FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1999. All Rights Reserved

Books by Anne Georg "Few things are less mysterious to a 16-year-old than his grandmother," writes Don Gillmor in his new book, The Desire of Every Living Thing: A Search for Home. But Gillmor’s perception changed when his grandmother, Georgina Ross, was 80 years old and the family discovered she had been born out of wedlock. It was this revelation, so strange and laden with significance to this modern Canadian, that it inspired the award-winning writer to research his maternal family tree. Who among us doesn’t thrill to the stories of a scandalous great-great-grandfather or an improper great-aunt? Skeletons in the closet are a scintillating part of the history of many Canadian families that, like Gillmor’s, came to this country to reinvent the family. It is the obsession about our ancestors in this nation of immigrants which makes this a uniquely Canadian book and draws us to its themes. The Desire of Every Living Thing is an evocative blend of personal discovery, travelogue and a historical account of Scotland, Winnipeg and Calgary. Gillmor is thoughtful in his use of analogy, using historical facts to weave his personal family story with astute social observation and commentary. The book is fascinating to read, because as Gillmor points out, "My family weren’t the only ones, certainly, who came to Canada to remake themselves. The Old World, all the various Old Worlds, are littered with discarded names, crimes, families, identities, nationalities, religions." During an interview while travelling through Calgary, Gillmor says he was curious about the tremendous burden his grandmother carried throughout her life, even though most modern North Americans don’t associate moral taint to children born out of wedlock, or even to the mother who gives birth out of wedlock. Gillmor travelled to Scotland to do his own idiosyncratic research into his Presbyterian lineage. Those who have read Gillmor’s journalism in his frequent contributions to Saturday Night, Globe and Mail, GQ and Rolling Stone know his style is detailed, close to the bone and witty. This book doesn’t disappoint. He recounts a night he had in Glasgow drinking beer and playing pool with an unsavoury and argumentative Lowlander, a tribe his grandmother had always warned him about. He felt lucky to escape without getting beat up, and recalls his grandmother’s prejudice. His descriptions of the Calvinist traditions of his family, the folks who are still members of the diminishing congregations in Scotland, and the churches in which they worship, are masterful as entertainment and engrossing as information. The history of Scotland and Winnipeg, where Gillmor grew up, and Calgary, where Gillmor spent about 10 years, contains insight, flavour and humour. He uses the Highlands in Scotland and the two Canadian cities as symbols of how people create inaccurate, romantic mythologies about place and family, and sometimes have outrageously distorted expectations of their new identities and places. Gillmor has written two other books, both for children. He is currently working on a Canadian history series being produced by CBC. So, where does he go from here? That’s something on which Gillmor won’t speculate. He’ll assure us, though, that he’s pretty much ready to move on to something that’s "not history."

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