FFWD Weekly
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Books by James Martin Truth is stranger than fiction, assuming you can tell the difference. Back in 1928, the literary world was wowed by Long Lance, an eponymous autobiography about growing up Blackfoot in the late 1800s. A captivating, smartly written story, Long Lance contained a touch of creative license. Just, y'know, little things – like the author's name, ancestry, birthplace and life experiences. Pierce Brosnan fans may detect a distinctive Grey Owl flavour to this story. Born of mixed heritage (white, black, native) and raised "coloured" in the racist American South, Sylvester Long saw reinvention as his ticket out of North Carolina and into a better life. A visiting Wild West show fired up his imagination, and young Sylvester began his transformation – the same white society which marginalized Sylvester Long would soon embrace "Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance," the ultimate noble savage. By 1919, Long Lance had landed a job as a Calgary Herald reporter, where he began a brash campaign of self-mythologizing. The byline to his first article alone contained an admirable abundance of brazen whoppers regarding a distinguished military career (wounded in Italy!) and education (graduate of the fictional "Carlisle University"). And that was just the beginning. "Western Canada was a wonderful place in the early 20th century," says Donald Smith, professor of Canadian history at the University of Calgary and author of the newly updated Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance: The Glorious Imposter (Red Deer Press). "There were no radios. Newspapers were quite basic and not really into investigative journalism. Nobody knew much about their neighbours because so many people were newcomers. It was a very fertile place to easily reinvent yourself." Long Lance's self-promoting "journalism" soon landed him an offer to write his autobiography. Holing up in a Calgary rooming house, he bashed out what Smith calls "his great work." Long Lance blended his newspaper writings with details from a friend's real-life Blood childhood, and brazenly tied it all together with whatever half-truths sounded good at the time. (Smith's book exposes several "ethnographical errors," including Long Lance's impossible claim to have hunted buffalo as a child.) Long Lance's deception was not uncovered for many years, so his fanciful autobiography was read as fact. Donald Smith's impeccably researched biography, on the other hand, reads like fiction – for a life built on lies, Long Lance certainly lived an exciting existence. In retrospect, he was a prototype for the cross-platform superstars of today: bestselling author, Hollywood movie star (The Silent Enemy, 1929), and celebrity spokesperson for shoes (seriously: B.F. Goodrich made a line of "Long Lance" runners). The Glorious Imposter is a real ripping yarn, a compassionate portrait of a charming liar who dispensed contradictory fibs with reckless abandon, and in doing so crossed paths with a parade of kooky characters (ranging from thrillseeker Bill "The Human Spider" Strother to Tolstoy's fun-loving grandson). There's romance! (Women swooned over Long Lance's good looks, and he loved to love them in return.) There's intrigue! (When will Long Lance's secret be discovered?) There's tragedy! (The trail of lies ended with his mysterious suicide in 1932.) Not surprisingly, the Long Lance story has been optioned for the silver screen. Smith, who has also written about Archie "Grey Owl" Belaney (subject of the recent bio-pic), can rattle off numerous examples of Wild West rebirth – Frederick Philip Grove, Will James, Adolf Hungry Wolf, to name but a few – but sees Long Lance as unique even alongside such unusual company. "He had a real incentive to reinvent himself," Smith explains. "There was great advantage to present himself as a North American Indian. It allowed him to go much, much further than if he remained classified as 'coloured' in North Carolina. "He's the quintessential 20th century person," he concludes, "an individual with several distinct identities."

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