Writer & Editor
In a school newspaper article back when I started grade ten, a snippet of advice for would-be readers of fantasy ran thus: “Read Tolkien. Live Tolkien. Love Tolkien. Memorize Tolkien. Tolkien, we would like to note, has absolutely nothing to do with inhaling drugs.”
Fortunately, at 14, I was already up to speed on the creator of hobbits, Middle-earth and rings of power.
Sabine Baring-Gould is by no means a celebrity today, but in the 19th century he brought a modern sensibility to an ancient body of superstitions: werewolf lore.
I first came across his name thanks to A Very Special Christmas, of all things. On the 1987 compilation album, among the carols recorded by the then-current crop of rock stars was “Gabriel’s Message,” by Sting. The liner notes credited S. Baring-Gould as the composer.
Born in 1834, the Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould was a prolific writer, composer and collector of folklore. Among his scores of published works are a multi-volume Lives of the Saints, hymns including “Onward, Christian Soldiers,” and The Book of Were-Wolves, a classic survey of werewolf folklore first published in 1865.
For fans of gothic literature, the first chapter alone makes the book worth picking up. As the introduction in the edition I have puts it, Baring-Gould’s account of his stumbling across pervasive belief in werewolves while on holiday in France is worthy of a Victorian novel.
We’ve all heard enough about vampires recently.
Everyone knows they look like frumpy old ladies, overjoyed that an aging population means they fit in nowadays. Or that they keep humans penned up as food, and having sex with a human is tantamount to bestiality. Or that when a vampire slayer starts killing them off, they go right to the police.
Wait, this isn’t sounding too much like Twilight or True Blood — but they’re some of the ideas introduced in the new Canadian anthology Evolve, edited by Nancy Kilpatrick.
The Montreal-based Kilpatrick is no stranger to the genre, having written numerous dark fantasy and horror novels herself. She previously edited the erotic vampire collection Love Bites, and co-edited Edge’s horror anthology Tesseracts 13.
Tesseracts 13 was the first horror title published by Edge, a predominantly sci-fi and fantasy publisher in Calgary. The success of that book prompted this new all-vampire anthology.
I read Mötley Crüe’s The Dirt about a year or two after it came out and it is a flat-out great read, even for someone who, like me, followed the shenanigans of Nikki Sixx, Vince Neil, Tommy Lee and Mick Mars when they were high atop the metal heap in the 1980s. Back then I read Hit Parader, Circus, even Groove (I only bought a copy in the summer of ’87 because it had the Crüe on the cover and I wanted to read about Girls, Girls, Girls, which I hadn’t bought yet… the magazine was pretty terrible) and repeatedly watched an interview Nikki did with Paul McGrath of CBC’s The Journal, which I taped on Betamax. I even bought the VH1 Behind the Music feature on them in 199something. I thought I was well versed in what they were up to.
Boy, was I wrong.
I’m not always keen on rock biographies. Some, like The Dirt, which tells the sordid story of Mötley Crüe, is a great if at times unbelievable read. Others, like Two Sides to Every Glory, which chronicles AC/DC’s rise and then ignores most what happened after 1990, leave something to be desired. And I’ll always have a soft spot for Hammer of the Gods, even though I think all the surviving members of Led Zeppelin have disavowed it.
As a sometime book reviewer for the Winnipeg Free Press, I occasionally get to write about a book like this — the autobiography of Guns ‘N’ Roses founding member Duff McKagan.
The following is republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition December 5, 2011 J7
Even a rock star can feel like a dork.
Guns N’ Roses co-founder and bassist Duff McKagan opens his self-deprecating memoir with his daughter’s 13th birthday party. While trying to stay out of sight so as not to embarrass her by his mere presence, he surprises two partygoers sneaking a kiss.
“My mind rushes through a checklist… of things I was doing at this same age,” he writes: boozing, smoking pot, dropping acid, snorting cocaine, stealing cars, having sex. These kids are just kissing.
Embarrassed, he mutters a quick, “Sorry,” and ducks back into the house.
