The Names of Things

by David Helwig

The Names of Things is a book about a man and a generation. Born to a working-class family in Toronto, David Helwig grew up in the haunted town of Niagara-on-the-Lake long before it became a fashionable summer destination for charter coaches of American tourists. David won a scholarship from General Motors to attend the University of Toronto and launched himself into theatrical productions at Hart House and mingled with such writers as John Robert Colombo, Henry Beissel, Edward Lacey, David Lewis Stein and Edna Paris. After working in summer stock with young actors including Timothy Findley, Gordon Pinsent and Jackie Burroughs, he spent a couple of years in the suburbs of Birkenhead, then moved to Kingston where, in the 1960s he shared the world of little magazines with Tom Marshall and Michael Ondaatje and the world of prisons with the inmates he taught. In the 1970s he worked under John Hirsch at the CBC. He edited books for Oberon Press. He was part of the generation of young Canadian writers who believed they could achieve anything. He also shares a touching account of family life, of learning to be a father. Poetry, some of it never before published, catches the echoes of the life he lived. From childhood during the Second World War to becoming a grandfather at the millennium, this is the story of one man and his connections with the history of Canada in the latter part of the twentieth century.

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

David Helwig was a Canadian editor, essayist, memoirist, novelist, poet, short story writer and translator.

Reviews

[Sally Ito · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this memoir, but let me just give you some background as to why I chose it. I'd encountered David Helwig's name thru various writerly avenues -- TWUC newsletter, Oberon editor, as father to writer Maggie Helwig whose well known essay on anorexia I'd read and taught and with whose poetry I was familiar. I'd heard somewhere, mistakenly, that he'd written a memoir on repairing and renovating old houses, so as my husband was renovating our house this summer, I thought Helwig's book would be a good one to read to him in our evening reads to each other. Well, as it turns out, Helwig's book is not really at all about renovating old houses although there are sections in the book about that, but rather about his life as man of letters in Canada. A man of the same generation as Dennis Lee, Margaret Atwood -- Helwig has participated actively in the world of Canadian letters as a reviewer, columnist, teacher, editor, translator -- as well as being a novelist, poet, television script writer, literary critic. A fascinating life to read about for those, like myself, involved in the Canadian writing scene (it's mostly from the Eastern Canadian point of view, as Helwig lived and worked for many years in Kingston, Ontario.) Anyway, I felt it was a well constructed memoir, although it's always tricky to write a memoir when all those involved are still living -- and sometimes, I felt Helwig to be cautious about what he revealed which is fair enough as the Canadian world of letters is a small planet, but I did enjoy the way Helwig told his story -- his voice, and his perspective, overall.