Eminent Canadians: Candid Tales of Then and Now

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University and an avid outdoor recreationist. She is the
author of several books, including The Mountain Is Moving: Japanese
Women’s Lives, Kurlek and Margaret Laurence: T

John Fraser is a well-known and highly respected author and educator,
and winner of many awards for nonfiction. The cover tells us nothing of
this, only that “today John Fraser is poking around in the reputations
of a few eminent Canadians.” Obviously the target audience is a
popular one, and indeed Fraser’s style here is colloquial and chatty.

The book is organized into four parts: “The Bishops,” “The
Editors,” “The Prime Ministers,” “The Sovereigns.” Fraser
views history through the focus of individual personalities who are
truly “eminent.” His chosen archetypes are bishops John Strachan and
Terence Finley, editors George Brown and William Thorsell, prime
ministers Wilfrid Laurier and Jean Chrétien, and Queen Victoria and
Queen Elizabeth.

During our century, Canada has metamorphosed from being The Unknown
Country (Bruce Hutchison, 1942) into a bilingual country and a
multicultural haven. Currently, Fraser sees “sparks flying from a
racial tinderbox” and our entrepreneurial spirit “going to hell in a
hand-basket.”

Eminent Canadians has solid scholarly underpinnings, but the style is
provocative and humorous. Fraser is doubtless aiming at a large
audience, and so he should. The book should make great bedside reading
and solve the problem of that special gift.