Writing a successful novel about Canadian politics seems about as unlikely as building a hovercraft — something likely to be an egotistical exercise in folly at best, a leaden, ungainly, and impractical beast at worst. And yet with The Best Laid Plans, Terry Fallis pulled it off (the novel, not the hovercraft, to the best of my knowledge).
It’s an interesting publishing story, now familiar to most. Publisherless, Fallis released a chapter-by-chapter podcast of his book, and it really caught on. Publishers had a closer look. And the book won the Stephen Leacock Award for Humour. It’s an unlikely fairtayle, much like the one in the book’s pages, which of course reads not like a traditional tale with valiant knights fighting to carry the day, but rather one in which our reluctant heroes see happily ever after as total disaster.
Here’s the story: Liberal speechwriter Daniel Addison wants to get out of politics, but the only way the party will let him make a clean break is if he does his party one final favour: finding a Liberal candidate to run in Tory stronghold Cumberland-Prescott. After a many false starts he finally strikes a deal with his neighbour/landlord Angus McLintock, a curmudgeonly [...]
