Monday, May 26, 2014

The Gazette, Montreal, May 23, 2014


BY BILL BROWNSTEIN, THE GAZETTE MAY 23, 2014

Photograph by: Pierre Obendrauf, The Gazette
Paul Almond could have quietly retired years ago and divided his time between his home in the Gaspé and his retreat in Malibu. The renowned Quebec filmmaker really had nothing more to prove, having directed more than 130 film and TV dramas since the 1950s.
But Almond figured the beach life wasn’t for him. Yet. So he decided to take up a new métier: novel writing. As for a subject, he settled on something rather grand: merely his family’s history over the last 200 years. Which would turn out to be far more than one book.
Folks were skeptical. Well, Almond has proven them wrong. It has taken him close to 10 years but at the age of 83, he has completed his mission. He has written the Alford Saga, a whopping eight-book package that details his family’s earliest days and concludes with the author’s present-day existence.
“The saga covers Canadian history as it relates to my family, and I just couldn’t do that in one book,” explains Almond, over a glass of white wine at a downtown bistro. “It’s been quite the process. First, I had to go back to school for three years to learn how to write novels as opposed to screenplays. Then I had to research the subject for another three years. And then the writing process began.”
The Deserter, the first book in the saga, focuses on the ordeals of Almond’s great-grandfather Thomas Manning, who jumped ship in the Gaspé Peninsula in 1810. He had been serving under no less than Lord Nelson, with whom he had fought in the Battle of Trafalgar, before deciding he had enough, jumped ship and deserted. But though life in the colonies wasn’t initially grand for his great-granddad, he persevered, as did future generations of his family.
The Alford Saga goes on to follow the exploits of Almond’s uncle Jack, the only chaplain to accompany Canadian troops in the Boer War. Then it’s on to his own father, a gunnery officer who barely lived to tell of fighting through all the major battles of the First World War.
“What’s funny is that I was really terrible in history at school,” relates Almond, an officer of the Order of Canada. “Truth is: facts and figures have always terrified me. That’s why I have taken the liberty to call these books factional. All the facts relating to my family are true. But nobody really knows what anyone actually said in 1820, so that’s all imagined.
“But what I did learn for certain was that my great-grandfather was rescued by a tribe of Micmacs in Shigawake in the Gaspé. He then fell in love with a Micmac woman, and so the adventure begins.”
Almond had made his mark in filmdom with Isabel, The Act of the Heart — featuring his ex-wife Geneviève Bujold and Donald Sutherland — and Every Person is Guilty. He won, respectively, the Canadian Film Award and the Genie Award (which the Canadian Film Awards were renamed in 1980) for his direction in the latter two films.
Almond also directed the first installment of the famed 7 Up documentary film series in 1964, focusing on a diverse group of British schoolchildren and their views on the class system. (Michael Apted, Almond’s assistant on the project back then, has continued to crank out episodes every seven years and his name remains more synonymous with the series.) In 2007, Almond was presented with the Directors Guild of Canada’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
But if Almond was seeking serenity on the writing front, he soon learned that such was not to be. “I think dealing with the publishing world is even more agonizing than making films — and that is really saying something.
“I loved directing and I’ve learned to love writing. The only thing I hated about the film business was raising money. But having to deal with publishers can be even more dreadful. I pitched the first in the series after writing it, and got nowhere. So I wrote the second and figured for sure I would get a publisher. Wrong. So I said to hell with publishers, and wrote the third and the fourth and the fifth.”
Almond was finally able to prevail upon a publisher to undertake the entire series. But that deal later went up in smoke after the first five books in the series were published. So Almond found another publisher, Red Deer Press, to release the last three books in the package.
The Gunner, the sixth book in the series that has just been released, is set against the mayhem and tragedy of the First World War at Vimy Ridge in France. “I read 140 books on the Great War while researching that one.”
The seventh in the series, The Hero, comes out in the fall. It deals with Almond’s father, who suffered shell-shock during the First World War. “He really lost that battle.”
The concluding installment, The Inheritor, about Almond’s life, will be available next spring. Almond insists he hasn’t taken fictional liberties with himself in The Inheritor.
“My son Matt (whose mother is Bujold) read it and said: ‘Dad, are you going to publish this?’ I said that I would, and it is factual, dealing with all the women who have left me and have come through my life. I’m close with Geneviève now, but we weren’t at first when she ran off with her lover. I had a hell of a damn time until I found Joan,” the candid Almond says.
It was his third wife, Joan, a photographer he’s been married to for 40 years, who encouraged him to turn his attention to writing.
“She told me I should get out of film and do something less stressful, like writing, before I killed myself. So I quit doing films after having a quadruple bypass. But I have since had five heart procedures in the last five years, thanks to publishers,” jokes Almond, who looks fit and remains remarkably spry in spite of his medical ordeals. “But I must say that there are no tougher genes produced than those of Gaspé pioneers. They lived on that rugged coastline where nobody was living. They hacked down these damn big trees. Those genes must be serving me well.”
Almond got his start with the CBC almost 60 years ago, where he directed Sean Connery in productions of Shakespeare. After his stint at the CBC, Almond headed to England to work at Granada on numerous projects. He later returned home in the ‘60s, where he undertook his ambitious film trilogy: Isabel, The Act of the Heart and Journey.
Almond declares he’s ready to retire now, but the feeling is that he’ll miss the limelight.
“I might miss it a little, but I’ve had more than my fair share. When I was with Geneviève, she got an Oscar nomination and we went to the Academy Awards and sat with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. Then we all ate together. Been there, done that with the limelight. Now I’ll be content to hang out by the seashore with my wife, five children and eight grandchildren.
“It’s been a life well lived, but sometimes a difficult life with lots of ups and downs. But I’m still alive and kicking, thank God.”
Some feel that the Alford Saga could easily lend itself to adaptation to the big screen. Almond doesn’t disagree.
“I just had lunch with Carolle Brabant (executive-director of Telefilm Canada). She told me she missed four meetings reading my last book, because she couldn’t put it down. She’s read all of the books so far, and if the head of Telefilm likes them, shouldn’t some producer pick it up and make it a film? Damn.”
What about Almond directing the screen version of the saga?
“No!” the grinning Almond blurts emphatically. “That would finish me off — for good.”
The Gunner, Book Six of the Alford Saga (Red Deer Press), by Paul Almond, is now on sale. $19.95.


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