that weaves a profound matrix of human isolation, with transcendence found in the healing power of love.
DEAF TO THE CITY (No. 3) ~ MARIE-CLAIRE BLAIS
Novel 6x9 218 pages 978-1-55096-013-6 (tpb)
City life, where innocence, death, sexuality, and despair fight for survival. It is a book of passion and anguish, characteristic of our times, written in a prose of controlled self-assurance. A true urban classic.
THE GERMAN PRISONER (No. 4) ~ JAMES HANLEY
Novella 6x9 64 pages 978-1-55096-075-4 (tpb)
In the weariness and exhaustion of WWI trench warfare, men are driven to extremes of behaviour.
THERE ARE NO ELDERS (No. 5) ~ AUSTIN CLARKE
Stories 6x9 159 pages 978-1-55096-092-1 (tpb)
Austin Clarke is one of the significant writers of our times. These are compelling stories of life as it is lived among the displaced in big cities, marked by a singular richness of language true to the streets.
100 LOVE SONNETS (No. 6) ~ PABLO NERUDA
Poetry 5.5x8.5 232 pages 978-1-55096-108-9 (tpb)
As Gabriel García Márquez stated: “Pablo Neruda is the greatest poet of the twentieth century – in any language.” And, this is the finest translation available, anywhere!
THE SELECTED GWENDOLYN MACEWEN (No. 7)
GWENDOLYN MACEWEN
Poetry/Fiction/Drama/Art/Archival 6x9 352 pages 978-1-55096-111-9 (tpb)
“This book represents a signal event in Canadian culture.” — Globe and Mail The only edition to chronologically follow the astonishing trajectory of MacEwen’s career as a poet, storyteller, translator and dramatist, in a substan-tial selection from each genre.
THE WOLF (No. 8) ~ MARIE-CLAIRE BLAIS
Novel 6x9 158 pages 978-1-55096-105-8 (tpb)
A human wolf moves outside the bounds of love and conventional morality as he stalks willing prey in this spellbinding masterpiece and classic of gay literature.
A SEASON IN THE LIFE OF EMMANUEL (No. 9) ~ MARIE-CLAIRE BLAIS
Novel 6x9 175 pages 978-1-55096-118-8 (tpb)
Widely considered by critics and readers alike to be her masterpiece, this is truly a work of genius comparable to Faulkner, Kafka, or Dostoyevsky. Includes 16 ink drawings by Mary Meigs.
IN THIS CITY (No. 10) ~ AUSTIN CLARKE
Stories 6x9 221 pages 978-1-55096-106-5 (tpb)
Clarke has caught the sorrowful and sometimes sweet longing for a home in the heart that torments the dislocated in any city. Eight masterful stories showcase the elegance of Clarke’s prose and the innate sympathy of his eye.
THE NEW YORKER STORIES (No. 11) ~ MORLEY CALLAGHAN
Stories 6x9 158 pages 978-1-55096-110-2 (tpb)
Callaghan’s great achievement as a young writer is marked by his breaking out with stories such as these in this collection... “If there is a better storyteller in the world, we don’t know where he is.” — New York Times
REFUS GLOBAL (No. 12) ~ THE MONTRÉAL AUTOMATISTS
Manifesto 6x9 142 pages 978-1-55096-107-2 (tpb)
The single most important social document in Quebec history, and the most important aesthetic statement a group of Canadian artists has ever made. This is basic reading for anyone interested in Canadian history or the arts in Canada.
TROJAN WOMEN (No. 13) ~ GWENDOLYN MACEWEN
Drama 6x9 142 pages 978-1-55096-123-2 (tpb)
A trio of timeless works featuring the great ancient theatre piece by Euripedes in a new version by MacEwen, and the translations of two long poems by the contemporary Greek poet Yannis Ritsos.
ANNA’S WORLD (No. 14) ~ MARIE-CLAIRE BLAIS
Novel 5.5x8.5 166 pages ISBN: 978-1-55096-130-0
An exploration of contemporary life, and the penetrating energy of youth, as Blais looks at teenagers by creating Anna, an introspective, alienated teenager without hope. Anna has experienced what life today has to offer and rejected its premise. There is really no point in going on. We are all going to die, if we are not already dead, is Anna’s philosophy.
THE MANUSCRIPTS OF PAULINE ARCHANGE (No. 15) ~ MARIE-CLAIRE BLAIS
Novel 5.5x8.5 324 pages ISBN: 978-1-55096-131-7
For the first time, the three novelettes that constitute the complete text are brought together: the story of Pauline and her world, a world in which people turn to violence or sink into quiet despair, a world as damned as that of Baudelaire or Jean Genet.
A DREAM LIKE MINE (No. 16) ~ M.T. KELLY
Novel 5.5x8.5 174 pages ISBN: 978-1-55096-132-4
A Dream Like Mine is a journey into the contemporary issue of radical and violent solutions to stop the destruction of the environment. It is also a journey into the unconscious, and into the nightmare of history, beauty and terror that are the awesome landscape of the Native American spirit world.
THE LOVED AND THE LOST (No. 17) ~ MORLEY CALLAGHAN
Novel 5.5x8.5 302 pages ISBN: 978-1-55096-151-5 (tpb)
With the story set in Montreal, young Peggy Sanderson has become socially unacceptable because of her association with black musicians in nightclubs. The black men think she must be involved sexually, the black women fear or loathe her, yet her direct, almost spiritual manner is at variance with her reputation.
NOT FOR EVERY EYE (No. 18) ~ GÉRARD BESSETTE
Novel 5.5x8.5 126 pages ISBN: 978-1-55096-149-2 (tpb)
A novel of great tact and sly humour that deals with ennui in Quebec and the intellectual alienation of a disenchanted hero, and one of the absolute classics of modern revolutionary and comic Quebec literature. Chosen by the Grand Jury des Lettres of Montreal as one of the ten best novels of post-war contemporary Quebec.
STRANGE FUGITIVE (No. 19) ~ MORLEY CALLAGHAN
Novel 5.5x8.5 242 pages ISBN: 978-1-55096-155-3 (tpb)
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Callaghan’s first novel – originally published in New York in 1928 – announced the coming of the urban novel in Canada, and we can now see it as a proto-type for the “gangster” novel in America. The story is set in Toronto in the era of the speakeasy and underworld vendettas.
IT’S NEVER OVER (No. 20) ~ MORLEY CALLAGHAN
Novel 5.5x8.5 190 pages ISBN: 978-1-55096-157-7 (tpb)
1930 was an electrifying time for writing. Callaghan’s second novel, completed while he was living in Paris – imbibing and boxing with Joyce and Hemingway (see his memoir, Classics No. 1, That Summer in Paris) – has violence at its core; but first and foremost it is a story of love, a love haunted by a hanging. Dostoyevskian in its depiction of the morbid progress of possession moving like a virus, the novel is sustained insight of a very high order.
AFTER EXILE (No. 21) ~ RAYMOND KNISTER
Poetry 5.5x8.5 240 pages ISBN: 978-1-55096-159-1 (tpb)
This book collects for the first time Knister’s poetry. The title After Exile is plucked from Knister’s long poem written after he returned from Chicago and decided to become the unthinkable: a modernist Canadian writer. Knister, writing in the 20s and 30s, could barely get his poems published in Canada, but magazines like This Quarter (Paris), Poetry (Chicago) Voices (Boston), and The Dial (New York City), eagerly printed what he sent, and always asked for more and all of it is in this book.
THE COMPLETE STORIES OF MORLEY CALLAGHAN (No. 22-25)
Four Volumes ~ Stories 5.5 x 8.5 (tpb) (tpb)
v1 ISBN: 978-1-55096-304-5 352 Pages
v2 ISBN: 978-1-55096-305-2 344 Pages
v3 ISBN: 978-1-55096-306-9 360 Pages
v4 ISBN: 978-1-55096-307-6 360 Pages
The complete short fiction of Morley Callaghan is brought together as he comes into full recognition as one of the singular storytellers of our time. “Attractively produced in four volumes, each introduced by [Alistair Macleod, André Alexis, Anne Michaels and Margaret Atwood], and each containing ‘Editor’s Endnotes.’ The project is nothing if not ambitious... [and provides for] the definitive edition.” —Books in Canada
The Complete Stories of Morley Callaghan Page 29
