But there’s a special place in my heart for Richler’s tour de force of a novel, his grand finale, Barney’s Version. It has everything — humour, a whiff of mystery, poignancy, a suggested reading list for a literary illiterate like yours truly, the Falstaf

It has scent, your heat, of jonquils and lime, of spices seared in a hot black pan.

We drown in the details— what to bring to potluck, where to meet for coffee. There's a Starbuck's on the corner where we once sold lemonade, our homemade sign coming apart in an attic somewhere. We sift through the rubble for the…

He said that clouds were most problematic, but the human form was easy to recreate. The nudes invited his sketch; the sketch invited his brush.

His own laugh, which Martinez had not expected, broke his bad-cop pose. Again, the mirror. The kid’s face was still sour with sass, barely concealing heavy worry, but there was something new in it. Relief, like the lonely show when company comes.

But she is snow-blind, twice stunned by day and the immediacy of white –

The explosions sound like gunshots. Antonio Gattorno, absorbed in his work, flinches. He curses as he smears the brush across the canvas. He’s been painting since mid-morning. It‘s a hot summer day. Tomorrow is the fourth of July.

Tell me. George Washington and the Mona Lisa. Brother and sister? Distantly related? Or the same person? Which is it? Same huge forehead, same eyebrows. That manly, knowing smile. What did they know that we don’t?