Cocksure
Encyclopedia
Mordecai Richler
Mordecai Richler, CC was a Canadian Jewish author, screenwriter and essayist. A leading critic called him "the great shining star of his Canadian literary generation" and a pivotal figure in the country's history. His best known works are The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Barney's Version,...
. It was first published in 1968 by McClelland and Stewart
McClelland and Stewart
McClelland & Stewart Limited is a Canadian publishing company. It is partially owned by Random House of Canada, now a subsidiary of Bertelsmann....
.
A satirical
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
work, the novel centres on Mortimer Griffin, a middle-class Anglican
Anglican Church of Canada
The Anglican Church of Canada is the Province of the Anglican Communion in Canada. The official French name is l'Église Anglicane du Canada. The ACC is the third largest church in Canada after the Roman Catholic Church and the United Church of Canada, consisting of 800,000 registered members...
from Caribou, Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
who has built a successful career as a publisher and editor in 1960s London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. When a Hollywood mogul buys Griffin's publishing house, Griffin is suddenly forced to confront the potential impact that not being Jewish may have on his career and his sex life.
In Ninety-nine Novels
Ninety-nine Novels
Anthony Burgess's book Ninety-Nine Novels: The Best in English since 1939 — A Personal Choice covers a 44-year span between 1939 and 1983. Burgess was a prolific reader, in his early career reviewing more than 350 novels in just over two years for the Yorkshire Post...
, Anthony Burgess
Anthony Burgess
John Burgess Wilson – who published under the pen name Anthony Burgess – was an English author, poet, playwright, composer, linguist, translator and critic. The dystopian satire A Clockwork Orange is Burgess's most famous novel, though he dismissed it as one of his lesser works...
named Cocksure one of his personal selections for the best novels of the previous four decades. The novel was also selected for competition in the 2006 edition of Canada Reads
Canada Reads
Canada Reads is an annual "battle of the books" competition organized and broadcast by Canada's public broadcaster, the CBC.-Overview:During Canada Reads, five personalities champion five different books, each champion extolling the merits of one of the titles. The debate is broadcast over a series...
, where it was championed by comedian Scott Thompson
Scott Thompson
Scott Thompson is a Canadian television actor and comedian, best known for his time as a member of the comedy troupe The Kids in the Hall.-Personal life:...
.
The book caused a sensation when it was declared by some as obscene and was banned by W H Smith
W H Smith
WHSmith plc is a British retailer, headquartered in Swindon, Wiltshire, England. It is best known for its chain of high street, railway station, airport, hospital and motorway service station shops selling books, stationery, magazines, newspapers, and entertainment products...
in Britain as well as by stores in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand and South Africa.
Criticism
Cocksure and Richler's contemporaneous essay collection Hunting Tigers Under Glass were jointly awarded the 1968 Governor General's Award (Fiction and Essays)Governor General's Award for English language non-fiction
This is a list of recipients of the Governor General's Award for English-language non-fiction.-1930s:*1936: T. B. Robertson, collected newspaper articles*1937: Stephen Leacock, My Discovery of the West*1938: John Murray Gibbon, Canadian Mosaic...
. The novel was considered by many critics, however, as an amusing jape rather than serious satire. Writing in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, Canadian writer Marian Engel
Marian Engel
Marian Engel, OC, née Marian Ruth Passmore was an award-winning Canadian novelist.-Summary:Born May 24, 1933 in Toronto, Ontario, to teacher parents Frederick Searle and Mary Elizabeth Passmore...
called it "smart-alecky stuff [that] doesn't cut any deeper than the Sunday-paper set it's aimed at".