What do you think?
Rate this book
Time of the Kingfishers
A rich, elegiac novel about family, friendship, and loyalty featuring Watmough's protagonist Davey Bryant. As the compassionate and witty narrator, Davey leads the reader through various upheavals in the life he shares with Ken, his companion, and their friends. At the heart of their journeys is Davey's own plaintive recollections of a past we all hope to recapture.
194 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
4 people want to read
About the author
David Watmough
30 books3 followersDavid Watmough was born in Essex, England, and grew up in Cornwall, where his family had farmed for centuries. In 1945 he was imprisoned in a jail in Portsmouth [for homosexuality] when in the navy during World War II. A prison chaplain helped him get into university after he was released from jail; he attended King's College at the University of London, majoring in theology.
When he was 21 he left university to live in Paris, where he wrote his first book, A Church Renascent, and met his longtime partner, ex-Californian Floyd St. Clair.
Watmough worked as a freelance writer for the BBC in England, then freelanced for the New York Times before landing a job at the San Francisco Examiner. He worked there for two or three years, while St. Clair was finishing his PhD.
Watmough gained his Canadian citizenship in 1963. After a stint with the CBC, he was hired by The Vancouver Sun newspaper to write about drama and art. He left The Sun and newspaper criticism in the mid-1960s when he received a Canada Council grant to write a play. He began writing “monodramas”, which he performed onstage; this led to work in Britain, Canada, the U.S. and West Germany.
Richard Olafson of Ekstasis Editions received a Talonbooks copy of Watmough’s monodramas when Olafson moved to B.C. He is still Watmough’s publisher, three decades later.
As he grew more connected to Vancouver's cultural scene, Watmough also grew concerned & involved with writers' opportunities there, & became the first President of the BC Federation of Writers. He remained one of its most illustrious lifetime members, encouraging new members & helping the burgeoning scene develop.
Watmough lived in Vancouver for 40 years with St. Clair, a beloved University of British Columbia French professor and opera critic, until St. Clair's death in 2009. The couple became well-known fixtures among Vancouver's "literati", throwing countless legendary dinner parties for Vancouver’s writers and artists.
In 2004 David & Floyd moved from their well-known Kitsilano home & active social hub to a house they'd purchased in Boundary Bay. The move isolated them somewhat from their former social circles.
Watmough published his autobiography, Myself Through Others: Memoirs in 2008. A few days before his birthday in August 2011, he received a copy of his new novel, To Each An Albatross. It’s his 21st book, and the fifth he’s published in the last five years.
After the death of his beloved partner Floyd St. Clair in 2009 Watmough moved back to Vancouver, becoming what he famously called an "inmate" of Crofton Manor seniors residence in Kerrisdale. There, he began writing a voluminous number of poems in the Sonnet form, which he frequently shared with the many friends he made there.
Watmough died @ Crofton Manor @ 11 am on August 4th 2017 - 2 days before the untimely death of Marguerite Chesterman, wife of Watmough's former good friend & CBC producer Robert Chesterman, in her longtime family home just down the road - unbeknownst to the Chesterman family at the time.
[More detailed info can be found @ this link: https://bcbooklook.com/2017/08/14/dav...]
When he was 21 he left university to live in Paris, where he wrote his first book, A Church Renascent, and met his longtime partner, ex-Californian Floyd St. Clair.
Watmough worked as a freelance writer for the BBC in England, then freelanced for the New York Times before landing a job at the San Francisco Examiner. He worked there for two or three years, while St. Clair was finishing his PhD.
Watmough gained his Canadian citizenship in 1963. After a stint with the CBC, he was hired by The Vancouver Sun newspaper to write about drama and art. He left The Sun and newspaper criticism in the mid-1960s when he received a Canada Council grant to write a play. He began writing “monodramas”, which he performed onstage; this led to work in Britain, Canada, the U.S. and West Germany.
Richard Olafson of Ekstasis Editions received a Talonbooks copy of Watmough’s monodramas when Olafson moved to B.C. He is still Watmough’s publisher, three decades later.
As he grew more connected to Vancouver's cultural scene, Watmough also grew concerned & involved with writers' opportunities there, & became the first President of the BC Federation of Writers. He remained one of its most illustrious lifetime members, encouraging new members & helping the burgeoning scene develop.
Watmough lived in Vancouver for 40 years with St. Clair, a beloved University of British Columbia French professor and opera critic, until St. Clair's death in 2009. The couple became well-known fixtures among Vancouver's "literati", throwing countless legendary dinner parties for Vancouver’s writers and artists.
In 2004 David & Floyd moved from their well-known Kitsilano home & active social hub to a house they'd purchased in Boundary Bay. The move isolated them somewhat from their former social circles.
Watmough published his autobiography, Myself Through Others: Memoirs in 2008. A few days before his birthday in August 2011, he received a copy of his new novel, To Each An Albatross. It’s his 21st book, and the fifth he’s published in the last five years.
After the death of his beloved partner Floyd St. Clair in 2009 Watmough moved back to Vancouver, becoming what he famously called an "inmate" of Crofton Manor seniors residence in Kerrisdale. There, he began writing a voluminous number of poems in the Sonnet form, which he frequently shared with the many friends he made there.
Watmough died @ Crofton Manor @ 11 am on August 4th 2017 - 2 days before the untimely death of Marguerite Chesterman, wife of Watmough's former good friend & CBC producer Robert Chesterman, in her longtime family home just down the road - unbeknownst to the Chesterman family at the time.
[More detailed info can be found @ this link: https://bcbooklook.com/2017/08/14/dav...]
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
November 9, 2018
Although it's only a slim paperback, David Watmough's The Time of the Kingfishers feels endless. Trivial details, quaint observations, and meandering chit-chat clutter each page, making this one of the most exhausting books I've ever read.
The novel spans several decades in the life of Davey Bryant (the author's alter ego), his partner Ken, and their extended family of friends. But not much happens. Oh, there are marital problems, health problems, and slight scandals. Two husbands, assumed to be heterosexual, turn out to be bisexual. The friends visit Europe, bicker, reminisce, and complain about parents, spouses, and children; then they return home to Vancouver. But because these scenes are disconnected, there's little incentive to keep reading.
Lacking a firm plot and controlling narrator (someone who could bridge these events together in an artful way), the book feels less like a novel than a memoir penned by a pedantic, prattling uncle. Watmough continually uses three words where one will do. He also has an annoying affection for multisyllabic beauts like "pusillanimous" and "bibulous." These words, along with his constant use of exclamation marks and precious witticisms ("She may [be] a nurse or an elementary schoolteacher, the sociological Sherlock Holmes in me decided"), betray an insecurity with language. Only a writer unsure about his prose resorts to exclamation marks!
Watmough does, however, offer some brief insights into the lives of women and gay men over the past decades: and buried in his ramblings are several mildly interesting themes, I like the progress of friendship over time. But a more skilful writer exploring similar terrain – like Alice Munro – could distill this material into a 30-page story.
Originally published in Books in Canada: http://www.booksincanada.com/article_...
The novel spans several decades in the life of Davey Bryant (the author's alter ego), his partner Ken, and their extended family of friends. But not much happens. Oh, there are marital problems, health problems, and slight scandals. Two husbands, assumed to be heterosexual, turn out to be bisexual. The friends visit Europe, bicker, reminisce, and complain about parents, spouses, and children; then they return home to Vancouver. But because these scenes are disconnected, there's little incentive to keep reading.
Lacking a firm plot and controlling narrator (someone who could bridge these events together in an artful way), the book feels less like a novel than a memoir penned by a pedantic, prattling uncle. Watmough continually uses three words where one will do. He also has an annoying affection for multisyllabic beauts like "pusillanimous" and "bibulous." These words, along with his constant use of exclamation marks and precious witticisms ("She may [be] a nurse or an elementary schoolteacher, the sociological Sherlock Holmes in me decided"), betray an insecurity with language. Only a writer unsure about his prose resorts to exclamation marks!
Watmough does, however, offer some brief insights into the lives of women and gay men over the past decades: and buried in his ramblings are several mildly interesting themes, I like the progress of friendship over time. But a more skilful writer exploring similar terrain – like Alice Munro – could distill this material into a 30-page story.
Originally published in Books in Canada: http://www.booksincanada.com/article_...
Displaying 1 of 1 review