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The Flush of Victory: Jack Bottomly Among the Virgins
Author Ray Smith has correlated the recent electronic version of the Confession with the Dubai Typescript and the even earlier Hong Kong Holograph. In a feat of unparalleled investigative journalism he has travelled the world corroborating the sordid and still highly sensitive details which are to this day denied by the intelligence services of five nations. A saga of perjury, speculation and perversion.
336 pages, Paperback
First published April 30, 2007
About the author
Ray Smith
175 books3 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
Ray Smith (the novelist) was born in Cape Breton in 1941.
For more than three decades, Ray Smith has occupied a distinctive position on the margins of the Canadian literary scene. His work is characterized by an interest in experimentation, but there is no discernible pattern of development. Each of his books is markedly different from the others, and none fits comfortably into the standard academic overviews of Canadian literature.
His first book, Cape Breton Is the Thought Control Centre of Canada (short fiction), is one of the earliest Canadian examples of experimental writing in the international tradition. (Of American writers, perhaps Donald Barthelme provides the closest analogue.) The relentless, witty interrogation of short story form underscores a parallel skepticism about received truths in other areas of life.
Smith's first novel, Lord Nelson Tavern, focuses on a group of about ten characters, most of whom have known each other from their student days. The first of its seven sections depicts that period of their lives as being relatively ordinary, but as their life stories unfold, their individual narratives become increasingly bizarre and exotic. One, for example, becomes a famous poet who marries an Oscar-winning actress. Another—the least likely—becomes a major player in a world-class drug smuggling operation; eventually he is murdered in accordance with Hollywood convention. A third becomes an internationally acclaimed artist, a fourth a producer of pornographic films, and so on.
Smith does not attempt to make such lives seem believable. Instead his interest is in exploring the voices of his characters, both spoken and written. Much of the book is in dialogue, and there are many unusually long speeches; two of the sections are transcriptions of diaries. Though many of the episodes involve comic exaggeration, the novel does address serious thematic issues, especially the nature of love and art, and the factors that promote and destroy them. Taken as a whole (and despite the sometimes frivolous and cynical rhetoric), Lord Nelson Tavern professes an almost Romantic faith in the validity of romantic love and the power of art to redeem human experience.
Read more: Ray Smith Biography http://biography.jrank.org/pages/4747...
Ray Smith (the novelist) was born in Cape Breton in 1941.
For more than three decades, Ray Smith has occupied a distinctive position on the margins of the Canadian literary scene. His work is characterized by an interest in experimentation, but there is no discernible pattern of development. Each of his books is markedly different from the others, and none fits comfortably into the standard academic overviews of Canadian literature.
His first book, Cape Breton Is the Thought Control Centre of Canada (short fiction), is one of the earliest Canadian examples of experimental writing in the international tradition. (Of American writers, perhaps Donald Barthelme provides the closest analogue.) The relentless, witty interrogation of short story form underscores a parallel skepticism about received truths in other areas of life.
Smith's first novel, Lord Nelson Tavern, focuses on a group of about ten characters, most of whom have known each other from their student days. The first of its seven sections depicts that period of their lives as being relatively ordinary, but as their life stories unfold, their individual narratives become increasingly bizarre and exotic. One, for example, becomes a famous poet who marries an Oscar-winning actress. Another—the least likely—becomes a major player in a world-class drug smuggling operation; eventually he is murdered in accordance with Hollywood convention. A third becomes an internationally acclaimed artist, a fourth a producer of pornographic films, and so on.
Smith does not attempt to make such lives seem believable. Instead his interest is in exploring the voices of his characters, both spoken and written. Much of the book is in dialogue, and there are many unusually long speeches; two of the sections are transcriptions of diaries. Though many of the episodes involve comic exaggeration, the novel does address serious thematic issues, especially the nature of love and art, and the factors that promote and destroy them. Taken as a whole (and despite the sometimes frivolous and cynical rhetoric), Lord Nelson Tavern professes an almost Romantic faith in the validity of romantic love and the power of art to redeem human experience.
Read more: Ray Smith Biography http://biography.jrank.org/pages/4747...
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 22, 2026
Every year or two I put out this question - Why aren't more people reading Ray Smith? He had the jazzy language, complexity and brains that many serious readers are looking for.
The Flush of Victory is a spy caper full of great language and 90s Canadian (and Australian) idiosyncrasies. Its a bit like a Pynchon novel as written by DeLillo. Major Jack Bottomly is deeply flawed, and so is the language, but you can't say its not entertaining (or you can, suit yourself). Think of Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles. The language and events are atrocious, but critics, and Brooks will tell you that it is social criticism to make a point, and progressive rather than sexist, homophobic and racist. So, the Flush of Victory is problematic, or, alternatively, a picture of how things were in many cases, without filters.
Plotwise, we have Canuck military intelligence being compromised and attacked by the Yanks and Ivans together. What a crazy concept right? That would never happen, surely. Luckily the Canadian's have their allies Down Under to work with against all odds. Everyone likes to drink a lot , and all have many vices.
Apparently, says the blurb on the back, this was meant to be the start of a Jack Bottomly series. If there is anyone connected to the Smith's legacy or the Montreal Story Tellers, which also included John Metcalf, Clark Blaise, and Hugh Hood, can you tell me if anything else was written but not published?
Bang the drums for Ray Smith!
The Flush of Victory is a spy caper full of great language and 90s Canadian (and Australian) idiosyncrasies. Its a bit like a Pynchon novel as written by DeLillo. Major Jack Bottomly is deeply flawed, and so is the language, but you can't say its not entertaining (or you can, suit yourself). Think of Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles. The language and events are atrocious, but critics, and Brooks will tell you that it is social criticism to make a point, and progressive rather than sexist, homophobic and racist. So, the Flush of Victory is problematic, or, alternatively, a picture of how things were in many cases, without filters.
Plotwise, we have Canuck military intelligence being compromised and attacked by the Yanks and Ivans together. What a crazy concept right? That would never happen, surely. Luckily the Canadian's have their allies Down Under to work with against all odds. Everyone likes to drink a lot , and all have many vices.
Apparently, says the blurb on the back, this was meant to be the start of a Jack Bottomly series. If there is anyone connected to the Smith's legacy or the Montreal Story Tellers, which also included John Metcalf, Clark Blaise, and Hugh Hood, can you tell me if anything else was written but not published?
Bang the drums for Ray Smith!
Displaying 1 of 1 review