Strange Fugitive<\/em>, Callaghan\u2019s first novel, was originally published in New York in 1928. We can now see it was a prototype for the “gangster” novel in America. The story is set in Toronto in the era of the speakeasy and underworld vendettas. Harry Trotter, the “hero,” is a man who cannot check his predilection for brutality. Incapable of reflection, it would never occur to him that he has become a thug. He is all feeling. He wants to feel good, successful, important. If he feels good, things must be right. Given this, as Robert Weaver has argued, “there is a prophetic strain in Strange Fugitive<\/em>.” Harry reminds us “of the anti-hero of The Stranger<\/em>, the novel by Albert Camus . . . and he has a link with something as contemporary and as subject to argument as the movie Bonnie and Clyde.”<\/p>\n

Also, Strange Fugitive<\/em> appeared as Stephen Leacock, in Sunshine Sketches of a Small Town, announced that small-town life was little more than a Mariposa of dreams. Strange Fugitive<\/em> announced the coming of the urban novel.<\/p>\n

James Dubro is a crime writer, television documentary film producer and bookseller. He is working as executive producer and researcher for a CBC television documentary on the purge of gay men and lesbians in the military and the RCMP.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Exile Classics Series – Number Nineteen.<\/em><\/p>\n

Introduction by James Dubro.<\/em><\/p>\n

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