R.B. Fleming

I was a big fan of Gzowski during the years he anchored the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's week day morning shows This Country in the Morning and Morningside in the 1970's, 1980's & 1990's. I had a conservative friend who once mused that if every Canadian listen to Peter's show, we would be a much more unified country. This is especially interesting in that Peter was frequently criticized by conservative thinkers and leaders such as David Frum and Peter Worthington. Michael Cohen contended that the Canada of Morningside wasn't "the Canada of real people".

Whatever the criticism, Gzowski's many radio & TV programs were very popular. Having Peter interview an author almost guaranteed the successful sales of the book. However, he appears to have been a very insecure and shy man whose personal life was somewhat of a mess. In fact the last chapter of the book reveals that Peter had a child from one of his many affairs that was a well kept secret until by a fluke the author called the mother for information about an article she has written for Maclean's Magazine and her story was revealed.

A friend of mine found the most impressive thing about this book was that it was a post WW II history of the world, but especially Canada's history. This was the time period of our lives as we were the same age as Peter. The names of politicians, artists and writers of our era were the people Peter interviewed on his programs. Much of the fun of reading this book was being reminded of people such as W. O. Mitchell, Pierre Berton, Bob Dylan, Knowlton Nash, Eric Kierans and Dalton Camp.

Fleming's research is so meticulous that there is a wealth of detail in the notes. Sometimes, the information in the notes is more interesting then the actual main text. Of course this slows the read and entails constant flipping back to the note section. Make e sure you have two book marks as you read this gem, one to keep your place when you put the book down and one to keep your place in the note section.… (altro)