Blazing Reader,

In his opening essay in the newly released anthology, Canary in a Covid World, Colin McAdam writes:

“I had watched everyone learn to hate each other in the name of caring, everyone denying life in the name of living, compassionate artists wagging their fingers or screaming at people who didn’t do as they did, and no one shouting at the people who deserved it most: the ones who created this disease, the motherf**kers who told us we should hate each other but continue to buy what they sold.”

McAdam is an internationally acclaimed novelist — and one of the few Canadian authors to speak up about the epic injustice of the COVID era. This despite the fact that McAdam initially went along with the mandates. His family even took both the prescribed clot shots.

But when the trucker convoy converged on Ottawa, he saw history unfold firsthand and realized which side of it he would be standing on:

“I shook hands with all kinds of people,” McAdam writes, “hugged a big drunk in Carhartt overalls, wandered around and chatted. Met a mother whose son couldn’t play hockey on his team without being vaccinated, who died the morning after inoculation. The gym owner who lost his business, his house, his income, deemed inessential by people who still enjoyed the novelty of working at home in their pyjamas. These people who should be heard, the mute and inglorious — they weren’t there just out of bitterness, they were there to feel connection. They were protesting, they had complaints, but they were there to overcome. To be brave.”

Quickly, McAdam realized that the liberal arts community had completely neglected to deride the very type of oppression they so pride themselves on opposing.

“One of the things I learned over these years is how class conscious, how insecure and unempathetic, so much of my cohort truly is. We in the Arts community are meant to be the ones who look in the dark corners, the ones who care about the oppressed and sing the sorrows of those who have no time or strength to sing. We are meant to think critically, to challenge authority and champion the individual under the thumb of the man.”

That mission statement sums up beautifully why I was so driven to write Much Ado About Corona: A Dystopian Love Story.

It also explains why, after reading McAdam’s essay, I immediately ordered his latest novel, Black Dove — a story about “genetic editing and the adventures of a grieving father and son.” I have a feeling I’m going to love it. https://blazingpinecone.com/shop/black-dove/

“Stories can warn us, scare us, light up the darkness, chase away boredom,” writes McAdam. “And they can also make us brave.”

And so can essays…. Canary in a Covid World includes 34 essays by thought leaders ranging from a novelist like Colin McAdams, to journalists, lawyers, judges, scientists, doctors, academics, politicians, researchers, vaccine-injured and data experts. They’ve bravely put their reputations (and possibly even their lives) before the firing squad of public opinion — to expose what happened and stop history from repeating itself. You can order copies of Canary in a Covid World for yourself, your family and friends here.

https://blazingpinecone.com/shop/canary-in-a-covid-world/

Be brave and read great books,
— John C. A. Manley

PS Today, I attended the Do No Harm Symposium in Hamilton, Ontario. I’ll send out some photos and highlights on Tuesday.
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