MATT COHEN ARRIVED with a letter of introduction from one of M&S’s star authors, Peter C. Newman. Newman’s massive page-turners—Renegade in Power: The Diefenbaker Years weighs in at 540 pages, and Distemper of Our Times, about the Lester Pearson years, is 660 pages—had topped bestseller lists. Each sold more than 100,000 copies, unprecedented numbers for Canadian contemporary political history. The letter said that Matt Cohen should be read “very carefully at McClelland & Stewart.” Matt had already published a novel called Korsoniloff and a collection of short stories Peter couldn’t name. Johnny Crackle Sings landed on my desk with an accompanying note from Jack telling me he had never heard of Matt Cohen and hadn’t read the manuscript, but since it came from Peter . . .
I took it home that evening. It was mercifully slim, not quite two hundred pages, the story of a rock-and-roll singer, Johnny Crackle, and not at all the sort of thing I imagined Peter Newman enjoying. I, on the other hand, liked it a lot. The writing was fresh, funny; the story almost hung together; and I liked the author’s ironic, distanced voice. I was even prepared to go along with his technique of telling the tale in snatches, though at that time, I preferred more traditional storytelling.
I wrote to Matt Cohen, suggesting a meeting.
My first sighting of him was in the doorway of my office. He was leaning against the door frame, his hands in his pockets, his dark hair a jumble of curls, thick black-rimmed glasses obscuring his eyes, an uncertain grin on his thin face. He was asking, haltingly, whether he was in the right place. He had difficulty telling me what place he had been seeking because he couldn’t pronounce my name. He got hung up on the sz at the beginning. He didn’t seem comforted when I told him he was correct.
He proceeded into my office, his hands still in his pockets, and perched uncomfortably on the narrow fake-leather chair across from my desk. He wore frayed, faded denim. The rest of him was as thin as his face. He seemed coiled, ready to flee at any moment.
He told me later that he simply had no idea what to say.
After his struggle with my name, his first word was “Well?”
When I told him I liked most of the novel but thought it would be easier for the reader if he could make a few changes, he just stared at me. When I told him we would like to publish it, he continued to stare.
“Publish it?” he asked at last, his voice rising. “You said you would publish it?” He was stunned. He didn’t ask when or how; in fact, he looked as if the only question on his mind was why.
It wasn’t until Matt had left that I recognized the smell he had brought into my office: fresh cow manure. It was not a smell you’d expect in a warehouse building east of Leaside, surrounded by concrete and roadworks. Matt was living on a farm near Kingston, Ontario, some two hours’ drive from Toronto, but I didn’t know that then. I thought he might be the kind of guy who trailed cow manure wherever he went. I also discovered later that he had quite forgotten the letter from Newman and couldn’t believe his good luck in being invited to meet someone at McClelland & Stewart.
He lent me his only copy of Korsoniloff. It had been published by the House of Anansi, a publisher Jack often referred to as “alternative,” though he didn’t elaborate how or why he thought so. That assessment was not entirely wrong.
When Matt was not on the farm, he lived at Rochdale, a kind of student commune attached to the University of Toronto. One of Anansi’s two founders, Dennis Lee, already legendary for his editorial skills, had also lived there for a while, as had some of the young writers whose work Anansi published. Matt talked enthusiastically about Rochdale’s residents, their sense of community, their aspirations, and their conviction that a revolution was in the works. I thought the sorts of revolutions I had known had no place here but we didn’t talk about my Hungarian childhood then, as we didn’t talk about Matt’s childhood.
Matt was not given to easy confidences, but he loved to discuss ideas. He was, then, still much in thrall to George Grant.
I found Korsoniloff almost incomprehensible. Luckily Matt didn’t ask me about it for some time. When he finally did, we were sitting in one of the bars at the Inn on the Park. Matt loved the red and maroon plush furniture, the heavy drapes, the thick brown patterned carpets, and the dim lights. He said it reminded him of some Western saloon that was trying to seem refined. There should be spittoons by the tables, he said.
When Matt finally asked what I thought about Korsoniloff, he didn’t wait for my answer. “You hated it, right?”
“Well, I didn’t exactly hate—”
“Right. You hated it.” He was staring down at the table, his thin-fingered hands resting on either side of the ashtray full of my cigarettes. He didn’t look up.
He was working with someone at Anansi on a collection of stories called Columbus and the Fat Lady that I liked a whole lot more, but we didn’t publish short stories unless they were by a very famous author we had already published.
Johnny Crackle Sings was decently reviewed but hardly a success, yet Matt had already started to think about his next novel. We were to be friends for almost thirty years.