Christmas with Stephen Leacock (1988)

     Christmas with Stephen Leacock (1988) No editor listed. A collection of occasional pieces, many of them apparently commissioned, and four unpublished ones. Of these “Hoodoo McFiggin’s Christmas” is the best known, but all exhibit Leacock’s superficial bonhomie overlaying a deep current of rage and despair. A “kindly mischievous ghost”, as the curator of the Leacock Memorial Home calls him, he was not. Leacock liked Christmas, but he was also angry at the yearly hypocrisy of pretending to care for one’s fellow human beings while following the dictates of custom and courtesy. He deeply wished that the angels’ message should be heard as an exhortation, not as a sentimental announcement annually repeated in a Christmas pageant. Worth reading, if you can find the book. ***