KING LEARY by Paul Quarrington

King Leary by Paul Quarrington.

About ten years ago I wanted to nominate Paul Quarrington’s very funny hockey/senility novel King Leary as a book for our long running (20+ yrs) Intergalactic Book Club. I found out it was sadly out of print so as an alternative we did Paul’s novel Whale Music which had been turned into a movie with music by my friends the Rheostatics. We had a wonderful time doing that book and appropriately read other books by Paul. He is a gifted Canadian author. My friend, hockey teamate, ex Rheostatic Dave Bidini is also a gifted writer whose book On A Cold Road we had already discussed in our club, decided he was going to champion Paul’s book King Leary for the recent CBC on air bookclub Canada Reads. Consequently the publishers put King Leary back into print. I am very proud of Dave for that. Turns out Dave spoke, lobbied and debated well about the book and it amazingly beat out Tomthy Findley’s fantastic novel Not Wanted On the Voyage, another book the Intergalactics had previously discussed. See how this whole thing loops and resonates. Crazy man.
King Leary won Canada Reads!!!!! Wow!
It’s back in print and back on the docket. The Intergalactics are taking this second chance to read and discuss King Leary. Thanks Dave.

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~ by gwcollins on March 3, 2008.