White Gloves Of The Doorman

In White Gloves of the Doorman, Branko Gorjup brings together 27 writers and critics from 6 countries–Canada, the U.S., Spain, France, Croatia & Italy–to assess, present, analyze, and celebrate the work of author Leon Rooke. We look through their windows of essay, interview, review, personal reminiscence, parody, bibliography, and video into Rooke’s dazzling house of fiction. We see how this writer whom Michael Ondaatje has called “a magician with long sleeves” casts his spell and makes that house. We learn what he is standing guard for, the doors he opens into dark or shining secret rooms, and how his words perform their magic on the page.

Russell Banks*Eva Darias-Beautell*Russell Brown*Neil Besner*Barry Callaghan*Nicole Coté*Peter Cumming*Anna Pia De Luca*M.A.C. (Marion) Farrant*Keath Fraser*Douglas Glover*Branko Gorjup*Michèle Kaltenback*Michael Keefer*Janice Kulyk Keefer*Paolo Marino*Mike Matthews*Tom McHaney*John Metcalf*Anne Michaels*Karen Mulhallen*Laurence Naumoff*Francesca Romana Paci*Rosemary Sullivan*Danièle Pitavy-Souques*Joan Thomas*Kent Thompson*Simone Vauthier*

This lively, ground-breaking book includes a BONUS DVD–”Tongue and Groove: A Portrait of Leon Rooke”–a one-hour film directed by Paola Marino, set largely in the author’s home and featuring dramatic readings of his work by Leon Rooke and friends.

Branko Gorjup is the general editor of the Peter Paul Series of Contemporary Canadian Poets. He is presently teaching Canadian Literature at the University of Toronto at Scarborough.

LEON ROOKE is a novelist, short story writer, playwright, editor and critic. He has published 28 books, and nearly 300 short stories He was born in rural North Carolina in 1934, lived in British Columbia (Canada) for a good many years, then moved east to Eden Mills in 1987, where he became the founder and artistic director of the popular Eden Mills Writers’ Festival. He has taught or served as writer-in-residence at over a dozen Canadian and U.S. universities, and conducted workshops both in Canada and abroad. His work has been widely translated, most recently in Croatian, Italian, Japanese, and French. His critical work has been published extensively in Canada and the U.S., including the Washington Post Book World and the New York Times Book Review.