Paul Quarrington

has been diagnosed with lung cancer.
He's sanguine in the face of having "months possibly years, to live."
The news of Quarrington's diagnosis makes me remember how much I liked his novels years ago.
Whale Music is probably the book best remembered as it was filmed and filmed well.
I was always more partial to the Life of Hope, a comic gem very reminiscent of Terry Grigg's new novel, Thought You Were Dead.
Terry will be at Words Worth on June 8th along with Cynthia Flood.
In Quarrington's novel a small town of oddballs soon envelope the lead character Paul, who has gotten out of the big city in an effort to finish his second novel. Our hero gets caught up in the sweetness of his new surroundings, finds love on a baseball diamond and is soon fixated on catching a two hundred year old catfish of local legend.
Terry's book has a similarly agreeable flavour, perfect with a pint on a patio somewhere and while I was reading it I was back in the mid 80s during simpler days reading Paul Quarrington for the first time.
The Globe and Mail notes that Quarrington has already undertaken chemo and I wish him the very best.

David