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Home Sweet Home
The Canadian-born comic novelist, back in his homeland after twenty expatriate years, writes about the places, people, objects, and experiences that characterize Canada and have shaped his own life and career
- GenresCanadaEssaysNonfiction
291 pages, Hardcover
First published April 12, 1984
2 people are currently reading
44 people want to read
About the author
Mordecai Richler
90 books371 followersWorking-class Jewish background based novels, which include
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz
(1959) and
Saint Urbain's Horseman
(1971), of Canadian writer Mordecai Richler.
People best know Barney's Version (1997) among works of this author, screenwriter, and essayist; people shortlisted his novel Solomon Gursky Was Here (1989) for the Man Booker Prize in 1990. He was also well known for the Jacob Two-two stories of children.
A scrap yard dealer reared this son on street in the mile end area of Montréal. He learned Yiddish and English and graduated from Baron Byng High School. Richler enrolled in Sir George Williams College (now Concordia University) to study English but dropped before completing his degree.
Years later, Leah Rosenberg, mother of Richler, published an autobiography, The Errand Runner: Memoirs of a Rabbi's Daughter (1981), which discusses birth and upbringing of Mordecai and the sometime difficult relationship.
Richler, intent on following in the footsteps of many of a previous "lost generation" of literary exiles of the 1920s from the United States, moved to Paris at age of 19 years in 1950.
Richler returned to Montréal in 1952, worked briefly at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and then moved to London in 1954. He, living in London meanwhile, published seven of his ten novels as well as considerable journalism.
Worrying "about being so long away from the roots of my discontent", Richler returned to Montréal in 1972. He wrote repeatedly about the Jewish community of Montréal and especially portraying his former neighborhood in multiple novels.
In England in 1954, Richler married Catherine Boudreau, a French-Canadian divorcée nine years his senior. On the eve of their wedding, he met Florence Wood Mann, a young married woman, who smited him.
Some years later, Richler and Mann divorced and married each other. He adopted Daniel Mann, her son. The couple had five children together: Daniel, Jacob, Noah, Martha and Emma. These events inspired his novel Barney's Version.
Richler died of cancer.
People best know Barney's Version (1997) among works of this author, screenwriter, and essayist; people shortlisted his novel Solomon Gursky Was Here (1989) for the Man Booker Prize in 1990. He was also well known for the Jacob Two-two stories of children.
A scrap yard dealer reared this son on street in the mile end area of Montréal. He learned Yiddish and English and graduated from Baron Byng High School. Richler enrolled in Sir George Williams College (now Concordia University) to study English but dropped before completing his degree.
Years later, Leah Rosenberg, mother of Richler, published an autobiography, The Errand Runner: Memoirs of a Rabbi's Daughter (1981), which discusses birth and upbringing of Mordecai and the sometime difficult relationship.
Richler, intent on following in the footsteps of many of a previous "lost generation" of literary exiles of the 1920s from the United States, moved to Paris at age of 19 years in 1950.
Richler returned to Montréal in 1952, worked briefly at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and then moved to London in 1954. He, living in London meanwhile, published seven of his ten novels as well as considerable journalism.
Worrying "about being so long away from the roots of my discontent", Richler returned to Montréal in 1972. He wrote repeatedly about the Jewish community of Montréal and especially portraying his former neighborhood in multiple novels.
In England in 1954, Richler married Catherine Boudreau, a French-Canadian divorcée nine years his senior. On the eve of their wedding, he met Florence Wood Mann, a young married woman, who smited him.
Some years later, Richler and Mann divorced and married each other. He adopted Daniel Mann, her son. The couple had five children together: Daniel, Jacob, Noah, Martha and Emma. These events inspired his novel Barney's Version.
Richler died of cancer.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 25, 2022
An excellent collection of essays by one of Canada's surliest writers. Hampered only by the fact that much of the material is now badly dated as this book was published in 1986. As a result, I confess that I skipped over much of the previously topical material. Happily, this still left me with much to enjoy. Best of the bunch was My Father's Life - a stark and unremitting account of Richler's testy relationship with both his father and his grandfather. This one is worth the price of admission alone.
Three others worth noting are Making a Movie - the trials and tribulations of getting the movie version of The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz on to the big screen, On The Road - Richler's painful experiences of flogging a book on the North American media circuit, and finally, North of Sixty - a bleak look at life in and around Yellowknife.
I miss this guy and his snarky view of the world. Still my favourite Canadian author.
Three others worth noting are Making a Movie - the trials and tribulations of getting the movie version of The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz on to the big screen, On The Road - Richler's painful experiences of flogging a book on the North American media circuit, and finally, North of Sixty - a bleak look at life in and around Yellowknife.
I miss this guy and his snarky view of the world. Still my favourite Canadian author.
January 2, 2022
Reading this in 2021/2022 is comes across as dated, however some of these essays are quite interesting from a historical perspective. Could have done without the sports ones though!
December 17, 2015
Some really good essays in here, spanning the 60s through the early 80s.
May 2, 2016
This was my first time reading Mordecai Richler, and I'll be sure to keep him handy for when I'm homesick for Canada.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews