As a fan of Michael Crummey, I happily came across this slim book published by the University of Alberta Press; a transcript of Crummey’s 2018 CLC Kreisel Lecture. (Canadian Literature Centre Kreisel Lecture “brings together writers, readers, students, scholars, teachers…in an open, inclusive, and critical literary forum.”)The book also includes a forward and an introduction by others.

Michael Crummey begins his lecture with a story about the myth of Butch and Sundance noted as one of his favorite movies (the title of his lecture comes from the beginning of this movie) and segues nicely to literature. As an undergraduate Crummey was told that “fiction holds a mirror up to society, to the real world,” and in this lecture he questions that statement. It’s a bit if double-edged sword, he notes, as “the notion of fiction as a ‘mirror’ ls altogether too passive to be accurate” and further provocatively notes, that authors are “too caught up in their own obsessions to simply. objectively, reflect the world. They present the world in their heads, which is often different in substance and detail from the world a reader sees.”

As illustration, Crummey discusses several books written with a Newfoundland setting. How “real” was Proulx’s [The Shipping News], and Johnston’s [The Colony of Unrequited Dreams]? His excoriation of Howard Norman’s [The Bird Artist], for getting “nearly everything wrong with regards to Newfoundland” is truly delicious (in the course of this, Crummey gives us the story of the now extinct indigeous Beothunk people of Newfoundland). Does it matter if an author gets it all wrong, he asks. It seems to Crummey it does. and that an author owes something to their sources to get it right. These are the questions he asked himself when he started writing—and he discusses some of his own work ([Sweetland], [The River Thieves]). I should also note that Crummey introduces the subject with the myth of Butch & Sundance, and later intells the story of the Beothunk

This short book/lecture is a brief, but fascinating and thoughtful exploration of the relationship between truth and fiction, the responsibilities (or not) of writers to get things right. If you are a reader who also enjoys reading about the art of fiction, this a a fine read for a cold winter’s afternoon (or really, anytime). ( )

This is a transcript of a lecture that Michael Crummey, a Canadian writer, gave on the subject of writing the relationship between fact and fiction, and writing about Newfoundland. It was actually quite fascinating reading as he weaves together the myth of Butch Cassidy, the last surviving member of the indigenous Beotuk tribe, and the impact that Annie Proulx's book "Shipping News" had on the writer's community in Newfoundland. It is a short book, but I read it in one sitting and now I want to read the rest of this author's books. ( )