Free Eastern Passage by Farley Mowat Page A

– and not just a quickie follow-up to
River of Men
either
. *
    Something distinctively different. Let me have it back as soon as possible so I can begin real work on it. And fear not that I will abandon all else once it is before me. I am already at work on a boys’ book with two chapters rolled out
.
    On invitation from
Maclean’s
new editor I’m doing a piece about my war that looks like potential material for a book. Strangely enough it would be a war book devoid of syphilitic soldiers and wholesale whoring. I sometimes feel the war I knew could not have been the same one many of my literary contemporaries apparently enjoyed. The men I soldiered with were pretty normal individuals who could actually think two consecutive thoughts that weren’t concerned with women or booze. No doubt Jones, Vidal et al. would consider my lads quite abnormal – and perhaps they were. But I wonder if perhaps you publishers haven’t conditioned the public to expect such juvenile excrescences from war writers? Something on this side of the Atlantic Ocean has certainly made it tough to portray men at war as Men, not large-gonaded adolescents
.
    Fran is training me for our visit to Boston. Makes me wear shoes at least part of every day and I am no longer allowed to use the cutlery when searching for fleas. So do not fear, I shall not disgrace you and your good wife
.
    Cheers
.
    F
.
    Dear Dudley:                       March 2, 1951
    Have received your amended version of the MS and am dealing with suggested changes. I’m satisfied with most of the cutting and trimming you did, except I note you deleted all preliminary descriptive material about the Barrens so I have slyly reintroduced some of this. Perhaps I am wrong but it seems to me the reader might like to feel a little of the Rock of Ages between his finger tips before venturing into the land it came from
.
    Max has written to say he is expecting AMP’s advance royalty payment and that my share – $540.00 – should soon be on its way
.
    Best wishes
.
    Farley
    The “amended version” of the manuscript had in fact been copy edited by Dudley’s wife, Jeannette, and it was to her I wrote my next letter.
    Dear Mrs. Cloud:                       March 19, 1951
    Five days of solid labor (note spelling à la Webster) and the first six chapters are ready to be returned to you. But tell me, who is this fellow Webster who is now my Spelling Master? I’ve looked him up in my Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911 edition) and can’t get a line on him
.
    I think it’s a dirty trick anyway. For 29 years I’ve been labouring to spell correctly and am now told I have learned the wrong way. Dammit, Max says I punctuate like Chaucer, so why can’t I be allowed to spell that way too?
    Anyhow I’ve paid close attention to all the corrections you and Dudley have made, and have hunted out and slaughtered innumerable “thats.”
    Who is the Canadian publisher going to be? You know how anxious I am to have the book co-published in Canada by a Canadian company. No doubt this is all well in hand but I would appreciate being soothed
.
    F
.
    March came and went, bringing no further news of a visit to Boston. In fact, I heard nothing more from Atlantic until late in April, when Dudley wrote, complimenting me for having put my book “into final shape for spring publication.”
    Spring publication?
This was a bombshell. Hurriedly I read on and discovered to my chagrin and fury that my book, which had been slated for publication in the autumn of 1951 (in time for the Christmas trade) had, without anyone consulting me, been shifted to February of the succeeding year.
February –
the dead season in book publishing!
    Dudley had tried to soften my reaction to this bad news by pointing out that Little, Brown might not be willing to publish my book at all if I insisted on being “obdurate” and demanding that the original publication date be adhered to.
    The prospect of