The Last Honest Man: Mordecai Richler: An Oral Biography

Novelist, essayist, satirist, and iconoclast, Mordecai Richler made an international reputation with such contemporary fiction triumphs as Barney’s Version and The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. His death in July 2001 prompted heartfelt tributes from around the world that acknowledged his humour, intellect, soft heart, and irrepressible curmudgeonliness.

The Last Honest Man documents the writer’s public and private lives through the words of his family and friends, colleagues and rivals, editors, writers, filmmakers, drinking pals, snooker buddies, and many others. To borrow a phrase from his long-time editor, Robert Gottlieb, this unusual biography captures the grumpy and the high-spirited man, the generous and the distanced, the enthusiastic and the sardonic, the hungry and the fastidious, the man who was awkward in crowded social situations but consummately at ease in Winston’s bar in Montreal.

Michael Posner draws on dozens of interviews conducted in London, New York, Montreal, and Toronto to present an unusual and compelling portrait of this complex man and artist.