Bread and Stone by Allan Weiss
A novel about the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike
So, you think you have a reasonable grasp of Canadian history? OK, can you name the public event during which Mounties charged unarmed citizens with batons, and then while firing their revolvers? The answer is the Winnipeg General Strike, the biggest labour stoppage in our history.
York University professor Allan Weiss obviously did exhaustive research on both World War I and the General Strike itself in order to create Bread and Stone, the first novel for adults about the events and the ties between them. There are a few nonfiction books on the subject, a graphic novel (1919: A Graphic History of the Winnipeg General Strike) and Papergirl, “a middle-grade novel focusing on the strike’s impact on young people.” The aftermath of this weeks-long general strike included increased acceptance of collective bargaining, the election of some strike leaders to the Winnipeg city council, although they were still in jail, and the birth of new left-wing political parties. One of them, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation led by JS Woodworth, evolved into today’s New Democratic Party.
“Thanks for your service; now instead of bread, we give you a stone.”
The novel’s title is borrowed from Matthew 7:9-11, “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?” Many Canadian citizens of the post-WWI needed help (including food). The economy was shrinking as the war effort wound down, the Spanish flu was ravaging communities, and many of the jobs veterans thought they’d return to no longer existed, or had been given away to non-combatants. “Thanks for your service; now instead of bread, we give you a stone.”
Weiss centres his story on William McLean, a straitlaced Alberta farm boy who reads his Bible, once dreamed of becoming a teacher, and obeys his mother by staying away from gambling, cursing, and the demon rum while he’s helping out at home. But he convinces himself that, despite being a few weeks underage, he should secretly enlist in the big fight, so his parents can’t stop him. WWI had a huge effect on Canada – according to Veterans Affairs Canada, “More than 650,000 Canadians and Newfoundlanders served in this war … 66,000 of them gave their lives … more than 172,000 were wounded.” At the time, the nation’s population was just over 8 million.
Readers follow McLean through training, first in Canada, and then in Britain, and then his experiences as a foot soldier in the trenches. He’s not a very good shot, so although he takes his duties seriously, he spends most of his time in foxholes or trenches where he can’t see much, and finishes the war unsure whether he killed any enemies, or contributed anything of real value.
He does suffer occasional PTSD (or shell shock as it was called back then) but does his best to find a job in Winnipeg, finally getting some work editing and writing for a left-wing newspaper. One of his army friends is a Winnipeg radical, Eckersley, who talks about big changes coming after the war, as veterans and workers will unite to get a better deal from their employers. William is intrigued by this, partly because his miner father is an ardent trade unionist. Eckersley predicts a big struggle, partly because the ruling classes around the world were fearful of local follow-ups to the Russian Revolution in 1917.
The novel builds tension slowly, as both veterans and working-class people find few jobs, even low-paying ones. They start to organize, led by some charismatic speakers, and stage peaceful parades to the Mayor’s office and the provincial legislature. They’re asking that striking metalworkers get a fair deal with collective bargaining rights, and other workers – both unionized and non – begin to support the same ideas. General strikes spread to other cities in Canada. But, in return, they get only vague promises and little action. City police refuse to confront the strikers, and are themselves fired, replaced by hired “Special Forces” vigilantes. Then leaders of the strike are jailed on flimsy pretexts, while strikers and veterans are told by their leaders to “do nothing” that would incite authorities to call them violent radicals, and declare martial law. I think this section could be cut a bit, as it seems to labour getting through all these developments. But when it gets to the horrors of Bloody Wednesday, with the aforesaid armed assault led by Mounties, the novel moves swiftly and Weiss’s scenes are suspenseful.
He also deserves praise for portraying McLean’s growth from an innocent, idealistic country boy to an embittered veteran aware that, as returned cannon fodder, he and his comrades have little place in society, and have been betrayed by the wealthy and powerful. When a woman friend asks him about his war experience, he thinks: “There were things you didn’t talk about, because you didn’t want others to go through, for no reason at all, what the men had gone through.” The writing style is clear and crisp.
One minor flaw – not the writer’s fault – is some odd typos in the centre of the book, with random letters appearing after the periods in some sentences.
I recommend this novel both to those with a general interest in Canada’s history, and more specifically to those who wonder where the strong unions and collective bargaining that helped bring working-class people some prosperity in the 1950s and 1960s started. You might not believe a book of labour history could be exciting, but this one succeeds.
About the Author
Allan Weiss is a Toronto fiction writer and Professor of English at York University. He was born in Montreal and moved to Toronto to pursue his doctoral studies after completing his BA and MA at Concordia University. He is the author of three story cycles: Living Room (2001), Making the Rounds (2016), and Telescope (2019). Other short stories, both realist and fantastic, have appeared in various anthologies and magazines, including Fiddlehead, Wascana Review, On Spec, and the Tesseracts anthology series. His latest story, “A Tartan of Many Colors,” was published recently in the anthology Other Covenants: Alternate Histories of the Jewish People.
About the Reviewer
John Oughton lives in Toronto and has retired as a Professor of Learning and Teaching at Centennial College in Toronto. He is the author of six poetry collections, most recently The Universe and All That (Ekstasis Editions), the mystery novel Death by Triangulation, and over 400 articles, reviews, and interviews. John is a long-time member of the Long Dash Poetry Group. He is also a photographer and guitar player. https://joughton.wixsite.com/author
Book Details
Publisher : Black Rose Books
Publication date : Dec 1 2024
Language : English
Print length : 350 pages
ISBN-10 : 1551648202
ISBN-13 : 978-1551648200