1983 Leacock Medal winner
The
Outside Chance of Maximilian Glick
by
Morley Torgov
Click here for link to Audio of Podcast
But
the book itself was set in the imaginary Northern Ontario town called Steelton,
not unlike the author Morley Torgov’s native Sault Ste. Marie.
This interview with Morley, who turns 95 years
of age in 2022, talked about the book’s success and his future plans for Maximilian
Glick.
Morley
Torgov (MT)
Steelton
is a fictional town, but actually, the west end of the Soo was known as steel
town because of its proximity to the Algoma steel plant.
DBD
Talking
about the Algoma steel plant, it reminds me of one of your metaphors in Maximilian
Glick about (it being like) dragons belching fire and smoke and swirling
around. And that was one of the things that I admired about your writing – that
is the creative metaphors that always, you know, seem to be apt and effective.
Did those just flow to you? Or is it something that you consciously work at
when you're writing?
MT
No,
I consciously work at it because I'm a slow writer, and I tried to be as colourful
as I can without being pretentious because sometimes you can overdo it of course.
Morley
Torgov (MT)
That's
the trick. That's the trick finding that balance.
MT
I
don't say this to be to be boastful. But I'm a very tough self editor, I will
quite often write six, seven, ten drafts of something before I get exactly what
I want. I envy writers who can do it a lot faster and a lot easier. But with
me, it's hard work.
DBD
When
you decided to write The Outside Chance of Maximilian Glick, what was
the driver? Was it a desire to tell a coming of age story with a quirky mentor?
Or was it about the Lubavitcher Rabbi being dropped into a small town?
MT
Initially,
it was the Lubavitcher Rabbi being dropped into a small town because what
generated that book was a news item in the Canadian Jewish News, which was a
newspaper at the time. And this was back around 1979. A rather sad story about a conventional rabbi
and by conventional I mean, he looked like anybody else, you know, shirt and
tie. That conventional rabbi in Moncton, New Brunswick, who just before the
High Holidays, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, stepped out in the wrong place on
the street and was, I think, killed by a bus.
And
the congregation who were desperately in need of a replacement, got in touch
with the Canadian Jewish Congress in Montreal, who dispatched a young Rabbi out
to Moncton to help out for the holidays. And the rabbi turned out to be a
member of the Lubavitcher sect, these are the people who wear these great big,
huge black hats, and long black coats, white socks, black shoes, and have
dreadlocks in their hair. And they're very peculiar looking people, at least
they are if you've never seen them before. And when I read the piece, as sad as
the death of the earlier rabbi was, I just found it potentially hilarious. The
idea of a lot of people, mostly Christian, of course, in a place like Moncton and
seeing this man on the streets for the first time, never having seen anybody
like him before.
And
of course, to some extent, he constituted an embarrassment for the
congregation. Because the Jewish congregation preferred a low profile at the
time. Anyway, long story short, I found a piece in the end to be hilariously
funny and decided it had the makings of a book. And what I had to do was throw
in another character. And I threw in this young, Maximilian Glick, who's about
to have his thirteen-year bar mitzvah. And that's what generated it.
DBD
The
Bourgeois part of my extended family hovers around Moncton. So I'm going to
hold on to that light association with Maximilian Glick.
MT
Oh,
really?
DBD
Not
the death of the rabbi, of course, but yeah, the humour there. Did you personally see yourself in Rabbi Teitelman?
I mean, you were a person who had a core career as a lawyer, but was a humorist
on the side.
MT
Yes,
you’ve got it exactly. He was frustrated because what he really wanted was not
to be a rabbi but a stand-up comedian. And what I really wanted was not to be a
lawyer, but to be a journalist, and primarily a humorist.
DBD
Well,
I think you succeeded in knitting the two together like the spider’s first
spinning.
MT
Well,
thank you for saying that. I was a little disappointed in the movie because
when I wrote the book, I intended it to be a bit of a fable.
You
may recall at the end of the book, we're not 100 per cent positive what
happened to the rabbi. We know that we
think he became a stand-up comedian, but it's not nailed right down, and I
wanted to leave it that way. But when the movie was done, apparently movies
don't sell with endings that are fables. And so, they decided to end up with a
kind of Disneyesque happy ever, ever after kind of thing.
DBD
With
everybody dancing around there.
MT
Yeah,
everybody dancing around. That's not what I wrote. But there it is for what
it's worth.
DBD
The
rabbi, in his infamous speech, told a joke about Protestants feeling guilty
about their sins, climbing on a soapbox in the street corner, Catholics
climbing into a box and whispering their sins but …
MT
And Jews locking themselves in the basement or writing their biographies or
autobiographies. And I think that's very true. I just got finished reading a
biography of Philip Roth. And I think that's truer than ever. This was not an
autobiography. But it was a biography of Roth. But I think a lot of Jewish writers, mostly
what they are writing, whether they realize it or not is autobiography?
DBD
Well,
I think the guilt is maybe a light factor in anything you've written.
Maximilian Glick, I think I heard that there may be a musical in the works?
MT
Yes,
some people are working on a musical version. As you know, it was first a novel,
then the movie, and then a TV series. It ran for a couple of years on the CBC.
And then I had the idea a couple of years ago, after watching for probably the
25th time, Fiddler on the Roof that it occurred to me that Maximillian
Glick had a lot of what it would take to make a good musical because music
is a large part of the lives of these two young people in the book. So I had
some lucky connections, and I spoke with some people. And now a musical is in
the works, just hope I'm around if and when it comes to fruition.
DBD
Pianist
on the Roof.
MT
That's
an idea. Pianist on the Roof.
DBD
Of
course, humour and music permeated almost all your works. And as you mentioned
the other day, you were shortlisted for a couple of other Leacock Medals. Yes, I was on the shortlist in 1991 for a book
published in 1990, called St. Farb’s Day about a lawyer getting into a
lot of difficulties. And then again in 2003 for Stickler and Me, which was
published in 2002, about a lawyer in a small town who gets into trouble and who
decides to take it on the lam with his grandson. Both of them had a lot of
humor in them. They were both shortlisted. But they weren't medal winners.
DBD
And
you were, of course, responsible for the mystery series, the Inspector H Hermann Preiss Price books.
MT
That has to do a
lot with my love of classical music, because that's a series of seven books.
And each one deals with one of the famous composers of the 19th century and
involves usually a murder. And there are some funny bits. These are not really
blood and guts kind of stories. They have a fair amount of humour in them as
well.
DBD
When
was the last time you wrote one of those books?
MT
Well,
the last one was finished just earlier this year. And I'm working on a book of
short stories for the first time. I've got seven of them done and one more in
the works. And then I'm hoping some publisher will be interested. The thing is,
at my age and this is not an original thought. I think a lot of people will say
this, the busier you are and the more you ignore your age, the better off you
are.
DBD
I'm
staring at my 70th birthday next year.
MT
You
don’t sound 70, I gotta tell you. You sound
more like you're in your 40s.
DBD
I'm
definitely immature. But you're a great inspiration, Morley. I wish I could
rhyme off the names of all the Leacock medalists that passed their 90th
birthday.
MT
Well,
I don't know how many there were. But I do know this much. If you're a writer,
keep writing. Because if you don't keep writing, as it has been said, you
become posthumous before your time.