Tiff: A Life of Timothy Findley

by Sherrill Grace

Timothy Findley (1930-2002) was one of Canada’s foremost writers—an award-winning novelist, playwright, and short-story writer who began his career as an actor in London, England. Findley was instrumental in the development of Canadian literature and publishing in the 1970s and 80s. During those years, he became a vocal advocate for human rights and the anti-war movement. His writing and interviews reveal a man concerned with the state of the world, a man who believed in the importance of not giving in to despair, despite his constant struggle with depression. Findley believed in the power of imagination and creativity to save us.

Tiff: A Life of Timothy Findley is the first full biography of this eminent Canadian writer. Sherrill Grace provides insight into Findley’s life and struggles through an exploration of his private journals and his relationships with family, his beloved partner, Bill Whitehead, and his close friends, including Alec Guinness, William Hurt, and Margaret Laurence. Based on many interviews and exhaustive archival research, this biography explores Findley’s life and work, the issues that consumed him, and his often profound depression over the evils of the twentieth-century. Shining through his darkness are Findley’s generous humour, his unforgettable characters, and his hope for the future. These qualities inform canonic works like The Wars (1977), Famous Last Words (1981), Not Wanted on the Voyage (1984), and The Piano Man’s Daughter (1995).

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Canada

540 pages, Hardcover

Published August 25, 2020

About the author

Sherrill Grace, OC, FRSC, is a University Killam Professor Emerita at the University of British Columbia. She specializes in Canadian literature and culture and has published extensively in these areas. Her recent books include Tiff: A Life of Timothy Findley (2020), Inventing Tom Thomson (2004), Canada and the Idea of North (2007), Making Theatre: A Life of Sharon Pollock (2008), and Landscapes of War and Memory (2014).

Reviews

[George Ilsley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Confess to feeling a little disappointed with this massively detailed biography of Canadian writer Timothy Findley. The author appeared more more comfortable in the role of a literary critic rather than as a biographer, and I also confess having to skip and skim to get through extended plot summaries of Findley's many books. Am I interested whether Grace feels a particular novel or plot thread "works" or if she considers three short stories in a collection "slight"? (Yes, she went through every story in every collection and pronounced judgment.)

I read literary biographies for insight into a writer's life. Psychological insights were not this writer's forte, and seemingly she tried her best to steer clear of any except the most hackneyed. While Findley and his partner did not consider themselves "poster boys for gay marriage" the author leaned towards presenting them as being in a loving, stable relationship, without ever (apparently) contemplating the variations or complications such a longterm commitment could entail. She mentions Bill having a relationship with a younger man, while he and Tiff were living in separate houses (the younger man died in a car accident) but does not consider that maybe the primary relationship was "open" and such an affair was not a sign of failure or a rocky patch. Much can be omitted from a journal, even when the journaller was as enthusiastic as Findley. The discretion of friends is also not to be underestimated.

I was disturbed how a biographer could write this book, and talk about Findley's alcoholism and suicidal ideation, and never once mention "internalized homophobia." She states that Findley felt scared to walk through a mall in a small Canadian city for fear of violence, yet does not connect these obvious dots. She names names, so many names, but never identifies how many of Findley's influences and inspirations were, like him, queer. While writing The Wars Findley was interested in Wilfred Owen, Benjamin Britton and Sassoon—gay, gay and gay. She mentions a mysteriously disasterous incident when Scott Symons came to visit and got drunk with Tiff and mischief ensued—she labels Symons as an "aggressive homosexual" (because he was "out") and blames him for the trouble, even though Tiff managed many times to create equivalent chaos all by himself. I admit, labelling one person as an "aggressive homosexual" while being silent on so many MANY others (Patrick White, WH Auden, Gide, Isherwood, Rimbaud) really got my back up. (I wondered if perhaps she just did not know, or imagined it was irrelevant.)

Even the name "Robert Ross," the main character in The Wars evokes a strong queer resonance, yet this possible connection is never mentioned (Robbie Ross, a younger Canadian, was an early lover of Oscar Wilde, and became one of his most loyal and steadfast companions and eventually Wilde's literary executor).

The author John Knowles is described as alcoholic and ailing, but his novel A Separate Peace is mischaracterized as being "about the Second World War." This novel is about male bonding, and is often considered as being crypto-homosexual (Gore Vidal, who attended school with Knowles, claims one of the characters is based on him).

The author searches for the source of Findley's interest in triangular relationships or threesomes, and feels this goes back to his time living with Alec Guinness and his wife. Again, the biographer never considers that Tiff and Bill had their own experiences in this regard (even after glancingly mentioning one such affair). His final novel, Spadework, touches upon a predatory director who solicits sex for career opportunities, and Grace wonders why Tiff would portray a gay man in such a light, and suggests there must have been some sort of experience early in his acting career. Good lord. In this "Me Too" era, how far does one have to look for such behaviour, both heterosexual and homosexual? Again, this biographer displays her discomfort dealing with gay men if they act outside her concept of what she considered to be socially acceptable. Findley's portrayal of a predatory gay man is not a "betrayal"; he is merely presenting a fictional character who is flawed. Some gay men are jerks. Yes, it's true. Bitchy and backstabbing. Others are angels. I suggest Findley's long experience in the theatre gave him a wealth of insight, and he probably showed restraint when he dished the dirt.

So many interviews, so much research. The biographer seems to have spoken mostly to sympathetic friends and colleagues. I met Tiff a few times in Toronto, at public events (always friendly and gracious); however, there were many more readings and other events where he was scheduled to appear but was "unable" to do so at the last minute. I can see from reading this book that he was very busy, overworked, yet it appears that he was also unable to say no and therefore disappointed a lot of event organizers.

This is perhaps my longest review here, ever. That says something, I guess, but I'm not sure what. Perhaps it is because after 400 pages this gay Canadian writer, who didn’t want to be a gay writer or a Canadian writer, remains somehow still unseen, in a book subtitled "The Life of Timothy Findley."

Grace mentions in a footnote Tiff visiting Patrick White’s house with Janet Frame and standing outside “to pay his silent respects.” What a tantalizing image. Tiff and Janet Frame. I wanted to hear more about that.

[Erik · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the late 70's to the early 2000's, Timothy Findley was one of Canada's most successful writers. Along the way (and during) he battled alcoholism, depression, self-doubt, writer's block, suicide attempts, relationship problems, exhaustion, hyper sensitivity, money issues, issues about his sexuality and lack of success. In other words, the classic path of the (eventually) successful creative artist.

Sherrill Grace never met Tiff, but seems to have gone above and beyond to cull every available detail about his life. This is as complete a biography as I've ever read. I love how she successfully conveys the difficulty of being a fully realised creative like Findley, and that a lot of blood, sweat and tears went into his literary efforts. He wasn't just "talented", he worked his butt off. Not just on the writing but the demands on his time that came with it.

The flaws in this exceptional book are few. In fact, I can only think of one. For all the talk of Stone Orchard (Findley's beloved country home) there isn't a single photo of it in the photo section. It's hard to believe that one didn't exist. Perhaps the current owners didn't want it shown? Hard to say.

Highly recommended. It makes me want to read the few books of his that I haven't yet read.

[R.J. Gilmour · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grace's biography traces the life of the Canadian author Timothy Findley. At the same time she connects the biographical details of his life with his writing. It is a sensitive portrayal of an author who struggled with his own identity and the process of writing.

He [Findley] warned that ‘the creation of any successful biography involves, of necessity, encounters with any number of nightmares for a writer: facts that cannot be verified; people you need to interview who die two days before you arrive; intransigent keepers of the flame who refused to divulge the one vital thing you must have access to’ (IM 279) 31
BIOGRAPHY

People are the landscape of memory. Without the benefit of time and place, they are forced to play the scenery themselves. All the information they can give you is there in in their faces and in their names. (IM, 11): 38
MEMORY

‘Memory is making peace with time’ (IM 5) 42
MEMORY

Years later, he would say that during this period he felt ‘the sorrow of the leper and the rage of the outcast’ and feared he would never ‘reconciliation between [him] self and others’:
Everything else that I was-which felt to be about 99.9 percent of who I was and what I was about-went into exile with the .1 percent of aberration. But I could not tell the others in my life-I could not explain to those who had set me apart-and I could not even tell or explain to myself what it was that I felt, because I had no words: I had no means of articulation. (My Final Hour, 7) 106
NAMING IDENTITY

the Moral Re-Armament movement (MRA), led by the American cult figure Frank Buchman. When Buchman and his followers organized the highly publicized cross-Canada propaganda tour called “Pull Together Canada” in 1941, two tenets of this extreme right wing evangelical movement caught her attention: first, loudly proclaimed attack on sexual sin among young men and, Second, their opposition to the use of alcohol, which had produced a sub branch of the MRA that began Alcoholics Anonymous in 1935. From the 1930s to the 1960s, the MRA was very popular in North America and in Europe, where it set up its headquarters in Caux, Switzerland….
In a letter written in the mid 1940s to her closest friend, Isabel McLaughlin, Margaret describe her attendance at an MRA meeting in London, Ontario, where she spoke about her experiences. 107
MORAL CAMPAIGN

he called ‘the very secret company of men in parks,’ in Allan Gardens, in the ravines, or in a few bars (Montador, 28). From today's perspective it may come as a shock to be reminded that homosexual acts were illegal at the time, Toronto police rated places were gay men met, and that extreme homophobia and persecution where the order of the day through the fifties, sixties, and seventies. During the mid 1950s, when a serial killer was praying on children, the newspapers blamed a ‘sex pervert’ and, as late as 1977, the murder of a twelve-year-old Toronto boy elicited virulent attack attacks in the tabloid press damning all gays as perverts and murderers. In their study The Canadian War on Queers, Kinsman and Gentile…112
SEX PANIC

King Henry VI, Part III (act 5, scene 6)
I have no brother, I am like no brother;
And this word ‘love,’ which greybeards call divine,
Be resident and men like one another,
And not in me: I am myself alone.
113

1951-52 season, performing in the Kingston summer production of Priestley’s, Dangerous Corner: 116
DANGEROUS CORNER

For a brief period in 1952, he and Hutt [William] tried living together, but for a number of reasons (never specified by either man) this more intimate relationship did not work. Hutt terminated it, but he remained one of Finley's most valued friends… 117
WILLIAM HUTT

22 October 1953 when the phone rang. Guinness [Alec] answered it-‘the ‘phone was off stage’ in another room-and all we could hear was: ‘dear God-oh the poor man-‘and then silence.’ When he returned to Merula and Tiff, he told them that terrible news: ‘John [Gielgud] has been arrested. It's on all the front pages.’ 133

…wasting time and as ‘tormented by lust.’ 160
LUST

It was on this trip that he met the Canadian ambassador to the USSR, John Watkins, who would later be brought back to Canada on suspicion of treason and interrogated by the RCMP and the CIA in a Montreal Hotel room in 1964. Finley chose Watkins to serve as one of the historical figures behind the character of Harry Raymond in his play The Stillborn Lover. 178
JOHN WATKINS

‘this was a kind of epiphany’ that ‘told me that I was just like everyone else. We are all a collective hiding place for monsters.’ (IM 311) 199
MONSTROSITY

an epigraph from an early Margaret Atwood poem, ‘Evening Translation, Before Departure’:
I move
and live on the edges
(what edges)
I live
on all the edges there are
(The Circle Game 16) 277-278

January 1979 began with rehearsals for his new play, John A-Himself!, at the Grand Theatre in London, Ontario. This play grew out of his work on Berton’s National Dream documentary, but Findley’s MacDonald, with white gloves, was far removed from Berton’s. The play is part history, part political satire, and part vaudeville, with songs, cross dressing, and comic spectacle, written for two types of MacDonald: the live actor (William Hutt) and a large puppet/ventriloquist’s dummy, used when the Prime Minister speaks to the press. 298
THEATRE LONDON

Nothing is harder, now in the present time, then staring down despair, but stare it down we must. (Timothy Findley, Inside Memory 318): 336
DESPAIR

He closed with a challenge to the audience and a warning: ‘a society that defines itself by its sexuality alone has lost its freedom.’ 339
SEXUALITY

She never forgot his words ‘that even monsters are not always monsters.’ 344
MONSTROSITY

From Cheever: ‘the telling of lies is a sort of sleight-of-hand that displays our deepest feelings about life.’ 346
LIES: CHEEVER

The other influence on the backstory of the play and on the Harry Raymond character is John Watkins (1902-64), whom Findley had met in 1955 when he travelled to Moscow with the production of Hamlet. Watkins served as Canadian ambassador to the USSR from 1954 to 1956, but because he was gay he was considered a security risk, vulnerable to coercion and blackmail by the KGB. He died in 1964 in a Montreal hotel room, ostensibly from a heart attack, but the RCMP later admitted that he had been secretly detained and was undergoing police interrogation when he died. 372-373
JOHN WATKINS

he told Garebian that is thinking about the connection between homosexuality and the theatre dated back to the 1950s, when he had known ‘extremely famous, very happily married men, with children,’ who had homosexual affairs. He called their situation 'accommodating sexuality.’ 441
ACCOMODATING SEXUALITY

W.H. Auden’s poem ‘Detective Story.’ The crucial lines up here well along in the story: ‘when the truth,/The truth about our happiness comes out/How much it out to blackmail and philandering. (Spadework 103) 443
AUDEN

[Bay · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Canadian masterpiece!

[Ron Grimes · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very satisfying story of Timothy Findlay's life and times, with lots of off-ramps to go and look up related events and people.

[Joanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's quite a trick to write a biography -- fully researched and documented -- that reads like a novel, but Sherrill Grace does it. I found myself immersed in this book from the first page; not just Timothy Findley, but every figure in this account, emerges as a full human being, not just factually, but also emotionally real.
My one criticism: at sentence level, Grace comes across as fussy and diffident, especially at the beginning of the biography. She spends too much time justifying what she is saying as opposed to just putting it forward. At first it's a distraction, but as the action unfolds, it quickly loses importance.

[Scott Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Timothy Findley is one of my heroes and I think Grace does him justice with this biography. She clearly dove into her research intensely. What she shares with us from Findley’s journals and personal papers is very intimate and special.

Grace uses Findley’s published works as guideposts to walk the reader through his life. It seems a very appropriate approach given how much he seems to have recorded about his work process in his journals.

The one place this falls down is when Grace makes judgements about the general success or failure of Findley’s works. I don’t agree with some of her opinions and I’m not sure they needed to be included here.

[Barbara Brydges · Rating 5 out of 5]

A superb biography of Timothy Findley, meticulously researched, well written and informed by the author’s expertise as a Professor Emeritus of English, specializing in Canadian literature. That expertise makes her analysis of Findley’s books well worth reading, but those sections are quite academic. I was more engaged by the story Findley’s life, made turbulent by his personal struggles with the expectations put on him by his family history, his damaged father’s rejection of him when he identified as gay, and society’s homophobic attitudes during much of his life. Because I was a reader during the first golden age of Canadian literature, in the 1960s and 1970s, I very much enjoyed reading about those times when people like Margaret Laurence, Margaret Atwood, Farley Mowat and Timothy Findley were helping us develop our own cultural identity.

[Carol Stevenson · Rating 5 out of 5]

An enthralling exploration of Tim Findley’s life. Sherrill Grace does an absolutely wonderful job of weaving the life of Tiff through the descriptions and themes of his writings. Tiff himself said,” live imaginatively and creatively by reconciling ourselves with who we are, and above all resisting despair.” His motto - Against despair. These characteristics are clearly evident in the legacy that he has left us in his writing.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 4 out of 5]

It could use a cull of 50 pages, and a little less TMI/minutiae....but there's not denying this is a thorough examination of Timothy Findley's life and work. What took me completely aback was the abject mental onslaught he seemed to suffer throughout his life...to say nothing of growing up in a hellish family environment. That one of my favourite authors managed to produce the genius art that he did now appears quite astonishing to me.

[Teya Z · Rating 4 out of 5]

*I listened to the audiobook. This most definitely has to be read physically because there are images*

What an extraordinary life. There were so many things that I learned that make me appreciate his work so much more. I didn't even think that was possible. A must-read for Findley fans for sure.

[Matthew White Ellis · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best thing about literary biography is when it persuades new readers excited about the subject's work. I think this biography balances the details of Findley's life and his work. Well done.