Paul Quarrington, novelist, musician, and screenwriter, died at his home in Toronto on Thursday morning, aged fifty-six. Michael Posner's obituary is a fine and living thing, spoken from the heart and pulse by friends who were with Quarrington through his last days, and I encourage everyone to read it.
When we lose people like Paul or Kate, I try to resist the impulse to think that they died too soon. People live as long as they do, and this week we have two models of creative genius to remember who packed worlds into the time they had.
Quarrington was best known as the GG-winning author of Whale Music (1989), a meditation on the life of a reclusive rock musician, and as the screenwriter of the film that followed, regularly honoured as well for all the novels that followed. But he knew the musician's life early, and from the inside:
Whale Music, he confessed, was written "to prevent myself from becoming a recluse like [the central character] Desmond. It's an appealing lifestyle. Like Howard Hughes in hotel rooms, watching movies all day? Sounds good to me."
Inspired himself by the indie rock group Rheostatics, whose album Whale Music was inspired by his novel, Quarrington asked them to do the soundtrack for the film. I'm new to their music, but they remind me fine of The Doors, and I think I see why they would have spoken to Quarrington.
Here is "Shaved Head" (1992) from the Rheostatics' original album (not the soundtrack), in live performance in 1994.
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