I'm in shock. This morning, a colleague came to my desk, teary-eyed, and told me that Derek Weiler died yesterday. Many of you reading this will have known Derek very well. He was, after all, the much-respected editor of Quill & Quire, which functions as Canada's books-industry bible, the equivalent of Publisher's Weekly in the United States, though doing much more with many fewer resources.
I have virtually no details about Derek's death, other than that he had been in poor health for many years, and virtually never talked about it, a rare exception being this blog entry, in which he explains why he - a man who was anything but self-promoting - decided to acquire a tattoo. The tattoo reads, "I can't go on. I will go on," a quote culled from Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot. And which, not so incidentally and very appropriately, is the name of the facebook tribute site already set up this morning. When I joined the group, at about 10 a.m., there were 76 members. As I write this, at 11:48, there are 146 members, and it's growing by the minute. (UPDATE: 175 at 12:15 p.m.) There will be details of a memorial service posted there, among, I imagine, other places.
And what contributors are posting individually is what everyone remembers (so strange and so unkind to use the past tense) about Derek: his intelligence, his passion for books and music, and especially his kindness, his sweet nature, the consistent gentleness of character he exuded. I remember him at BookExpo America in Los Angeles last year, waiting patiently and uncomplainingly for some time to interview Miriam Toews about her new novel, The Flying Troutmans, while her U.S, publisher kept her promotionally busy. Which is not to say that he could not be sharp and acerbic, though he kept that mainly for his writing. We had, over the past year or so, occasionally spoken about doing something satirical together on the idea of book promotions, but never got very far past the "that's a great idea" stage.
Another thing I shared with Derek was a passion for baseball, and baseball fiction, which he once wrote about in The Globe's Books pages as a Three for Thought essay. It was another indication of not just the range of his interests, but the intelligence he always brought to bear on anything he turned his attention to.
I can say about Derek without the exaggeration often associated with immediate bereavement: He was a good man, the world was better for his having been here, and I am glad to have known him.
There will be many teary eyes today, not just in Toronto, but throughout Canada.
