Beautiful Losers

9780771098758

0771098758

"'Beautiful Losers' is, in some obvious respects, a book fathered by Herzog...Chunks of authentic-sounding documentation about Catherine Tekakwitha, memories of [the scholar's] agonized attempts to move into close union with F. by homosexual means, regret that his determined coupling with Edith never quite brought them close enough, fragments of contemporary politics, are flung at the reader in a thick, pelting shower, and from it emerges both a personal tragedy and a judgment on Canadian life...Mr. Cohen has a real theme, the frightening vacuum of modern Canada and the Canadian's uncertainty as to who he is and where his allegiances lie, both historically and in the present. I hope it will be widely read in spite of all."