No Axe Too Small to Grind: The Best of Joey Slinger

C. Stephen Gray is Director of Information Services, Institute of
Chartered Accountants of Ontario.

This collection of columns by Toronto Star writer Joey Slinger contains just what most readers would expect: many well-written, interesting opinions on a wide variety of issues, and a few instances where Slinger’s wit missed the mark.

The most interesting aspect of the book, however, is what it says about the daily grind of churning out a column that close to a million potential readers will find, if not exactly scintillating, then at least mildly entertaining. Such a vocation cannot be easy, and Slinger makes this point again and again throughout the collection.

The collection has no common thread of subject matter, although the editors have tried to group the essays into a number of categories, from personal columns to those on sports, from writing on the arts to writing about writing. Sometimes the categories just don’t fit — and what holds the book together is the consistent Slinger persona.

That persona is decidedly unpredictable. One day writing humor, philosophizing the next, Slinger mixes his work up very well. Whether he’s writing about the impact Terry Fox had on his own life, or about how to cure Toronto’s ho-hum geography, Slinger is always urbane and articulate. He has been appearing in the Star for several years, and there is no sign that he’s about to get the axe. For a daily columnist, this is surely the most eloquent testimony to success — the fact that the paper continues to allow random thoughts and opinions to appear each day. In Joey Slinger’s case, the consistent quality of the work that is contained in this collection augurs well for his continued presence on the Toronto newspaper scene.