Just Enough Fog to Keep It Cool

Joan McGrath is a Toronto Board of Education library consultant.

This collection of short pieces, columns that originally appeared in The Evening Times-Globe newspaper of St. John, New Brunswick, from early 1983 to mid-1985, is an introduction to the people of that cool grey city and to the unique flavour of their particular and peculiar brand of Maritime life. Ashe’s people tend to be low-key types — if not out-and-out losers, definitely non-winners in the great lottery of life. They either have odd jobs unlikely to lead to much success, fame, or fortune, or they barely exist on the ragged fringes of society. One, believe it or not, pumps frog stomachs for a living; another, a 402-pound comedian, threatened to sit on the columnist if misquoted. There are runners, vacuum salesmen, garbage pickers, prostitutes, and police in his collection. He makes no judgments, draws no comparisons. Here they are. Meet them; experience them. Each brief glimpse, consisting of only a page or two, suggests a great deal more than it actually reveals; Ashe has a rare talent for capturing the essential tic or trait that can bring his unlikely subjects to wholly believable life.