The Last of the Crazy People is the first novel of Canadian author Timothy Findley. It was published in 1967, in Britain, and later on in Canada, and was one of the first novels ever to be labelled as Southern Ontario Gothic. [1]
Canadians are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, several of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being Canadian.
Timothy Irving Frederick Findley, was a Canadian novelist and playwright. He was also informally known by the nickname Tiff or Tiffy, an acronym of his initials.
Southern Ontario Gothic is a subgenre of the Gothic novel genre and a feature of Canadian literature that comes from Southern Ontario. This region includes Toronto, Southern Ontario's major industrial cities, and the surrounding countryside. While the genre may also feature other areas of Ontario, Canada, and the world as narrative locales, this region provides the core settings.
The novel tells the story of a well-to-do Ontarian family in the 1960s, whose future becomes uncertain when Jessica (the wife/mother) gives birth to a stillborn and returns home only to become hostile to the rest of the family, and to imprison herself in her own room.
The family is put under even more stress as Gilbert, the elder son, begins to act out in drunken outbursts and questionable behavior in public. The yelling and arguing in the house only helps to reinforce the family's reputation as 'crazy'.
As the few fine threads holding the family together quickly deteriorate over the summer, Hooker is left mostly in the dark as to why this is happening to them. Left to mostly his own devices, he must come to his own terrifying conclusion as to what must be done about it.
Hooker Winslow – Hooker, the novel's protagonist, is the youngest member of the Winslow family. Hooker has no friends and spends a lot of his time properly burying the mice, birds and other animals killed by his cats. The rest of it he spends either alone, or with his caretaker Iris. He is trying to hold his family together.
Gilbert Winslow – Gilbert, Hooker's older brother, is a 22-year-old prep school drop-out who lives in the family library, and spends most of his time drinking, smoking and talking even though no one listens to him.
Jessica Winslow – Hooker and Gilbert's mother, she is a volatile recluse who irrationally despises her children and motherhood after giving birth to a dead child.
Nicholas Winslow – Hooker and Gilbert's father, Nicholas (or 'Nick' as he is often called) is a Toronto businessman who has all but resigned to let everything in the Winslow household continue as is. He is a rather ineffectual man, who refuses to exercise his authority as a father and husband.
Rosetta Winslow – Nicholas' spinster sister, Rosetta dotes over her brother and is the de facto authority figure in the house. She spends most of her time in her office, surrounded by photos of dead relatives.
Iris Browne – The family servant, Iris is Hooker's caretaker and principal companion. Having been with the family for roughly thirty years, she was also Gilbert's caretaker when he was a child. She has a complex relationship with these two, while to the rest of the family it seems, she is only the help. This two-layer connection to the family allows her character to transcend the divide between the 'normal' outside world, and the 'crazy' world of the Winslow household.
The novel was adapted to the cinema by Laurent Achard who was awarded the Best Director prize at the Locarno International Film Festival in 2006 for that film.
The cat in the novel is named Little Bones, which is also the title of a popular song by Canadian band The Tragically Hip. The story also takes place in a little town called Cannington, ON where the author wrote the story and made the story relate to.
The Tragically Hip, often referred to simply as The Hip, were a Canadian rock band from Kingston, Ontario, consisting of lead front man Gord Downie, guitarist Paul Langlois, guitarist Rob Baker, bassist Gord Sinclair, and drummer Johnny Fay. They released 13 studio albums, two live albums, one EP, and 54 singles over a 33-year career. Nine of their albums have reached No. 1 on the Canadian charts. They have received numerous Canadian music awards, including 16 Juno Awards.
Anne of Green Gables is a 1908 novel by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery. Written for all ages, it has been considered a classic children's novel since the mid-twentieth century. Set in the late 19th century, the novel recounts the adventures of Anne Shirley, an 11-year-old orphan girl, who is mistakenly sent to two middle-aged siblings; Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, originally intending to adopt a boy to help them on their farm in the fictional town of Avonlea on Prince Edward Island. The novel recounts how Anne makes her way through life with the Cuthberts, in school, and within the town.
Barbara Gowdy, CM is a Canadian novelist and short story writer. Born in Windsor, Ontario, she is the long-time partner of poet Christopher Dewdney and resides in Toronto.
The Blind Assassin is a novel by the Canadian writer Margaret Atwood. It was first published by McClelland and Stewart in 2000. Set in Canada, it is narrated from the present day, referring to previous events that span the twentieth century.
What's Eating Gilbert Grape is a 1993 American drama film directed by Lasse Hallström and starring Johnny Depp, Juliette Lewis, Darlene Cates, and Leonardo DiCaprio. The film follows 24-year-old Gilbert (Depp), a grocery store clerk caring for his morbidly obese mother (Cates) and his mentally impaired younger brother (DiCaprio) in a sleepy Midwestern town. Peter Hedges wrote the screenplay, adapted from his 1991 novel of the same name. The film was well-received; DiCaprio received his first Academy Award nomination for his role.
Tanya Sue Huff is a Canadian fantasy author. Her stories have been published since the late 1980s, including five fantasy series and one science fiction series. One of these, her Blood Books series, featuring detective Vicki Nelson, was adapted for television under the title Blood Ties.
Helen Shaver is a Canadian actress and film and television director. She has received Emmy and Saturn Award nominations, among other honours.
Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story was a 2000 miniseries television film, and the third installment in a series of four films. The film was highly anticipated among fans of Anne of Green Gables. It borrowed characters from the Anne of Green Gables novels by Lucy Maud Montgomery. It served as a sequel to two mini-series produced by CBC Television in the 1980s. It was the most controversial and heavily criticized of the three film adaptations written and produced by Kevin Sullivan.
Susan Swan is a Canadian author. Born in Midland, Ontario, she studied at McGill University. Her list of works includes The Western Light (2012),The Wives of Bath (1993), and What Casanova Told Me (2004). The Wives of Bath was made into the film Lost and Delirious in 2001, starring Piper Perabo, Jessica Paré, and Mischa Barton. The film was listed in the official selection in the Sundance Film Festival. Swan has participated in the Humber College Humber Writer's Circle at Lakeshore Campus. Susan Swan also taught at York University and retired from there in 2007 to concentrate on her writing. She was Chair of The Writers' Union of Canada for 2007–2008.
Anne of Ingleside is a children's novel by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery. It was first published in July 1939 by McClelland and Stewart (Toronto) and the Frederick A. Stokes Company. It is the tenth of eleven books that feature the character of Anne Shirley, and Montgomery's final published novel.
Mazo de la Roche, born Mazo Louise Roche in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada, was the author of the Jalna novels, one of the most popular series of books of her time.
Joyce Wieland, OC was a Canadian experimental filmmaker and mixed media artist.
The Blue Castle is a 1926 novel by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery, best known for her novel Anne of Green Gables (1908).
Jessica Margaret Anderson was an Australian novelist and short story writer. Born in Brisbane, Anderson lived the bulk of her life in Sydney apart from a few years in London. She began her career writing short stories for newspapers and drama scripts for radio, especially adaptations of well-known novels. Embarking on her career as a novelist relatively late in life - her first novel was published when she was 47 - her early novels attracted little attention. She rose to prominence upon the publication of her fourth novel, Tirra Lirra by the River, published in 1978. Although she remains best known for this work, several of her novels have garnered high acclaim, most notably The Impersonators (1980) and Stories from the Warm Zone and Sydney Stories (1987), both of which have won awards. She won the Miles Franklin Literary Award twice, and has been published in Britain and the United States. Jessica Anderson died at Elizabeth Bay, New South Wales in 2010, following a stroke. She was the mother of Australian screenwriter Laura Jones, her only child.
Blue Heaven (1988) is the first book by novelist Joe Keenan. It is a gay-themed comedy about four friends who get caught up in ill-fated attempt to scam a Mafia family by faking a marriage and absconding with the cash and gifts that the prospective in-laws will shower on the lucky couple.
Holly Dale is an independent filmmaker from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Over the course of her career, Dale has worked in the Canadian film and television industry as a director, producer, writer, and editor. Although she has completed solo projects, the majority of Dale's work has been in collaboration with her former classmate, Janis Cole. The Thin Line (1977), P4W: Prison for Women (1981), and Hookers on Davie (1984) are some of their most recognized projects. Dale's work has been featured in festivals around the world including North America, Europe, and Australia. She has also received award nominations and wins, including a Gemini Award in 1982 for the Best Theatrical Documentary for P4W: Prison for Women.
A New Athens, first published in 1977, is the sixth novel by Canadian author Hugh Hood and the second in his 12-novel cycle, The New Age.
"The Moons of Jupiter" is a short story by Alice Munro, the Canadian winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013. It deals with how facts may change over time. The story is 17 pages in length and made up of 7 sections with the shortest section being the final one.
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 librarian in northern Ontario who enters into a sexual relationship with a bear. The book has been called "the most controversial novel ever written in Canada".
Crazy Rich Asians is a 2013 novel by Kevin Kwan.
Nicholas Ruddock is a Canadian writer. He is the author of two novels, The Parabolist and Night Ambulance, and a collection of short stories, How Loveta Got Her Baby. In 2016, he was shortlisted for the richest story prize in the world, the EFG Short Story Award, for his story "The Phosphorescence."