A few years back I wrote a memoir.
It was a hell of a story—a gripping tale of how a young man overcame a privileged middle-class upbringing, only to become a national treasure by telling Americans that Canada was going to legalize insulin.
I didn’t really know how to write a memoir, so I just started at the beginning. I had no memory of the day I was born, but luckily, I’d taken detailed notes. And that’s the way I wrote the book. I told my story in chronological order. I continued to write like that for many months until my editor called and said, “For god’s sake, stop sending pages—you’ve got a book.”
This was good news because my fingers were very tired. But the bad news is, I wasn’t finished yet. The memoir ends just as my TV show Rick Mercer Report is starting.
In the final pages of that book I am heading out on the road to make the first show. Well, I didn’t just hit the road, I stayed there. I didn’t unpack for the next fifteen years. My partner, Gerald Lunz, and I set out to create the most unapologetically Canadian TV show ever, and it worked. We shot 255 episodes and went to every part of the country. Every week was an epic adventure, and I loved every minute of it.
That is what this book is about: the stories from the road. This time, however, it is not in chronological order. I bounce around like I bounced around the country. Every week, I bounced, talking to Canadians.
In fact, I would have called this book Talking to Canadians, but that title was taken—by me, last time around.
My second choice was Long Walk to Freedom, but it turns out that was taken as well. Gerald’s suggestions were And Then I or just More About Me.
But in the end, none of those titles would be accurate. Because yes, this is a memoir, but it’s really about the road. And the lucky fellow who got to travel on it for all those years.
And what a glorious road it is.
Rick Mercer
Chapel’s Cove, Newfoundland and Labrador