As I write this Crad Kilodney is dying. Once a fixture on Yonge Street, where he sold his self-published works such as Lightning Struck My Dick and Putrid Scum - inspiring poet and writer Stuart Ross to do the same with his self-published chapbooks - Crad was never less than genial. I frequently stopped to chat with him about one thing and another; sometimes it was about his books and sometimes about the books of other writers. Often it was about nothing at all, just two young men bemused by life on Hogtown's central thoroughfare. This was Yonge Street in the 70s, after all, when it was the city's main drag and there was a lot going on - good and bad.
Crad disappeared years ago, and I heard he headed for the suburbs after inheriting a substantial sum from his family. I heard too that he'd become a day trader in stocks. True or not his later career is beside the point. What is important - and ironic - is Crad's contribution to CanLit during his heyday in the nationalistic 70s as he was an American from New York City, although he sometimes claimed to be the illegitimate son of Pierre Berton. As the titles of his books demonstrate, his writing was, well, unusual. And a relief. Relief from navel-gazing. Relief from grim tales set in grim Prairie towns. Relief from the idea that for CanLit to be CanLit its writers needed maple syrup in their veins. And, oh, just maybe it was some sort of relief for someone barely out of his teens and dimly aware he wanted to write but confused because the family trades were schoolteaching and tax collecting, soldiering and construction.
Crad Kilodney lived and wrote on his own terms, and there can be no better epitaph for a writer. We should all be so autonomous, so lucky. Stuart Ross has written a sensitive and intelligent appreciation of his friend and publishing mentor at bloggamooga.blogspot.ca called Crad and I. It is well worth reading.
Crad disappeared years ago, and I heard he headed for the suburbs after inheriting a substantial sum from his family. I heard too that he'd become a day trader in stocks. True or not his later career is beside the point. What is important - and ironic - is Crad's contribution to CanLit during his heyday in the nationalistic 70s as he was an American from New York City, although he sometimes claimed to be the illegitimate son of Pierre Berton. As the titles of his books demonstrate, his writing was, well, unusual. And a relief. Relief from navel-gazing. Relief from grim tales set in grim Prairie towns. Relief from the idea that for CanLit to be CanLit its writers needed maple syrup in their veins. And, oh, just maybe it was some sort of relief for someone barely out of his teens and dimly aware he wanted to write but confused because the family trades were schoolteaching and tax collecting, soldiering and construction.
Crad Kilodney lived and wrote on his own terms, and there can be no better epitaph for a writer. We should all be so autonomous, so lucky. Stuart Ross has written a sensitive and intelligent appreciation of his friend and publishing mentor at bloggamooga.blogspot.ca called Crad and I. It is well worth reading.
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