Michael Decter's Blog

Let me turn to one of Canada’s most successful novelists and determined advocate for a saner world, Margaret Atwood.

Atwood is the globally acclaimed author of 18 novels, 18 books of poetry and numerous other literary works of criticism. Her books have been adapted into television shows – most notably The Handmaid’s Tale.

Thanks for reading Bookends! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

And they’ve been awarded many prizes including the Booker Prize (twice), the Giller Prize and dozens of others. Over 40 million copies have been sold in 40 languages.

It has been my pleasure to know Margaret for many years. I met her originally through my involvement with the Walrus Magazine Foundation, where I served as Board Chair for nine years. Most of my work was inspired by the dynamic Walrus Publisher Shelley Ambrose, who led the organization to great success. She also recruited Atwood to our cause.

Atwood is a champion for all things literary and the Walrus was no exception. She became a strong supporter of our annual gala, which provided an important source of fundraising. She believed in the Walrus’s mandate of providing Canadians an opportunity to read long-form articles about issues critical to the country.

One morning several years ago I flew to Ottawa for a meeting. I noticed, after I was seated, that Margaret Atwood was also on the plane. After we disembarked, I offered to share a taxi with her into the city centre. She said she’d be delighted but insisted on paying.

“Let me,” I said. “Someone else is paying for my trip to Ottawa.”

She laughed that unmistakable cackle. “No. I want to stick this to my publisher.”

Her words underscored the great conflicted affection most authors have for their publishers – a mixture of gratitude for bringing their characters and ideas out into the world. And the wicked desire to stick them with every expense they can possibly find.

Once in the cab, Margaret entertained me with the story of her first author tour, I believe for the novel The Edible Woman. When she arrived at Edmonton, she discovered her first event was at the Eaton’s Department store.

Moreover, management had made the decision to situate the author table not in the book section, but under the escalator in the men’s underwear department!

One can only imagine the humor of a young Margaret Atwood sitting at a table surrounded by men’s briefs, with a pile of books titled The Edible Woman available for purchase.

A particular delight of mine is to listen to Margaret being interviewed. It must terrify any interviewer to have this great opportunity. Generally, she listens carefully to the question, then takes issue with its premise or construction, delivering an impromptu masterclass on how to conduct an interview.

Few interviewers rise to the challenge. Her extraordinary command of the English language delivered with delicious precision flummoxes many. Whenever I’m driving and one of these interviews comes on, I’m tempted to pull to the side of the road; I’m worried I’ll laugh so hard I’ll bang into someone else’s vehicle.

So far this hasn’t happened, but I would ask you next time you hear an Atwood interview to listen carefully, particularly at the beginning. She starts in a cheerful, innocent sounding manner. Then, like a literary stiletto, she simply dismantles the premise of the interviewer’s questions.

Share

Her wicked sense of humour was often on display at the Walrus Galas, held in the Fermenting Cellars in Toronto. One of our fundraising efforts was a silent auction, with a vast array of experiential items available. One my duties as Chair was to place starting bids on all the auction items to prompt others to do so as well.

This particular evening, Atwood had donated a priceless item: she would name a character in her next novel after the successful bidder.

I lingered by the auction table. Atwood, standing nearby, looked at me with her mischievous pixie grin.

“You should bid,” she urged.

“Will you make my named character a mass murderer or a pervert?” I inquired.

Her smile grew wider. “Maybe both.”

Just then a wealthy developer rushed up and made a knockout bid.

“Narrow escape,” I commented to Atwood. She only smiled.

Collecting Atwood.

Among my prized possessions are several first editions of Margaret Atwood’s books. A few are what collectors describe as “high spots.”

One I’m particularly proud of, Double Persephone, took a good deal of time and an immodest amount of money to obtain. It was her first book of poetry published in 1961. As a first book by an author who later became quite famous, it was particularly difficult to find.

Another high spot came after I asked my sister Ann to attend a PEN Canada auction on my behalf as I was delivering a speech that evening across town.

The daughter of Margaret Lawrence (another prominent Canadian author) had donated a first edition Margaret Atwood book that had the inscription, From Peggy Atwood to Peggy Lawrence.

Margaret Lawrence would have been the elder states-person of Canadian writing at the time, Atwood the brash new entrant.

The connection of two important public figures to the book through the inscription made it what collectors call a ‘double association first edition.’ Ann promised to bid on my behalf.

After the auction, I received a letter from a Toronto bookseller who had apparently been bidding against my sister up until the point that he felt some value boundary was crossed.

He’d asked Ann, “How high are you going to go?”

“I don’t know. It’s not my money, it’s my brother’s,” she replied.

Ann exceeded the limit I’d given her by several hundred dollars, but happily she continued until she won. I was very pleased to have this unique book for my collection.

The Continuing Adventures of The Fulcrum .

Recently I was interviewed about my recent second novel, The Fulcrum, Shaun Proulx Show Canada Talks Channel 167. Here is a link to that interview for those who are interested:

https://www.siriusxm.ca/channels/canada-talks/

See you next month and in the meantime, happy reading!

Dan Brown’s new novel The Secret of Secrets is long but captivating. You will finish it wanting to go to Prague where it is set.

I await my pre-orders of Louise Penny’s The Black Wolf, her 20th novel which publishes October 29th and Mick Heron’s Clown Town just published.

Michael B. Decter

Thanks for reading Bookends! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Farley Mowat had a powerful impact on me. I read his books growing up. Then, years later, I had an opportunity to know him, and for a time work with him, in the Manitoba Government.

In 2010, I published a book of political stories, Tales from the Backroom (thank you Great Plains Publications!) about my adventures in government and politics. In it, I included a few stories about Farley Mowat. As the book is currently out of print, I excerpt two of the stories below.

Subscribe now

Farley Mowat I

About the last person I expected to become friendly with while working for the Manitoba government was Canada’s best-known environmental campaigner and best-selling author, Farley Mowat. A business loan given by the Schreyer government in 1973 first attracted Mowat’s attention.

The loan was to an Inuit co-operative in Churchill, Manitoba. The purpose: to allow the group to begin hunting the Beluga whales that frequented Hudson Bay near Churchill.

Mowat had just finished his book A Whale for the Killing, about the grizzly fate of a whale trapped in a Newfoundland bay and used as target practice by the Newfoundland cowboy contingent.

He was enraged that any government would sponsor the further killing of the whales. Never mind the NDP. As a long-time supporter, he expected better from them. In his Mowat-like fashion, he laid siege to Premier Schreyer.

Schreyer, a good politician and an intuitive environmentalist, was also a fan of Mowat. He was amenable to Farley’s suggestions. He told Mowat that if he could convince the Inuit co-op that there was more money to be made in building a tourism industry, he would be just as happy to provide the money for that purpose.

Whale watching in Churchill, Manitoba.

Mowat, good to his word, flew to Churchill and persuaded the community that there was more money to be had bringing wealthy Canadians, Americans and Europeans to see the whales rather than killing and eating them as had been their traditional way.

Surely Mowat has been vindicated by the popularity of whale watching in Churchill. Some thirty years later, the Michelin guide and other major tourist guides, celebrate the whales of Churchill as a major tourist destination.

In the process, he became friendly with Premier Schreyer and became, as we all were in those days (and remain so), completely enamoured by the wondrous Lily Schreyer.

Courtesy Harry Palmer Photographs.

Mowat was so charmed by Ed and Lily that he decided to take up residence. He parked his small caravan in the backyard at their house. The Premier signed him on as a dollar-a-year man for the government and Farley took to pounding out proposals on how to bring about some sensitivity to natural environment.

As a young functionary in the cabinet office, I was assigned the task of being the go-between for Mowat with the departments. My role was to attempt to figure out who exactly should be responding to Mowat’s proposals and to impress upon them the seriousness with which the premier took Mowat’s ideas.

Leave a comment

In those days, I had returned from four years in the concrete jungle of Boston and had decided that I must live in the country. To this end, I bought a very small house in the community of Starbuck, Manitoba. I painted the house barn red so that friends could find it and proceeded with some pretty amateurish renovations.

Nevertheless, I extended an invitation to Mowat to visit, which he did with Lily Schreyer in tow. Ed was making a speech somewhere nearby and that was the only explanation offered. There was a compulsory bottle of rum, which we proceeded to demolish.

Starbuck, I should note, is a small community and not one noted for radical tendency of any sort. It was a warm summer evening. Farley decided that he would see if the creek across the road was suitable for swimming. He casually stripped nude, threw a towel over his shoulder and set off. However, I found out later, he stopped at a few neighbours’ homes to seek directions as he was unfamiliar with the area.

Over the next number of months while I lived in Starbuck, I harboured the secret hope that Farley’s celebrity was such that cause had been helped and not hurt by his naked perambulations. The neighbours never said a word about his appearance.

Farley Mowat II

­Farley Mowat continued to tour Canada making speeches saying he'd been a dollar-a-year man to the Manitoba government and that the province was so cheap that it never paid him his dollar.

Other than being mildly annoyed, there wasn't much I could do about this assault on the provincial honour until 1981, when I went into the new government of Howard Pawley as the Cabinet Secretary. (The most senior public servant.) Only then could I take action to silence the loquacious Mowat.

Among the perks of my office, if one could describe it as that, was the chairmanship of an obscure cabinet committee, distinguished because it had in fact, no actual cabinet ministers on it. It had the bland, innocent name, the Hospitality Committee of Cabinet.

This committee approved all hospitality grants, grants for visiting conventions of Elks, Women Of The Moose, and other fraternal orders. We had a modest budget, and we also presided over Manitoba’s prestigious Order of the Buffalo Hunt.

This honour had been given randomly to winning curling teams and visiting dignitaries over the years. It it struck me that in one fell swoop, I could regain Manitoba’s pride and do something nice.

I conspired with the wonderful Rita Kurtz, the publisher’s rep who toured Farley, about when he would be coming to Manitoba next. I prevailed upon Premier Pawley, who heard me out on the story of Manitoba’s honour being tarnished by the Mowat’s rather repetitive assertion that he was owed a dollar that he never saw.

The Premier invited Farley for a very special ceremony at which we presented him with two items: a framed one-dollar bill and recognition of his services to the province.

And we created a new category of the Order of the Buffalo Hunt, entitled Preserver of the Species, in honour of Mowat’s tireless work, not only to save the whales of Churchill, but also many other species.

I think Farley was as delighted at the dollar as by being named as the first Preserver of the Species, Manitoba Order of the Buffalo Hunt. An odd combination when you consider that we pretty much wiped out the buffalo on the Canadian prairies.

Farley and I remained friends although I didn’t see him as often as I would’ve liked. Many years later I had the opportunity to find his old Manitoba manuscripts, wonderful ideas that he typed out on his Underwood typewriter. I felt the right course was to return them to him.

He was reading at Harbourfront in Toronto some thirty years after he had typed these manuscripts. A mutual friend, his publisher Anna Porter, tried to introduce me to Farley backstage at the event. Farley turned - we hadn’t seen each other in a decade - threw his arms around me, gave me a big kiss and said,

You don’t need you to introduce me to my friend, Michael.

This allowed me the perfect location to return the manuscripts to him and to tell a somewhat surprised Anna Porter that Farley was in fact the only living Preserver of the Species, Manitoba Order of the Buffalo Hunt.

If you want to know the full capacity of human beings to destroy nature, Mowat’s Sea of Slaughter is a book you must read. It takes a journey through over 100 years of the history of Gulf of Saint Lawrence. The destruction of the eco-system of the St. Lawrence River that had been teeming with life.

Set in the period of European settlement, the stories Mowat tells are one of rampant destruction, and extinction of species after species by those determined to enrich themselves by taking nature’s bounty without regard for sustainability or for the consequence of their taking.

Sea of Slaughter was one of many powerful books written by Mowat with rancor towards his own human species and our capacity for carnage.

Farley Mowat was a larger-than-life character in every sense. He wrote over 40 books that were translated into 52 languages. He sold more than 17 million books. His first book People of the Deer was published in 1952, the year of my birth. His occupations included author, soldier, environmentalist, naturalist and philanthropist.

When Farley passed in 2014 at 92 years of age, Canada lost one of its most remarkable citizens.

Fabulous Book Launch at Booklore in Orangeville.

My sincere thanks to one of Canada’s very best independent booksellers, Nancy Frater, proprietress of Booklore and friend to authors.

Nancy’s curation of the store is terrific, and she’s also very involved in the local community, hosting author talks and fundraising events for Theatre Orangeville. She’s well-read, erudite and fun.

We had a packed house for The Fulcrum event last weekend, and she generously provided food and beverages for the crowd. I’m grateful to her, and to all booksellers and publishers, who do yeoman’s work birthing stories into this world.

Many books have encouraged me to travel but two had such a powerful impact that I travelled very specifically to experience the setting of each of them.

The first to Africa – to Nairobi, Kenya. The second book inspired a shorter but equally memorable journey to Savannah, Georgia in the American South.

Share

Out of Africa

The opening sentences of Isak Dinesen’s powerful novel, first published in 1937, have always moved me.

“I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong hills. The equator runs across these highlands, a hundred miles to the north, and the farm lay at an altitude of over six thousand feet.”

The moment I read that those lines I knew I wanted to see her farm and the Ngong hills.

Karen Blixen – pen name Isak Dinesen – was married to Baron Bror von Blixen-Finecke, a Swedish aristocrat with whom she moved to Africa. It was a difficult marriage, and after they divorced she had a long relationship with pilot, hunter and adventurer Denys Finch Hatton, who turned out to be her true love.

Karen ran the farm in an age when it was highly unusual for women to do so, and she turned out to be much better at it than Baron Blizen-Finecke who mismanaged it during the marriage.

In 1990, an opportunity to visit came knocking. At the time I lived in Montreal and had a consulting firm. The Canadian International Development Agency, better known as CIDA, asked me to undertake a planning study which meant research and interviews over ten days in Nairobi.

I arrived on a Saturday; the following day found me at the Blixen farm in the Karen District of the city.

In 1964, the Danish government purchased Blixen's former house and gifted it to Kenya to celebrate the country’s newly gained independence from Britain.

The house appeared in the 1985 film adaptation of Out of Africa starring Robert Redford and Meryl Streep. Some say the filmmakers had a hand in restoring the buildings which had fallen into disrepair. The following year the National Museums of Kenya acquired the property and converted the house and grounds into a museum.

I made a second visit 34 years later in 2024 when I took my family on a safari to Kenya and Tanzania. Our safari ended in Nairobi. I was very happy at the chance to visit the museum again.

The grounds are green and splendid with a variety of trees. Amidst them sits restored machinery, imported from England at great expense to process the coffee grown on the farm. I expected Denys Fynch Hatton and Karen Blixen to step through history and stroll arm-in-arm around the farm, but they did so only in my imagination.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

As with Out of Africa, the remarkable non-fiction book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt inspired a journey, this time drawing me to Savannah, Georgia to experience the American south.

The combination of the book with a movie starring John Cusack and Kevin Spacey indelibly imprinted Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil on my mind. And once imprinted, it was only a matter of planning and time before I made the pilgrimage to Savannah.

My visit there included a tour of the house in which the book is set – and where the film adaptation was shot – guided by a very knowledgeable docent. The first chapter is entitled “An Evening in the Mercer House” and it’s very true that the house itself became a major character in the book.

Subscribe now

Mercer House was started in 1860 for General Hugh Mercer. Its construction halted during the Civil War then was completed in 1868 by its new owner, cotton merchant John Randolph Wilder.

(Mercer was great-grandfather to songwriter Johnny Mercer who wrote "Moon River", "Days of Wine and Roses", "Autumn Leaves", and "Hooray for Hollywood” among 1500 other songs.)

The charming docent showed our small group around the Mercer House and its unusual contents. She illustrated each room with well-told and fascinating stories.

The docent was far too careful to ever mention anything about the sensational murder of Danny Hansford, the young lover of Jim Williams, a prominent Savannah antiques dealer who owned the house and was the protagonist of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.

A tourist who hadn’t read the book could leave the elegance of Garden City none the wiser about the dark deeds that took place there.

The house was used by Savannah Shriners Temple, then left vacant for a decade before Jim Williams bought it in 1969 for $55,000. He set out to fully restore it over two years.

The property is three stories tall, including the basement where William’s restoration workshop was located, a courtyard and carriage house. It takes up a full city block, the only building in Savannah in private ownership to do so. The main room faces onto Monterey Square with large French windows. There’s a classical portico at the rear for on both the first and second levels.

The docent told the remarkable story of the elegant porcelain dishes in the dining room which came from the famed Nanking Cargo.

In 1752, the ship Geldermalsen set sail from Canton, China in the South China Sea on its return journey to the Netherlands. It struck a reef and sank with its cargo of tea, raw silk, textiles, dried wares, groceries, lacquer and porcelain.

100,000 delicate white porcelain dishes were recovered in 1985 after over 200 years at the bottom of the sea. Jim Williams bought some of those dishes at a Christie’s auction in 1986. He was a collector extraordinaire with a deep attraction to the macabre.

In his collection is the dagger believed to have been used to castrate Rasputin during his assassination. (Rasputin was the Russian priest and healer who captured the affection of the Russian Queen, Tsarina Alexandra.)

And if you want to know more about Jim Williams, the Mercer House and the murder of Denny Hansford in the study, you’ll need to read the book!

My special edition of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is one of a limited-edition of 2500 copies specially bound books signed by the author numbered from one to 2500. My copy is #1358. It is contained in a lovely slipcover with a green statue from the garden, both on the cover of the book and on the slipcover.

Update on The Fulcrum

Much good news about my second novel, The Fulcrum!

Recently, my publisher told me we’re now permitted to claim ‘Best Seller’ status as The Fulcrum ranked number four on Amazon in both categories of Environmental Thrillers and Natural Disasters.

This was very exciting and gratifying, as are the positive reviews that continue to arrive. I’ve also confirmed an August 23rd book launch at the wonderful BookLore in Orangeville. The invitation is below; I hope you’ll join me!

Also delighted to share this review of The Fulcrum by Muriel Smith, Former Deputy Premier of Manitoba

After decades working on public policy and in senior level management, Michael Decter has written a second novel that has something for everyone – and a little bit more. First, there’s a great love story, with some Irish poetry and mystery. Then there’s a plot that offers not only challenges but some surprising engineering feats in the face of a deadly #5 hurricane approaching Florida and cooperation among the powers that be. In short, a lesson as to how we should approach climate change, not with despair but decidedly with ingenuity and “all hands-on deck.”

Leave a comment

Happy reading in the lazy summer days of August!

Michael

Happy Canada Day 🇨🇦.

The Fulcrum’s official publication date was June 10th and I hit the ground running!

First off, my birth town of Winnipeg on June 14th at one of Canada’s most successful indie booksellers, McNally Robinson.

It was such a delight to have family and long-standing friends turn out, including Ed and Lily Schreyer.

My first job after university was working in Executive Council Office, the central department in Manitoba that supports the premier and cabinet. Ed Schreyer was Premier at the time (later Governor General of Canada, then High Commissioner to Australia). Premier Schryer was very generous towards the young Turks like me who worked for him and we were all in love with Lily.

Next up, the Ottawa launch at Perfect Books. A smaller but enthusiastic house, with the added pleasure of getting to see that day not one but two former Governors of the Bank of Canada – John Crow at the launch and David Dodge for coffee – and talk about Canada’s future.

Then back to Toronto, where I was invited to speak by Chris McLeod at his law firm Cambridge LLP. Every author should be treated as well as Chris treated me. The room was packed, there were delicious refreshments, and I was provided the opportunity to read from and speak about the book, followed by a really insightful Q&A.

Best of all – Chris bought copies for everyone in attendance! It makes an author’s heart sing to know that sixty more people will be engaging with their characters and ideas. I even had a few copies of Shadow Life, my first novel, for those who wanted to read both.

My whirlwind first month tour culminated at one of my all-time favourite book stores, Ben McNally Books. When my office was still down on Bay Street, wandering over to his gorgeous mahogany-lined shelves at lunchtime to buy books was a salvation.

He’s now on Queen Street, still with the same great bookshelves and best of all, an amazing curation of books.

The store was full, spirits were high, and it was lovely to see several people from the Toronto book community come out in support. These included:

Anna Porter, a book publisher for over 40 years and author of 12 books.

Poet and author Molly Peacock.

Poet Moira McDougall.

Novelist and founder/president of Diaspora Dialogues Helen Walsh

Sarah Miniaci – publicist for Shadow Life and now publisher of White Cap Books and Director of Publicity for Sutherland House.

Steven Skurka, lawyer and novelist.

Pratap Reddy, novelist and short story author.

And my sister Ann, who has written and published two novels, and was publisher of McGilligan Books for many years.

At each event, I read a brief excerpt from The Fulcrum, then spoke about why I wrote the book. I paraphrase my remarks below, in case you’re interested!

Publishers always tell authors to hold up their book. When my first book, Healing Medicare, was published, Peter Gzowski invited me on his wonderful show Morningside. I held Healing Medicare up for nearly 25 minutes.

When the interview ended Mr. Gzowski, the ever kind journalist, said to me, “You know Michael, this is radio. Holding the book up did not do you a lot of good.”

I read a brief passage from near the beginning of The Fulcrum when protagonist Matt is driving down to Boston to see his new girlfriend Mary-Louise. He receives a call from his successor at the City of Toronto.

Gordon’s looking for a report called Noah’s Arc that Matthew commissioned when he was city manager. The reported tested Toronto’s vulnerabilities and estimated the impact and mitigation of a few extreme climate scenarios including atmospheric rivers. In the book, the Mayor squashes the report, only to have it leaked, thus exposing the city’s inadequate preparedness.

Matt weighed how technical to get. He could cite peer reviewed studies, recall dismal figures from memory, advocate for the umpteenth time the long-standing scientific consensus. He could throw numbers at Gordon and tell him the planet was well on its way past the temperature increase of 1.5°Celcius, probably even 2.5 or three. But he opted instead for sober realism and practicality – that’s what a city manager needed.

“Extreme events are a certainty, “Matt said, “Bottom line: Forest fires and heavy rains. Take them as a given. The hundred storm. Imagine it happens three times in the next ten years.

“That’s a hell of a lot gloomier than the official government line,” Gordon said.

“I am no longer in government. No need to soft-pedal or mislead the public about what is coming. I can be as honest and blunt as I like.”

Gordon issued a wouldn’t-that-be-nice kind of sigh.

“But listen, as gloomy as it may be,” Matt went on, “don’t fall for the ‘existential crisis’ rhetoric. It’s a trap, navel-gazing. Focus on risk mitigation. Start with the Noah’s Ark study. It spells it out.”

Subscribe now

Three motivations compelled me to write The Fulcrum.

First, I like the characters who emerged in my first novel Shadow Life. Matthew Rice, Mary Louise and Professor O’Connell. They all wanted to go on another adventure, so I gave them one.

My second motivation came from Ron House, an astute reader of Shadow Life. He wrote to say he thought Shadow Life had two writers. One was an autobiographer, and the other was a novelist. With this second novel, I wanted to allow the novelist to triumph over the autobiographer. Readers will judge whether I have succeeded!

A third and most important motivation was my deep concern over climate change and the risks to many cities and some entire countries.

I asked myself the question, what if an entire major city faced near destruction from a severe climate event? What would they do?

The Fulcrum is the fictional answer to that question.

Many years ago, I sat beside former Jean Chretien at a dinner. I asked him what he had learned about climate change in his time as our prime minister. He gave a very Chretien answer – both short and insightful:

“Too many economists, not enough engineers.”

Over many years his answer has not only stuck in my mind, but it has resonated. I was born and raised in Winnipeg although I have also lived in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and Cambridge, Massachusetts.

When I launched The Fulcrum in Winnipeg two weeks ago, I noted that the 1950 Winnipeg flood came close to destroying the city. The evacuation of its 107,000 residents, nearly the entire population of the city, remains the largest single evacuation in Canadian history.

In the 1960s when I was a high school student, we were excused from classes during spring flood years to sandbag the banks of the Red River.

Duff Roblin was elected Premier of Manitoba in 1957. He had a vision for a massive diversion of the Red River around the east side of Winnipeg to protect the city from flooding.

At first, the project was derided as Duff’s ditch. But it has saved Winnipeg from flooding many times. Later known and celebrated as the Red River Floodway, it was deepened and expanded to handle even more overflow after the flood of 1997.

Hardening of infrastructure is what we must do even as we struggle to find alternative forms of energy generation. Climate change is not a distant threat. It is a clear and present danger.

Share

Now, I have a favour to ask! In our digital age, book sales are driven largely by mathematical algorithms. These algorithms are embedded in places like Amazon and Indigo and they impact how easily you appear when people search for the book. These algorithms are driven in turn by reviews.

If you read The Fulcrum, I’d really appreciate you rating and/or reviewing it. It’s hard to over-estimate how beneficial this is for authors.

If you bought the book at Amazon or Indigo, please review it there. And if any of you are on Goodreads, that’s important too.

Thank you for your support.

Michael

One insightful reader of my first novel, Shadow Life, observed that the book was a battle between an autobiographer and a novelist. My reply was to confess the truth of it, although it had never been presented to me in quite that fashion.

Instead, I tended to divide plot points into three general buckets: things entirely drawn from my life. Things completely devised by my imagination. Then the (sometimes uncomfortable) anecdote that straddles both.

In The Fulcrum, the novelist seizes more control of the narrative. However, any novelist will borrow from time to time from their own lived experiences.

So, this excerpt from The Fulcrum, publishing June 10th with Girl Friday Productions of Seattle, is a true story from my university days:

“Did you know that Matt collects first edition books by twentieth century women authors?” Mary Louise asked.

“Oh, really?” Professor McConnell said. “That’s an odd choice of books for a male economist to collect.”

Matt chuckled. “Perhaps. But there’s a story behind it.”

“Do tell,” Professor O’Connell said, as she poured more Bordeaux and settled more comfortably into her chair. “I love a good story.”

“It all started at this very university,” Matt said. “Sophomore year. Back then you had to leave the Harvard Yard and move to a Harvard House. I was class of ‘74 and one of the first male graduates offered the choice of joining either Harvard or Radcliffe house. I chose North House at Radcliffe.”

“I remember that time,” Professor O’Connell said. “Wasn’t there a name for those who moved to Radcliffe?”

“Male Cliffie,” Matt said and took a sip of his wine. “Some meant it as an insult, but I didn’t regret moving to Radcliffe. I don’t remember any who did. There, the houses all turned out to be gender balanced. While the Harvard houses remained overwhelmingly male.”

“Women,” Mary Louise quipped, her finger circling her wine glass’s rim. “Nothing to do with education or feminism. You just wanted better odds on the pursuit of young women.”

He smiled. “Fair enough. But not the whole story. All in all, it was a much calmer and less testosterone-laden atmosphere than the Harvard houses. And we made lifelong friends, all of us, men and women.”

“And where do books fit into all of this?” Professor O’Connell asked.

He took in his surroundings, still amazed at the collection around him. “Well, to fit in, I thought I should take one of the courses offered at North House. Women in Twentieth Century Literature, it was called. The Radcliffe librarian was teaching it, if my memory serves, but her name escapes me. So here I was, a Harvard economics major and sophomore up to my neck in English literature majors. All of them were young, smart women. All of them were at the graduate level doing their master’s and PhDs. I was always an avid reader, but I was hopelessly naïve too. And uneducated in the ways of the study of literature.”

“Did a tragedy befall you?” Professor O’Connell asked. She pointed at him playfully. “Did you fall in love and have your heart broken?”

“Nothing so predictable,” Matthew said. “Though that would’ve been a more pleasant fate. No, I was the only male in the seminar and a male Cliffie, to boot. Economics majors were oddities.”

“But the way you put it,” Mary Louise said, “there was some indeed some tragedy of sorts?”

“Not a tragedy, I’d say. More an embarrassment, of an academic sort. A humiliation. At the start of term, we were given an assignment: Read and analyze one book each from a reading list. I chose Joan Didion’s novel Play It As It Lays. It had just been published, and the book and author were enjoying significant popularity.”

“Let me top up your glass of wine,” Professor Connell said, as she came around with the bottle. “I expect Matthew may need a bracing drink before he confesses his gaffe to us.”

“Gaffe doesn’t begin to describe the evening of my seminar presentation. I thought I was well prepared. I explained, to the best of my economist ability, the meaning of the book. The silence in the room when I finished made me realize that something was wrong, but I wasn’t sure what. The very first question unravelled my presentation and left me sitting there, trying to hide the redness I’m sure had rushed to my face.”

Professor O’Connell returned to her chair and sat on its edge, as if bracing for the punch line.

“The book featured the main character, a young woman driving her stick shift Corvette with great enthusiasm around California,” he said. “The first question was, did I think that perhaps some of the metaphor of the book was sexual? Not something I’d considered, and yet I immediately knew that I’d missed the whole sex thing. And it was clear that everyone else in the room knew I’d missed it, too.”

Mary Louise and Professor O’Connell both howled with laughter.

“Matt,” said Mary Louise, trying to keep her wine from sloshing and staining in the Professor’s clearly expensive décor. “How could you possibly read Play It As It Lays and not know that it was all about sex?”

“We didn’t have a lot of women driving Corvettes in Winnipeg when I was growing up. It was too cold!”

The two howled even harder then.

“From that day on, I began reading and collecting first editions of twentieth century women. Including, I might add, every book by Joan Didion. That was my way of covering my failing with a commitment to understanding the literature of women.”

“Bravo, a wonderful atonement,” Professor O’Connell said.

“Let me add, it was worth the embarrassment. I’ve enjoyed decades of reading pleasure. Nadine Gordimer, Doris Lessing, the Southern writers Carson McCullers and Flannery O’Connor. Irish writer Edna O’Brien. And more than a few Canadians, too–Margaret Lawrence, Carol Shields, Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood.”

Mary Louise smiled. “It must’ve been a dreadful moment there at the seminar, that dawning recognition.”

“Truly horrible. But an important lesson.”

“Don’t miss the sex!” Mary Louise laughed. “A very important for lesson for life as well literature.”

Like my character Matt, I too have never regretted the momentary embarrassment that ultimately brought me a lifetime of reading pleasure.

High Spots (in a collector’s terminology)

In my next newsletter, I will explore the notion of the high spot or notable book for a collector.

My Joan Didion high spot – which took some years to find and acquire – was her first book, Run River, published in 1963.

Below is the book description from Bauman Rare Books in NYC where I purchased Run River. You will see the research and care that goes into properly describing the condition of the book and the importance of its author. These notes also do double duty as catalogue entries. It is the research to prepare these notes that distinguish fine bookstores from just used bookstores.

Subscribe now

The Fulcrum Book Launches

June is turning out to be a busy month of book launches and talks, which I’m excited about. Hope you will join in person or digitally!

First up, Saturday June 14th, 7pm both in person in WINNIPEG at McNally Robinson Grant Park, but also on Youtube accessible wherever you live.

OTTAWA. Tuesday, June 17th, 7pm Perfect Books, 258A Elgin St, Ottawa.

TORONTO. Wednesday, June 25th, 5pm, Ben McNally Books, 108 Queen Street East, Toronto.

I am delighted to launch my Substack newsletter, BOOKENDS. The only activity I enjoy more than reading is writing, and spoiler alert, my second novel, The Fulcrum, publishes June 10th !

With this newsletter, I’ll share books I’ve read, recommendations from book festivals I’ve attended and any unusual or fascinating bookstores I’ve discovered.

Thanks for reading Bookends! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Each issue of Bookends will also include news of my writing journey, publications and events.

What I am Reading: Spies I have Loved

I have always loved spy novels. My earliest spy love affair was with the novels of Ian Fleming featuring the debonair and dashing James Bond with his martinis shaken not stirred.

I have read every one of Ian Fleming’ Bond novels and novellas and watched the numerous film adaptations, each one memorable for a different reason. Bond has evolved from the debonaire, Scottish Sean Connery to the grittier Daniel Craig, but the compelling nature of the films remains the same.

My fascination with spy novelists has progressed from Ian Fleming to John le Carre to Daniel Silva and most recently to Mick Herron. It’s been a journey well worth taking.

John Le Carre’s master spy, George Smiley, is brilliant, yet unassuming. In my favourite of the novels - Tinker Tailor, Soldier, Spy – George Smiley is engaged in the uncovering of a mole in the British Secret Service. He matches wits and tactics and tradecraft against his Soviet counterpart, Karla.

This is le Carre at his best. Laying out the plot, developing the remarkable characters and then bringing it all to a brilliant, somewhat tragic conclusion.

George Smiley is truly a man with no illusions, yet he has one blind spot: his devotion to his wife, the faithless Anne, who compromises his ability to see clearly the spy in his midst. Russian spymaster Karla discovers this fatal flaw in George Smiley’s armour and ruthlessly exploits it.

Alex Guinness played George Smiley in a BBC series based on Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. He is perfectly understated in the role. Smiley is not James Bond. He is clever but not dashing. He is brilliantly patient but not violent.

After George Smiley, my attention turned to a non-British spy, Gabriel Allon, the creation of American author Daniel Silva. The head of the Israeli spy service, the Mossad, Gabriel Allon is also an expert art restorer, backed up an extraordinarily skilled but probable group of operatives.

The plots are intricate. The conflict intense. Allon is caught between his true love (art restoration) and what he sees as his duty as a spy. (At which he is also preternaturally skilled). He moves stealthily through the countries and the elites of the planet, pursuing his mission.

It’s extraordinary that twenty-eight books in, Daniel Silva still manages to deliver thrilling Gabriel Allon stories. The next one, An Inside Job, publishes in July 2025, and I already have it on pre-order.

Most recently, my spy addiction has been fed by the remarkably different novels of Mick Herron. His master spy is the unlikely Jackson Lamb, who has been put out to pasture. MI6 have dumped Jackson into a ramshackle building known as Slough House. The other failed spies (but still employed) who make up his motley crew are known as the Slow Horses.

Jackson Lamb is filled with vulgarity and rudeness; a spy who farts loudly and frequently. He is the very antithesis of the suave James Bond. But Jackson Lamb is also brilliant at what he does. And he has an old-school integrity that puts at odds with the very political leadership of the current day clandestine services.

Mick Herron’s Slow Horses series of novels have been turned into an award-winning television streaming series on Prime. Well worth watching. I am impatiently awaiting the next book from Mick Herron, due in August of 2025 titled Clown Town.

What Am I Writing?

Just over two years ago my first novel, Shadow Life, was published. After eight books of non-fiction, it was a completely different experience writing and promoting it, one in which I learned a tremendous amount.

Thank you to all those readers, book clubs and bookstores who were so supportive.

The fiction bug hooked me, and I’m delighted to announce that my second novel, The Fulcrum, publishes June 10th - always an exciting and anxiety-producing day for a writer!

The novel continues the stories of Matthew Rice and Mary Louise O’Reilly but moves the story to Harvard University and later to Miami. My publisher, the wonderful team at Girl Friday Productions, have dubbed The Fulcrum an environmental thriller.

I’m grateful to be holding book launches at four amazing independent bookstores in June. All events are free with no need for registration. I hope you’ll join me for one or more of them.

WINNIPEG, Saturday, June 14, 2025, 7pm, Robinson McNally Books, Grant Park In the Atrium4000-1120 Grant Ave, Winnipeg, MB R3M 2A6,Tel: (204) 475-0483

OTTAWA, Tuesday, June 17, 2025, 5pm, Perfect Books, 258 Elgin St, Ottawa, ON K2P 0J2, Tel: (613) 231-6468

TORONTO, Wednesday, June 25, 2025, 6pm, Ben McNally Books, 108 Queen St E, Toronto, ON M5C 1S4, Tel: (416) 361-0032

ORANGEVILLE, Date TBC. BookLore, 121 First Street, Orangeville, ON L9W 3J8, Tel: (519) 942-3830.

And…drumroll please…The Fulcrum is now available for pre-order! Pre-ordering is so helpful in planning for the bookseller, publisher and of course to the author. There are numerous ways for you to obtain a copy:

By calling the bookstores above and asking to put one aside.

Through Amazon (both e-book and print).

e-Book versions through Indigo, Kobo Rakuten and Apple Books.

Please keep an eye on this newsletter and/or my website, michaeldecter.com, or more additions, plus reviews and media mentions.

"In the romantic thriller The Fulcrum, lucky lovers work to bring awareness to the dangers of climate change." – Foreword

And please connect with me @MichaelDecterAuthor on Instagram, Goodreads and Facebook. I’d love to hear about what you’re reading.

I’m a fan of the adage that a picture is worth a thousand words. So here it is a very happy author holding his first copy of his new novel, The Fulcrum.

Behind my writing desk is a Charlie Pachter rendering of the marvellous Margaret Atwood entitled “Handmaiden of Honour.” I felt her critical gaze as I struggled to write this novel. And also the presence of her grace and greatness. Hopefully through the mysterious process of osmosis, a tiny amount of Ms Atwood seeped into my own writing.

Until next time, fellow book-lovers!

Michael

Thanks for reading Bookends! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.