Most Popular Books by Charles Foran

Foran''s book is IT: the definitive, detailed, intimate portrait of Mordecai Richler, the lion of Canadian literature, and the turbulent, changing times that nurtured him. It is also an extraordinary love story that lasted half a century. The first major biography with access to family letters and archives. Mordecai Richler was an outsized and outrageous novelist whose life reads like fiction. Mordecai Richler won multiple Governor General''s Literary Awards, the Giller Prize, the Commonwealth Writers'' Prize, among others, as well as many awards for his children''s books. He also wrote Oscar-nominated screenplays. His influence was larger than life in Canada and abroad. In Mordecai, award-winning novelist and journalist Charlie Foran brings to the page the richness of Mordecai''s life as young bohemian, irreverent writer, passionate and controversial Canadian, loyal friend and deeply romantic lover. He explores Mordecai''s distraught childhood, and gives us the "portrait of a marriage" -- the lifelong love affair with Florence, with Mordecai as beloved father of five. The portrait is alive and intimate -- warts and all.

In his poignant memoir, Charles Foran presents a portrait of his gruff-but-fond father wrestling with the end of life as Charlie acts as witness, solace, and would-be guide while facing his own mortality. "Luminous. . . . Wise and moving." —Yann Martel Dave Foran was a formidable man of few words, from a different era than his sensitive, literary son, Charlie. As a younger person, Dave had lived alone for months in the bush, overcome snow blindness, hauled a dead body across a frozen lake on a dogsled, dodged bullets in a bar, and gone toe-to-toe with a bear. Some aspects of his life were rollicking while others were more restrained: A decent father and a devoted husband, Dave was also emotionally distant, prone to laconic cynicism and a changeable mood. As Charlie writes: “He struggled most days of his life with wounds he could not readily identify, let alone heal." The year Charlie turned 55, his 83-year-old father began a slow, final decline, and Charlie surprised himself by wanting to write about their relationship. On the surface, his motiavation was to reassure his father that he was loved. But there was also a deeper desire at work. “Late into the middle of my own lifespan,” Charlie writes, “sadness took hold of my being . . . I wanted to say so frankly, never mind how uncomfortable it made me.” In spare, haunting prose, Just Once, No More pulls on these delicate threads—unravelling a fascinating personal story and revealing its poignant universality.

In Join the Revolution, Comrade, Charles Foran brings to the essay form the same restlessness and originality that mark his novels and non-fiction. Foran visits places in Vietnam that have been ''colonized'' by western war films, talks to Shanghai residents about their colossal city and commiserates with the people of Bali about the effects of terrorist bombs on their island. In Beijing he looks up old friends he had known back in 1989 during the days before and after the June 4th massacre. "Join the revolution, Comrade," a friend had loved to say, quoting a line from a Bertolucci film. Foran also ''encounters'' Miguel de Cervantes, the Buddha of Compassion, and the pumped-up American Tom Wolfe. He maps the geography of Canadian literature and pinpoints the ''inner-Newfoundland'' of Wayne Johnston. He defends the novel against those who would tame it and uses an ancient Chinese philosopher to explain how one imagination -- his own-- works. Whether exploring the waterways of Thailand or the streets of his childhood in suburban Toronto, meditating on raising children in post-9/11 Asia or the music of good prose, Charles Foran''s writing is fresh, alert, and free of convention.

Winner of the QSPELL Award Chosen as the best book of the year by Maclean’s, the Toronto Star,Quill & Quire and NOW Magazine. In the 1970s, Charles Foran met the McNallys, a Catholic family living in Belfast. Many years and many trips later, Foran came to see their home as a window onto the often violent and volatile world of Northern Ireland. First published to great acclaim in 1995, The Last House of Ulster continues to resonate with readers today. This is the storyof Mairtin, arrested at twenty as a member of the IRA, of his sister Patricia who, dazed and exhausted, approaches a soldier and demands that he lower his gun, and of gentle Sean, who grows up knowing that he must leave Belfast. Mostof all, this is the story of James and Maureen McNally, who struggle to hold on to their own hopes and dreams while raising their family in a war-torn country.

Luminous and mischievous, Carolan’s Farewell is the story of a journey home and of changing times. In 18th-century Ireland, the legendary harper Carolanand his faithful companion Owen Connor make a final ride across a countrysideravaged by famine and the collapse of old traditions, but still alive with spirit andenergy. Carolan’s Farewell is tender, sad and funny, a haunting novel filled withmusic and humour, the warmth of friendship and the lore of Ireland.

Born in 1921 into a working-class family, Maurice Richard came of age as a French Canadian and athlete during an era when the majority population of Quebec slumbered. A proud, reticent man, Richard aspired only to score goals and win championships for the Montreal Canadiens. But he represented far more than a high-scoring forward who filled seats in NHL arenas. Beginning with his 50-goal, 50-game season in 1944-45 and through his battles with the league over bigotry toward French-Canadian players, Richard''s on-ice ferocity and off-ice dignity echoed the change in Quebec. The March 1955 “Richard Riot,” in which fans went on a rampage to protest his suspension, contained the seeds of transformation. By the time Richard retired in 1960, Quebec had begun to reinvent itself as a modern, secular society. Author Charles Foran argues that the province''s passionate identification with Richard''s success and struggles emboldened its people and changed Canada irrevocably.

An electrifying novel about a chance encounter that changes everything for a girl On the remote Hong Kong beach where they are camping, bickering parents and their lonely teenage daughter awaken at sunrise to a strange sight: a dozen women suddenly on the shore. They seem to have washed in from the sea. Fifteen-year-old Sarah, known as Xixi, tries befriending them, and she snaps a cell phone image of a beautiful young woman she calls Mary. Soon after, Xixi, believing she has a connection with Mary, posts the photo on Facebook, triggering an online narrative she can neither comprehend nor control. Meanwhile, Jacob and Leah, distracted by their failing marriage, must also deal with the fury of an absent older daughter, Rachel, and a looming new SARS epidemic in Hong Kong. As fear and paranoia settle over the city, isolated Xixi grows more desperate to save Mary from her doomed circumstances. She dares herself to be brave, and take a risk; her action is perilous. Told in the voice of a bi-racial, “half-half” girl and the language of social media, Planet Lolita is a riveting novel of desires and consequences in our unfolding digital age.

In 1971, 10-year old Charlie Foran handed in a Grade Five writing project called The Story of My Life (So Far). In this revised and expanded version, Charles Foran relates the story of his boyhood told from a boy''s perspective.