A Geoffry Chadwick Misadventure
Out gay 50-y/o Montreal lawyer’s memorable New Year’s Eve
LOS ANGELES—July 16, 2019—ReQueered Tales is proud to announce it has formed a new publishing venture to re-publish older gay and lesbian fiction—with an immediate focus on mystery, horror and suspense genres. Our fifth release, available worldwide on Amazon as a Kindle e-book and, making our e-book debut on Kobo, is SUNDAY’S CHILD by Canada’s Edward O. Phillips. Upon initial publication, Canada’s man of letters, Robert Fulford was effusive: “Edward Phillips has produced something unique in literary history—a comic thriller about gays, set in Westmount. I read it with mounting appreciation and laughter. A highly promising debut.”
Lawyer Geoffry Chadwick is 50, Canadian, single, gay and, after a brief struggle with a hustler who tries to shake him down, a murderer. Herein lies the device for this macabre, funny, first novel. Although Geoffry must dispose of the body—which he does by dropping off sections of it around town at night—the trauma of the murder affords him the opportunity to reminisce and ruminate: on the recent termination of his affair with a history teacher; on the not-so-recent deaths of his wife and daughter; on the alcoholism of his mother; on growing old; on being gay. The visit of a nephew and the New Year’s festivities only serve to intensify his thoughts. Although Chadwick is abrasively disdainful early on, he is fascinating when he loosens up. Phillips keeps the reader hopping with throwaway quotations from Donne and scatalogical references and puns. Outrageously witty, with a deep undercurrent of truth, this novel—at turns comedy of manners and at others insightful—sits with the reader long after the last page is turned.
Reviewers loved it too. Marian Engel praised: “It’s real, and it’s moving … emotional range is wide, the feelings run deep and it speaks sensibly, amusingly and passionately of and for its community.”
Toronto’s Globe and Mail was more colourful: “[Chadwick’s] observations are grumpy, bitchy and savagely funny; he reveals himself a master complainer of the true Canadian school.” More bluntly, the Globe concluded: “Sunday’s Child is masterful, original, and absolutely Canadian.”
In the US, Sunday’s Child received raves from scholar Drewey Wayne Gunn in Gay Novels of Britain, Ireland and the Commonwealth, 1881-1981: “What lifts the novel out of the ordinary—indeed, makes it an outstanding read—is the narrator’s growing perception about what he has allowed to happen in his life, his past brought into sharp relief … he ponders the real meaning of love, friendship, guilt and confession, missed chances, the significance of being gay, the passage of time.”
Edward O. Phillips’ first novel Sunday’s Child was published to extraordinary acclaim in 1981. It was followed by Buried on Sunday, and four more Geoffry Chadwick Misadventures. Phillips has also penned seven other novels including Where There’s A Will. His short story “Matthew and Chauncey”, was produced as an NFB French television film in 1987. Born in 1931, Phillips has lived most of his life in Montreal. His holds a law degree from the University of Montreal, a Master’s degree in teaching from Harvard, and a second Master’s degree in English Literature from Boston University. For several years, Edward was a teacher, a successful painter, and enjoyed a writing career spanning more than 30 years.
In 1981, it was a finalist of Books In Canada Best First Novel Award.
This first book in the Geoffry Chadwick series is available for the first time as an e-book. It’s available as a Kindle e-book at Amazon, Kobo, Nook and iBooks for direct purchase. This edition includes an exclusive 2019 foreword by Alexander Inglis, the Canadian founding partner of ReQueered Tales.
SUNDAY’S CHILD e-book:
Amazon: https://amzn.to/32RmcC1
Kobo: https://bit.ly/2JsGaLZ
Nook: https://bit.ly/2z4eCWW
Apple: https://apple.co/33FOobz
246 pgs • ISBN 978-1-951092-01-6
US$5.95 • CAN$7.95 • UK£4.95 • EU€5.95 • AU$8.95
