Bookworm, no. 150
Emily Mernin reviews Sallie Fullerton’s “Baby Face / Face de bébé.” Christina Tommasone on Mark Medley’s “Live to See the Day.” A cover artist Q&A. Inside the June issue.
Baby Face / Face de bébé
Sallie Fullerton
Invisible Books
156 pages, softcover and ebook
Denise Cassidy, or Baby Face, owned and operated some of Montreal’s first lesbian bars in the late 1960s and ’70s. As is often the case with queer spaces from that era, little documentation of her work endures. At once a poem, a portrait, a fiction, and a documentary, Sallie Fullerton’s Baby Face / Face de bébé reanimates a vital and largely obscured piece of LGBTQ+ history.
Insights into Baby Face’s life drift in and out of this short, elusive work, which is complemented by archival images from her personal photographer, Suzanne Girard. Born in Shawinigan, Quebec, in 1939, Cassidy moved to the city as a teenager. She swiftly went from busgirl to bouncer, from bartender to bar owner. What the book lacks in intimate biographical details—where Cassidy lived, who she loved, how she endured police raids and mafia threats—it makes up for in legend and lore: “There was Baby Face, she was different.” Through collages, newspaper clippings, and oral histories, a fearless and perhaps ruthless woman emerges: “She’d stand at the top of the stairs, real hard looking.”
Stairwells and thresholds come up repeatedly. “Each night we all lined up down the hallway,” one voice says, “her at the top of the stairs.” Another remembers travelling three hours to the city, just to be turned away: “I walked all the way up those three flights of stairs and she slammed the door closed on me.” An unattributed article describes a woman “thrown down the stairs” by Baby Face, and another, one week later, being pushed “toward the stairs.” As these anecdotes and fragments accrue, Fullerton leaves room for a softer, protective reading of Baby Face’s vigilance: “When the police were coming up the stairs, she’d flick on a red light in the bar.” This signalled that everyone should escape through the back entrance. Open-ended and inventive, this bilingual text is a moving first entry in the Document series by Invisible Books.
—Emily Mernin
Live to See the Day: Impossible Goals, Unimaginable Futures, and the Pursuit of Things That May Never Be
Mark Medley
McClelland & Stewart
368 pages, hardcover, ebook, and audiobook
The Globe and Mail editor Mark Medley’s Live to See the Day documents seemingly impossible missions undertaken by impassioned devotees: winning a federal election as part of the Animal Protection Party of Canada, finding life beyond our planet, snapping a shot of Indonesia’s version of Bigfoot, to name a few. Medley draws on more than a decade of experience and curiosity to highlight individuals who “are living to see a day that will likely never come.”
While the book is full of thrilling adventures in pursuit of lofty goals, it also explores why humans bother with quixotic quests. According to Medley, intrigue is the starting point. Then it’s the fight for something that can only be discovered through preternatural perseverance: “The probability of success is difficult to estimate; but if we never search, the chance of success is zero.” Each story starts with an individual, but in every case there develops the common thread of community, with people passing knowledge back and forth to take a goal to the next level in the face of persistent naysayers.
“They are running a relay race—presently gripping the baton but ready to hand it to the next person, who might never cross the finish line either,” Medley writes, “but hand it to someone else, again and again, into the distant future.” Live to See the Day is a reminder of the unconventional paths we can follow, and the legacies we build, with a little help from our friends.
—Christina Tommasone
Cover Artist Q&A: Bryan Dickie
What are we looking at here?
We are looking at the Slash, a six-metre corridor cut through 2,200 kilometres of the North American landscape that demarcates parts of our border with the United States.
How did you get this shot?
Taking a picture of a line cut through the woods proved difficult. I needed some elevation to show the scope of the clearing. I pored over maps to find a portion of the border that passed through elevation, and found Woburn, Quebec, that seemed to be the perfect spot. I hiked up to one of the lower peaks in the White Mountains to get a clear view of the border going off into the distance, and I stumbled across this vista where the line reminded me of the yellow brick road from The Wizard of Oz.
In what format did you shoot?
I shot on medium-format black and white film. I work with film because it forces me to slow down and consider my process more methodically. Digital photography strips away a lot of the fun from making images, as the gratification is instant and the temptation to re-adjust becomes overwhelming. The idea of perfection becomes possible in your head but isn’t attainable in reality. Shooting digitally gives me anxiety, as there is always the nagging thought that the image I just saw on the back of my camera could be a bit better, and I go back searching for a moment that has passed. There is also an undeniable quality to medium-format film that can’t be achieved with a digital camera.
What do you like about the shot?
I like its simplicity. I took inspiration from Edward Burtynsky’s Manufactured Landscapes. While he shows the unintended aftermath wrought on our landscape by humanity’s industrial expansion, I wanted to show our intended fingerprint on the landscape and pose a question: Why is this here?
This isn’t your first cover for the magazine. But how is it different from your others?
Before I trekked up the White Mountains last fall, I put a bug in the editor’s ear that there might be some good material for a cover. In other cases, we’ve always had a back-and-forth, but for this one, I had an idea, went out into the field, brought back some images that he liked, and here we are.
Do you have any other projects on the go?
Yes, I co-directed a feature-length documentary and produced an accompanying photobook on the civil war in Myanmar, which will be released this fall. The film and book document a group of civilians as they transform into revolutionary fighters and the sacrifices they endure to fight for their country. Coincidentally, my work in Myanmar inspired my border project back home, as I wanted to somehow document the physical representation of the sovereignty the revolutionaries are fighting for.
Inside the June Issue
“Deacon’s writing voice is as approachable as her on‑air persona, and with A Love Affair with the Unknown, she does a good job of balancing cerebral musings with personal story, stitching together a compelling narrative arc.” Tara Henley explores Gillian Deacon’s comforting call to courage.
Stephen Smith (body) checks an entire bench of hockey biographies.
“In other words, prepare for a wild ride but also know that, extreme subject matter notwithstanding, Gibson’s touch is light, even downright funny, especially in her sex scenes.” Caroline Adderson reviews of Jess Gibson’s debut short story collection.
And much more!