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As the husband of Pauline, the lithesome daughter of a former member of Prime Minister Mackenzie King's Cabinet, Shapiro gets to see frauds and lechers in both ethnic camps. The exclusive shores of Lake Memphremagog are breeding grounds for scandals, swindles, assignations and humiliations. The perfect patsy for Richler's animus is Pauline's brother Kevin, a Fitzgeraldian golden boy who is rotten at the core.
The heroes of the book belong to Hemingway: Sidney Murdoch, a writer of uncompromising genius from Joshua's London days; peasants and fishermen on Ibiza, where a youthful Shapiro went to write his history of the International Brigades; and, of course, Joshua's two-fisted father, Reuben Shapiro, Richler's best character in this or any of his other novels.
Reuben provides: old banknotes stashed for 30 years in a safe-deposit box; physical protection for Joshua and Pauline; unforgettable companionship for his grandchildren; and even prime whisky buried along country lanes since Prohibition days. The old man also offers Richler's clearest distinction between respectability, as a social façade, and honor, as a personal code. In a world of situation ethics—even situation aesthetics—Shapiro learns that the most important loyalty is to family and friends. It is the one virtue that can withstand the incursions of time.
This point is illustrated in numerous set pieces throughout the book, particularly when Shapiro and his St. Urbain Street cohort gather at their annual bash to forget stiffening joints, hardening arteries and the triumph of gravity over muscle tone. It is a raucous affair known as the Mackenzie King Memorial Society dinner. At one point the group splits into two sides and replays the 1947 Stanley Cup Final, using an empty champagne bottle for a puck. The racket attracts the hotel detective, who reminds the revelers, "You're all grown-up men here." To which Joshua replies: "Don't judge us too harshly."
The same humane appeal could apply to Joshua Then and Now. With its abandoned blend of refined sentiments and gross antics, the book is a wonderful expression of Richler's own precocious middle age. — R.Z. Sheppard
Excerpt
"A week after Trimble's Guy Fawkes party, Joshua sat in his study unable to work . . . Then [miraculously] the phone rang and something did turn up. Peabody at Playboy. As they couldn't afford Harold Robbins, he said, and Jacqueline Susann wasn't available, would he consider doing a piece for them on the new Hollywood? Only three days later, Joshua flew out to L.A.