Sens at Land’s End

My Puck Lit Project is officially underway as I finished my first hockey novel, Paul Quarrington’s King Leary, last night. Now my attempt at a review.

Puck Lit Review #1: King Leary by Paul Quarrington

Plot Summary: Percival “King” Leary is an aged player from hockey’s early days, now living out his golden years in a nursing home where he rooms with equally aged sports journalist Blue Hermann. King gets a call one day from a ginger ale company wanting him to come to Toronto and do an ad for their product. He accepts the offer and goes to the city accompanied by Blue and Iain, an employee of the home. The trip prompts him to reflect on his life and career.

Genre: Fiction, Comedy, Fictional Biography, Old-Time Hockey

Hockey Content: Lots. The book references real teams (New York Americans) and players (Newsy Lalonde, Sprague Cleghorn) from hockey’s past. It’s not entirely reality-based, however, as certain things are slightly altered — the Leafs are referred to as the Leaves, and Ottawa is given a second team, the Patriots, to go along with the old Senators. As you might have deduced from the character’s name, Quarrington draws on elements of King Clancy’s life in creating King Leary himself, and Leary’s friend Clay Clinton must be partly based on Harold Ballard. The book’s modern hockey star, Duane Killebrew, seems modelled on Wayne Gretzky (or maybe it’s just the Wayne/Duane thing). Descriptions of hockey games abound in the book, as do passages celebrating the beauty of the sport.

Choice Quotation: “I bit my tongue, but the truth of the matter is, I never knew that hockey originated. I figured it was just always there, like the moon.”

My Thoughts: I really enjoyed this book. It won the Stephen Leacock Award for Humour in 1988, and while it is certainly very funny in parts, with a lot of slapstick-type plot developments, I found the overall tone of the book to be wistful rather than comic. Without giving too much away, I will just say that King Leary has some serious ghosts to deal with in his past: the flashbacks aren’t just him reliving his glory days, though there is plenty of that happening too.

Before I continue, it should be noted that I would have to be considered a sentimental person when it comes to hockey. Not only do I cry every time Canada wins an international tournament of some sort, I have in fact been known to tear up at Hockey Night in Canada game intros and that TimBits ad with Sidney Crosby. (And oh man, don’t get me started on the one with the Chinese father who never told his son he watched his games. If that doesn’t make you at least a little bit weepy, you are dead inside.) You can therefore imagine that I am a huge sucker for poetic descriptions of the purity of the game. This book does well with those right from the second chapter, which contains a lovely description of skating on the Rideau Canal. Having grown up in Ottawa, I could relate to it. I often dream of skating there.

Rating: 4 pucks out of 5. This is probably the most well-known full-length hockey novel (unless there’s something obvious I’m not thinking of), and it was also the 2008 Canada Reads selection. I think it’s worth adding it to your reading list for those reasons alone. Happily, it’s also a very good book which I think most hockey fans, especially those who enjoy reading about hockey’s olden days, will really have fun with.