Living Here

W.J. Keith is a retired professor of English at the University of Toronto and author A Sense of Style: Studies in the Art of Fiction in English-Speaking Canada.

David Helwig is a novelist and poet who has consistently produced
meritorious work over the last three decades or so without achieving
that mysterious something that becomes essential to a culture. (This is
not, I hope, a condescending or unsympathetic judgment; it is close,
indeed, to his own self-appraisal in some of the essays here.) I have
read a good deal of Helwig over the years, yet the piece that has stayed
in my memory most vividly is an essay contributed to the 100th issue of
Canadian Literature entitled “Mere Self,” a troubled but honest
brooding on his situation as an agnostic in an Anglican church choir.
Parts of this essay appear in a different form in “The End of It” in
this collection of nonfiction pieces that, in my view, represents Helwig
at his best.

Like an earlier collection, The Child of Someone (1997), Living Here is
a deeply personal series of articles reflecting Helwig’s many
interests. He ranges from personal reminiscence (his days working in a
food store in Niagara-on-the-Lake) and family history (relics of his
grandfather’s membership in a spiritualist chapel) to literary
discussions of his reading and of writers he has known (the work of Hugh
MacLennan, accounts of his meetings with Robert Finch and Al Purdy) and
meditations on the basic issues of life (spiritual but not spiritualist,
religious in scope without being dogmatic or even believing).

The range is broad, yet the book is held together by the unassertive
yet attractive personality of Helwig himself: thoughtful, intellectually
curious, unostentatious, gentle, trustworthy. He sounds relaxed, but
there is an art in this kind of nonfiction that too often passes
unrecognized, and Helwig’s success here is impressive. He makes no
claims to be an infallible expert; instead, he pursues his interests
wherever they may lead, relying on honesty, common sense, and a genuine
artist’s imagination and integrity. Living Here is, I believe, a
modest masterpiece.