For Jon Tattrie, it all started in 2020 with a mysterious email about a larger-than-life former colleague from the Halifax Daily News. Tattrie hadn’t connected with Charles Saunders since they were both laid off from the tabloid back in 2008. Suddenly, a stranger, Saunders’s friend, had written Jon to learn anything they could: What had happened to Charles Saunders? In this excerpt of his new book, To Leave a Warrior Behind: The Life and Stories of Charles R. Saunders, the Man Who Rewrote Fantasy for The Walrus, Tattrie digs in to discover a whole new side of a man he thought he knew.
But Charles always popped up again to split the lips of the fat cats who ran the city with a blistering editorial that put their foolishness in plain English. He loved Canada, loved writing—and was well loved by his adopted home. People would work with Charles for years before hearing a rumour that he hadn’t always been a Canadian, that he’d started life elsewhere—in America, if you could believe it—but had moved north decades ago.
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