We all know the excitement of discovering a hitherto unknown (to us) writer “who dazzles and beguiles.” This happened to Halifax author Ian Colford when he read Jesus Hardwell’s story collection Easy Living. But instead of just looking Hardwell up on the web and leaving it at that, Ian went after the man, tracked him down and interviewed him and wrote this beguiling profile/review/interview (dare I add: detective story). Would that we could all have this level of response to a book.
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My Search for Jesus Hardwell
By Ian Colford
It is a still mid-morning, the ides of July, and hot as Hades. Detective weather, I tell myself, craving a beer. I reconnoiter. There’s not much to see. The house is ordinary: a modest bungalow on a tidy corner lot in a residential section of Guelph, Ontario. The lawn is healthy, the shrubbery tended with a meticulous hand. Not a blind pig in sight, not even a hooker. In other words, not what I expected. I know, William Burroughs wore a three-piece suit; but this grass looks vacuumed. Where’s the topiary? I’m half relieved, half disappointed.
What am I doing here?
It started with a book.