Apology

Apology - Gary Beacom This libertarian rant from a small U.S. far-right press is the last thing I would have picked up, had it not been for the skating connection. Beacom does not speak much of his skating or his skating associates (though he does indulge in a diatribe against ex-partner Gia Guddat and acknowledge the generosity of Tom Collins). The most interesting part of this account of his arrest, trial, imprisonment and deportation, to me anyway, was the description of the day-to-day life he led, and the ways he devised to maintain some sort of psychological stability. The man's egomania is doubtless offputting, and his obsession with vocabulary juvenile (although I can sympathize with it as one of the ways he passed time in prison). He strikes one as, indeed, he has always struck one - as a very bright, stubborn, vain young man a bit too susceptible to bright shiny ideas, especially if they fly in the face of authority. A few moments of disarming candour about his own motives (as when he admits his mean-spirited depiction of the guards was affected by his own depression in the jail) make the pointless posturing about the evils of the U.S. government a little easier to get through. Interestingly enough - perhaps because of his publisher - there is next to nothing about his own Canadian background, which should have given him some perspectives a little more interesting than those he actually presents. Despite the fact that he appears to have incompletely digested a thesaurus and a dictionary of quotations, the book is quite literate, presumably because of Beacom himself, since it shows signs of careless editing. (The funniest typo was undoubtedly "wonton" for "wanton"). Not a book I will pick up again, but an interesting addition to the collection nonetheless.