Is he or isn't he?
Enquiring minds want to know if Peter C. Newman, Canada's most famous chronicler of the rich and powerful, is going to write a biography of Israel (Izzy) Harold Asper, the Winnipeg-based media mogul who, at 71, was felled by a heart attack in the fall of 2003.
And not just any biography, but an official tome - or at least one involving the input of Asper's widow and his three children.
Talks about doing the bio have been ongoing since last fall, but as Newman himself said in an interview this week, "Nothing's signed yet," and "I don't know yet" if he, his Toronto agent, Michael Levine, the Aspers and a publisher can even come to terms. Indeed, he indicated it could be another month or two before any definitive conclusion is reached.
Said Levine on Thursday: "Peter would never do an authorized biography. Let's be really, really clear about that."
This isn't to say Newman wouldn't entertain, as University of Toronto historian Michael Marrus did in his 1991 biography of Samuel Bronfman, a "co-operative arrangement" with the Aspers because, Levine observed, "He and Izzy were very fond of each other, as I understand it."
But final authority would have to remain with Newman.
Asked, therefore, how negotiations were proceeding, Levine chuckled: "I only announce deals. I never announce negotiations."
At 77, Newman is, of course, no stranger to the discipline (and pitfalls) of the semi-authorized biography, or the book done with the participation, but not the ultimate approbation, of its subject.
That was highlighted most forcefully last year when former prime minister Brian Mulroney sued Newman for "breach of confidence" upon the publication of The Secret Mulroney Tapes: Unguarded Confessions of a Prime Minister. Starting in 1983, Newman, with Mulroney's okay, taped almost 100 interviews with the politician, intending to use them as material for a full-length biography.
However, the biography was scrapped, according to Newman, when Mulroney later failed to give Newman access to personal papers and letters. With that, the author opted simply to publish the transcripts of their conversations. (An out-of-court settlement of Mulroney's suit was announced last month.)
If Newman does take the Asper job (and finds sufficient wiggle room to ensure it won't end up an exercise in hagiography), its fruits won't be published by McClelland & Stewart, the company that issued Newman's best-selling memoirs, Here Be Dragons, in 2004 . That's because, next May, M & S is publishing a biography of Asper by veteran Winnipeg Free Press columnist Gordon Sinclair Jr., tentatively titled Izzy Asper: The Maverick, the Mogul and All that Jazz.
Sinclair's book is hardly a quickie - he was contracted to write it in the winter of 2004 - but it's being done without the co-operation of the surviving Aspers who, of course, control dozens of Canadian TV and radio stations and newspapers, including the National Post (but not, luckily for Sinclair, the Winnipeg Free Press). Sinclair had hoped the Aspers, especially sons Leonard and David, would agree to be interviewed for the book, or at least participate in the fact-checking, but that hasn't happened.
In fact, "the Aspers are not happy about this whatsoever," Sinclair said this week. "They want control of what's said and how [Izzy Asper]is portrayed. ... And knowing what I seem to know of Peter [Newman] I would be quite surprised if he would go along with that."
Sinclair, who's 58 and has been writing his column on the comings and goings of Winnipeggers for a quarter-century, first approached M&S about doing an Asper biography in 2002, three years after it had published Cowboys and Indians, Sinclair's award-winning exposé of the circumstances surrounding the 1988 murder of Manitoba native leader J.J. Harper. "But they said no: 'Too litigious.'"
Sinclair said he'd never agree to handing over the editorial direction of his book in exchange for the Aspers' co-operation and participation. "Any serious author ... cannot give control of his book to the subject of his book. ... It's not a biography, as far as I am concerned, if that happens.
"I don't blame [the Aspers]for not co-operating," Sinclair added, but he's "saddened" that they're missing the opportunity to put their anecdotes and observations on the record, especially "if this turns out to be the only biography, or the only biography for quite some time. ... The Asper boys might not get this right away, but what this book will allow them to do, perhaps, is to step out of the shadows of the man, of Izzy the icon."
Sinclair acknowledged his Izzy Asper has been "a tough book to write. ... You're always struggling. There are the questions: Are you being complete? Are you being fair? Are you capturing this person in all his dimensions?"
What's more, the tensions likely won't ebb too much once the book is published because, he chuckled, "I have to continue to live in this city, and the Aspers are influential here."
No one expects Sinclair's book to be a hatchet job, and certainly no one expects Newman, if it comes to pass, to eviscerate Asper. As Newman observes in the introduction to Here Be Dragons, there have been "some prominent members of the [Canadian]elite I could not pretend to stomach," but "the late Izzy Asper" is one "I continue to admire."
At this stage, it's clear Sinclair's biography, for which he's already sketched out a 300-page chronology, will be the first to make it to market. All of which is raising concerns among some publishers about whether there's room out there for a second Asper biography, especially after booksellers reported anemic sales in 2004 when three biographies of another media mogul, Conrad Black, appeared within three months of each other.
That said, the Aspers themselves may have the last word, as it's not uncommon in publishing circles for an individual or a family commissioning a biography to agree in advance to buy enough volumes to ensure the book's viability for the publisher.
Another tantalizing issue has to do with serial rights - the advance publication of excerpts from a hotly anticipated book in a newspaper or magazine. The Winnipeg Free Press, for instance, may decide to pass on printing something from Sinclair's biography, feeling that if it did so, it would look like nepotism - or a gratuitous tweak of the Aspers. Nor is it likely that any of the many CanWest Global newspapers, such as the Edmonton Journal, the Vancouver Sun and the National Post, would agree to serialization.
One possible outlet is Maclean's. In fact, it's well-known in publishing circles that the magazine's publisher-editor, Kenneth Whyte, has expressed some interest in the Sinclair book. Whyte, of course, was editor of the National Post from its founding in 1998 until he was dumped from that perch by the Aspers in May, 2003.
There doesn't appear to be much love lost between Whyte and National Post chair David Asper, who said Whyte ran a "high-priced tea party" during his tenure at the Post. Ironically, agent Levine claims both Peter C. Newman and Whyte as his clients.