At this writing, Morley Torgov is doing a great job at nudging up the life expectancy of the average Leacock Medal winner. He is also glowing beacon of inspiration for anyone who hopes to remain active, engaged, and comfortable into their later years.
Born
on December 3, 1927, the long-time Torontonian is reportedly plugging
away at the same daily routine that has served him so well in two daunting
fields of human experience the sixty years: writing the comic and complex
stories of Canadian life and wrangling the comic and complex cases of Canadian corporate
law.
Torgov
got his first taste of writing while a teenager working part time for the local
newspaper in his home town, which was, as his fans know well, the Northern
Ontario steel mill city of Sault Ste. Marie. He developed his love of words further while
in university where he counted literature as his favoured field of study. But the imperative to earn a living and
secure a respected profession propelled him into law school at Osgoode Hall where
he met his wife Anna Pearl and eventually onto a job as a big city lawyer. They had two children, a boy named Alexander,
and a daughter,
the actress and artist Sarah Torgov.
Although he continued to write
on the side, it was not until his father passed away in the mid-1960s that Torgov felt free enough to
pen his first book which drew on difficult personal reminiscences of life the
Soo. The book A Good Place to Come
From won the Leacock Medal in 1975.
In 1983, another of his works, The Outside Chance of Maximilian Glick,
also won a Leacock Medal.
His writing led to other
successful novels, stage plays, and short stories published in leading
magazines and papers. He is books
prompted television productions, plays by others, and, in the case of Max
Glick, a television series.
Torgov inspires for
several reasons. He was clearly able to manage is time, focusing on intense
bill-paying work in the day and switching in a dedicated way to writing at
night. He also used his works as a
platform to support the CNIB and pioneer audio books for the Blind.
Finally, Torgov inspires
me because he has managed to continue his work, maintain his character, and
pursue his interests after personal tragedy, Alexander’s death in 2009: the
kind of thing that really tests one’s capacity for humour and kindly
contemplation of the incongruities of life.