tugwell years

The Tugwell Years: Selected letters of Barry Macleod, 1978–1986
Edited by Doug Lang and Pam Woodland, with an introduction and photographs by James R Page
xviii + 204 pp.; 6"x9"
Second edition, © 2009


“Tear open the envelope, pull up a chair, and get ready for a blast from the past that feels eerily like the present, except with different players, hair styles, and music.…Tugwell exists. And Macleod, who always knew that it mattered, wrote it down and got it right.”
—James R. Page


“Every time Macleod wrote a letter he published himself. Those who received his letters kept them. When news of this project circulated after his death in October 1986, the response was immediate and affirmative.
For me these letters are wayward bus stations on a cold night, a warm place to pause for coffee, directions, good ­company, and free ­re­fills—and a traveler’s salvation, ketchup soup for the solitary road ahead. With Macleod at my table!”
—Doug Lang


From Duke Lang, via Macleod:

... so how about if I give you a quote from Doug’s last letter to me.
I get such a kick out of him, he thinks I’m in pain, “I read all of your letters last night on graveyard at the asylum for mislaid youths. Marvelous odyssey, stories that are varied in twist and turn, but all have in common a bloodstain, a smear of battle worn camara­derie with pain. What can I add ... they are, to me, masterful expressions
of a man’s aloneness in the midst of his own incorrigible and cantankerous abundance of character. Rimbaud often worried of the burden of having vision ... no worry, pal, the main thing is to have vision ... any burden is secondary to the thrusting education of the experience itself, so I toast your vision, your character ... I even with so much tequila handy, toast your burden. Salut! Endaxi!”
     And I get such a kick out of Doug, he thinks we are going to be famous someday and he doesn’t understand that we are just famous to each other...’’


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NOW AVAILABLE AT THE STICK IN THE MUD CAFE & THE SOOKE MUSEUM IN SOOKE, BC

Cost: $20.00 plus postage

Macleod_Tugwell

revised PDF sample including
new photos


3RD edition available now

I was asked to make a change to the book that involved a complete repaging of its contents. Since I had also received additional images from letter contributor Eileen Coristene, together with yet another couple of photos from James Page, I decided to incorporate those into what has now become a new edition of the book.

This revised edition is now available.

A new printing with improved photo rendering is now available. Thanks to Island Blue’s Printorium for this improved edition.


Updated December 2017
Contact:
pamelawoodland@gmail.com