Dear Reader: Selected Scott Symons

by Scott Symons

Book by Symons, Scott

316 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1999

About the author

Hugh Brennan Scott Symons was a Canadian writer. Born into a wealthy family, he attended a number of private schools, the University of Toronto, Cambridge University and the Sorbonne. A rising star of Canadian literature in the late 1960s and early 1970s, he wrote two novels with homoerotic themes before leaving Canada to live in Morocco.

He was openly gay at a time when this was very difficult, publishing his first novel, Place d'Armes, which dealt directly with homosexuality, two years before gay sex was decriminalized in Canada. He was an avid diarist and many of his observations and episodes from his life found their way into his novels.

He died in Toronto at the age of 75.

Symons is the subject of a documentary film, God's Fool (1998), by Nik Sheehan.

Reviews

[Mattias · Rating 3 out of 5]

An excellent anthology of the works of "Canlit's bad boy" Scott Symons; an eclectic writer of 20th century Canada who became infamous in the 60s and 70s. Unfortunately, he has an obscurity in Canadian literature.

I found the excerpts from two of his works "Place d'Armes" and "Helmet of Flesh" a bit disturbing for my interest but there are many gems such as his essays "The Meaning of English Canada", "Glitz City", "Mazo Was Murdered", and my favourite, "A 1980 Visit To George Grant".