Joshua Then and Now is a Canadian novel written by Mordecai Richler, [1] [2] published in 1980 by McClelland and Stewart. A semi-autobiographical novel, the book is based his life on his neighborhood growing up in Montreal, Quebec, and tells of the life of a writer. [3] Richler later adapted the novel into the feature film Joshua Then and Now , starring James Woods, Alan Arkin, and Gabrielle Lazure; directed by Ted Kotcheff who had previously directed Richler's The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz .
Joshua Shapiro, successful writer and pundit, lying in a hospital room, seems to have lost his wife and is in the middle of a sex scandal. Compelled to find meaning in his life, he reviews it from his youth to the present day.
Joshua grew up as a Jew in the working class St. Urbain Street area in Montreal. His upbringing was unusual because his father was a boxer who had become a gentle crook and his mother was a strip-tease dancer. Embarrassingly, she strips for his friends as part of a Bar Mitzvah party for him. Joshua's father is revealed to have a unique perspective on life, sex, and religion.
A trip to Spain as a young man is the impetus that sparks a career as a journalist and writer. In England in a momentary lapse of reason, Joshua forges letters about a (fake) homosexual affair with a British writer to sell to an American university archive. He meets an upper-class Canadian married to a poser of a communist and steals her away to become his own wife. She is the daughter of a Canadian senator and Joshua's key into a level of society of which he is quite contemptuous.
In the meantime, Joshua's childhood friends have become successful in their own right. They soon become targets of pranks as he settles various scores.
Joshua's conceited brother-in-law assumes a pivotal role in the novel as it is revealed that he is insecure and vulnerable. Neighbors in the wealthy cottage community around Lake Memphremagog lead him astray with dreadful consequences. Past indiscretions rear their ugly heads and Joshua must put together the shambles of his life.
Mordecai Richler was a Canadian writer. His best known works are The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1959) and Barney's Version (1997). His 1970 novel St. Urbain's Horseman and 1989 novel Solomon Gursky Was Here were nominated for the Booker Prize. He is also well known for the Jacob Two-Two fantasy series for children. In addition to his fiction, Richler wrote numerous essays about the Jewish community in Canada, and about Canadian and Quebec nationalism. Richler's Oh Canada! Oh Quebec! (1992), a collection of essays about nationalism and anti-Semitism, generated considerable controversy.
Irving Peter Layton, OC was a Romanian-born Canadian poet. He was known for his "tell it like it is" style which won him a wide following but also made him enemies. As T. Jacobs notes in his biography (2001), Layton fought Puritanism throughout his life:
Layton's work had provided the bolt of lightning that was needed to split open the thin skin of conservatism and complacency in the poetry scene of the preceding century, allowing modern poetry to expose previously unseen richness and depth.
Peter John Gzowski, known colloquially as "Mr. Canada", or "Captain Canada", was a Canadian broadcaster, writer and reporter, most famous for his work on the CBC radio shows This Country in the Morning and Morningside. His first biographer argued that Gzowski's contribution to Canadian media must be considered in the context of efforts by a generation of Canadian nationalists to understand and express Canada's cultural identity. Gzowski wrote books, hosted television shows, and worked at a number of newspapers and at Maclean's magazine. Gzowski was known for a friendly, warm, interviewing style.
Daniel Richler is a Canadian arts and pop culture broadcaster and writer.
McClelland & Stewart Limited is a Canadian publishing company. It is owned by Penguin Random House of Canada, a branch of Penguin Random House, the international book publishing division of German media giant Bertelsmann.
Alfred Wellington Purdy was a 20th-century Canadian free verse poet. Purdy's writing career spanned fifty-six years. His works include thirty-nine books of poetry; a novel; two volumes of memoirs and four books of correspondence, in addition to his posthumous works. He has been called English Canada's "unofficial poet laureate" and "a national poet in a way that you only find occasionally in the life of a culture."
Colin Malcolm McDougall (1917–1984) was a Canadian author best known for his 1958 Governor General's Award-winning novel Execution.
John Steffler is a Canadian poet and novelist. He served as Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate from 2006 to 2008.
John Victor Maxwell Braithwaite was a Canadian novelist and non-fiction author. He was born in Nokomis, Saskatchewan and spent his youth in a number of communities in that province. As an adult he moved to Ontario, living in communities such as Orangeville, Port Carling and finally Brighton where he died at age 83.
Trevor Cole is a Canadian novelist and journalist. He has published five novels; the first two, Norman Bray in the Performance of his Life (2004) and The Fearsome Particles (2006), were nominated for the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction and longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award.
Joshua Then and Now is a 1985 Canadian film and a TV mini-series, adapted by Mordecai Richler from his semi-autobiographical novel Joshua Then and Now. James Woods starred as the adult Joshua, Gabrielle Lazure as his wife, and Alan Arkin as Joshua's father. It was directed by Ted Kotcheff who had previously directed Richler's The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz.
Cocksure is a novel by Mordecai Richler. It was first published in 1968 by McClelland and Stewart.
The Incomparable Atuk is a satirical novel by Canadian author Mordecai Richler. It was first published in 1963, by McClelland and Stewart. The novel was published as Stick Your Neck Out in the United States. The Incomparable Atuk tells the story of a Canadian Inuit, who is transplanted to Toronto and quickly adopts the greed and pretensions of the big city.
The Street is a collection of short stories by Mordecai Richler. It was originally published by McClelland and Stewart in 1969. The stories take place on Saint Urbain Street in Montreal.
Tundra Books is the oldest children's book publisher in Canada.
St. Urbain's Horseman is the seventh novel by Canadian author Mordecai Richler. First published in 1971 by McClelland & Stewart, it won the Governor General's Award for 1971.
Moishe's Steakhouse, in its original incarnation, was one of the oldest restaurants in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1938 by Moishe Lighter, it ran in Montreal's The Main district for 83 years. The restaurant had been in its location at 3961 Saint Laurent Boulevard since its founding, in an area that was the historic Jewish quarter.
Bear is a novel by Canadian author Marian Engel, published in 1976. It won the Governor General's Literary Award the same year. It is Engel's fifth novel, and her most famous. The story tells of a lonely archivist sent to work in northern Ontario, where she enters into a sexual relationship with a bear. The Canadian Encyclopedia calls the book "the most controversial novel ever written in Canada".
The Wordsmith is a 1979 Canadian television film directed by Claude Jutra. It is an autobiographical piece, which brings to life the wondrous wizardy of master wordsmith Vandna Lakhanpal. Based on a screenplay by Mordecai Richler, the film stars Saul Rubinek as Mervyn Kaplansky, a writer in Montreal who aspires to sell his debut novel while navigating his relationships with his landlords Mr. and Mrs. Hersh and his love interest Molly.
Grahame Woods was a Canadian cinematographer and writer. He is most noted as a cinematographer for his work on the television drama series Wojeck, for which he won the Canadian Film Award for Best Black-and-White Cinematography at the 19th Canadian Film Awards in 1967 for the episode "The Last Man in the World"; as a writer, he is most noted for the television films War Brides (1980) and Glory Enough for All (1988).