Articles in Memoir

Shelter From The Storm

Fathers and sons, architecture as refuge, and a family’s great loss

Test of the Heart

This is the story of a heart operation. It’s also the story of a marriage.

Through Darkness and Light

Exhuming the ghosts of war in England and Greenland

We Want a Black Poem

In search of an interview with James Baldwin, a young Canadian immigrant experiences the intensity of Harlem in the 1960s, and ultimately finds Malcolm X.

Ringo’s Drum Roll

(or, lessons in living on a modest talent)

The Changeling

On top of the TV there was a picture, colourized and framed, of baby Gail sitting on my father’s knee, with her name printed in the top right corner: Gail Gallant at 3 months

My Life with Tolstoy

It was an ill-advised journey. You don’t go to Jamaica in August unless you grew up there. Too hot. And those roosters.

Swimming with Mao

By the time I left China, I had either thrown away or lost my childhood collection of memorabilia from the Cultural Revolution

Taming the Monster

How a son learned to live with the death of his father

God in a Pickup Truck