From the acclaimed writer of the beloved Clara Callan comes a beautifully crafted, charming portrait of the writing life. Combining his characteristic wit and self-deprecation with his extraordinary imagination and insight, Richard B. Wright has created a deeply affecting memoir that reads like a novel. As a small, watchful boy growing up in a working class family in Midland, Ontario, during the Second World War, Wright gradually discovered that he saw the world through different eyes. His intellectual and sexual awakenings, his exploits as a young salesman in Canadian publishing, his painful struggles to become a writer--all of this is balanced against the extraordinary reception that in the 1970s greeted his first novel, The Weekend Man , which was published around the world to great acclaim. In spite of the sometimes crippling depression that haunted him and the ups and downs of the mid-life writer, he would finally achieve overwhelming success with Clara Callan , the Giller-winning work that swept every award in Canada and revitalized his career. Lovers of Wright's work will appreciate behind-the-scenes glimpses of his craft in individual novels and his exploration of how a writer transmutes experience into art. And readers will enjoy his thoughtful exploration of the essential role of storytelling in our lives. A Life with Words is both a celebration of the writing life and a deeply personal--at times revelatory--invitation into the world of the imagination.
