Paul Quarrington (1953-2010)
In July 0f 2004, I contacted Paul about a 'celebrity' drive profile in the National Post. We sat down over some coffee in the outdoor patio area of Timothy's on the Danforth. He talked about some of his best 'auto-memories' and also about his writing and music. Here is the feature I wrote which I think captures to some extent the wit and humour that bubbled forth so naturally from Paul. The second time we met was during the Toronto Get Lit/Doors Open event at the Royal Ontario Museum in May of 2009. I believe he had already been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer but because I was only a casual acquaintance, of course he did not mention it. When I was fortunate enough to have one of my books in a bookstore, I'd usually find it rubbing shoulders with Paul's numerous titles because we had the same initials.
Writer Paul Quarrington whose novel Whale Music won the Governor General’s Award in 1989 was in a Subaru race with his brother Joel.
It had nothing to do with speeding along some road testing the All-Wheel Drive (AWD) capabilities of their Subaru Outback vehicles. No, it was all about one-upmanship, sibling rivalry, that kind of thing.
Quarrington still owns his 1996 forest green Subaru Outback that he bought used (coming off a two-year lease). He’s documented in non-fiction books such as Fishing with My Old Guy, and most recently, From The Far Side of the River, some of his off road (and on road) adventures in search of the perfect trout stream or fishing hole.
“We had a group, Manure it was called, and it’s embarrassing to have your parents drive you to a gig and so I think that was the basic motivation (learning to drive).”
“I want to rehearse with the actors then hide the camera in a car and send them off. “