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The Bibliophile: The ghost in the machine

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It surprised me that the most riveting book I’ve read this year is on a topic I knew nothing about and didn’t think I would care to know much about anyway. But Don Gillmor hooked me. That won’t surprise anyone who has read him before. In On Oil, Gillmor, a journalist and former roughneck, takes us through the rise and fall of the oil industry. He had a front row seat to Alberta’s oil boom in the ’70s while working on the oil rigs and he uses that perspective to show how it transformed the province and the wide-ranging influence oil has had across the world. It has given some countries immense wealth and power. It has also corrupted governments, started wars, and worsened our environment.

Photo: On Oil by Don Gillmor. Designed by Ingrid Paulson.

Reading this book I learned that one of the first oil companies was started by a devout Baptist and some of the biggest oil companies were run by Christian evangelicals, which aided in building the mythology of oil as the key to a kingdom on earth. And now, as Gillmor says, “we find ourselves in a landscape that looks increasingly like the Book of Revelation. ‘A third of the earth was burnt up, and a third of the trees were burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up.’”

Please enjoy this short excerpt from On Oil, which will be released on April 22.

Ahmed Abdalla,
Publicist

***

Babylon

In boardrooms in Houston, Calgary, Kuwait, and a dozen other oil capitals, and on the floor of the New York and Chicago Mercantile Exchanges, oil was a global chess game where commodity futures were sold and bartered, oil shipped and traded. Millions of barrels lurched across the globe each day, traders hunched over streaming charts, puzzling over contracts for difference. Over the years, oil has won wars, started others, been a force for nationalism and colonization, and provided a stubborn mythology. It is the one true global religion. A glimpse of oil’s reach can be seen in America’s oil industry. Under Joe Biden, it produced 13.3 million barrels per day, enough to meet the US’s own needs. But in 2023 it imported 8.51 million barrels per day (bpd) from dozens of countries, and exported 10.15 million bpd to 173 countries. The oil network envelops the world in a complex web of shipping and refining capacity and capability, depending on cost-effectiveness and the grade of oil. Part of this is economic; it can be cheaper to import from countries with lower labour and capital costs and fewer environmental regulations. And part of it is chemistry; the heavy, sour (high sulphur content) oil that the US was importing from Venezuela and Mexico when it still needed to import oil requires a specific kind of refinery. Some of the refineries on the Gulf coast are equipped to process that oil (along with Canadian bitumen), as opposed to the light, sweet oil that Texas produces. Refineries take years to build and are expensive—between US$5 and 15 billion. With the exception of a small North Dakota refinery that came online in 2020, no US refineries have been built since 1976. Past the economics and chemistry, there are the geopolitics. Countries (Russia, Saudi Arabia, the US) sell oil at advantageous prices to other countries to gain influence and status. It is the world’s most pervasive diplomatic tool.

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Canada’s oil landscape is equally byzantine. Canadian pipelines tend to run south rather than east, so Ontario and Quebec get their oil from an evolving patchwork of sources that shifts depending on economics and politics. Since 1988, eastern Canada has imported more than $500 billion in foreign oil, coming from the US, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Nigeria, Norway, and others. The landscape can shift quickly. In 2012, Quebec got 92 percent of its oil from Kazakhstan, Angola, and Algeria, and just 1 percent from Alberta. Five years later, it was getting 44 percent of its oil from Alberta, the result of Enbridge’s Line 9 pipeline.

It binds us all. Oil has a pulse, it evolves and migrates, transforming cities and governments, entire countries. It fuelled economic growth and triggered recessions and gave us the romance of the open road. But at its source, in Texas and Oklahoma and Louisiana and in camps in the Arctic, and outside Medicine Hat, it was men trudging onto the drilling floor, labouring in the heat or cold amid a symphony of engine noise, wrestling with drill pipe, spinning chains, tongs and slips, the kelly hose bobbing above them as they punched another hole in the earth. Even for us, oil remained an abstraction. I never saw it; there were no dramatic gushers, black oil spewing from the earth, coating everything. It powered our cars and homes and was used in the manufacture of a thousand products, from plastics to fertilizers to Aspirin. It powered our lives: We are Hydrocarbon Man, Homo Oleum. Yet it remains unseen, the ghost in the machine.

***

After graduating from university, I worked on an oil rig for a hundred straight days, with what was probably the oldest crew in the oil patch, weathered, gnarled men in their late sixties, one in his seventies, ancient for rig work, their lives a country and western song. Pete, the wobbly seventy-two-year-old derrickman, came home to find his wife gone, along with all the furniture, appliances, and curtains. There was a note on the floor: “Your dinner’s in the oven.” There was no oven. The driller was a ropy-muscled troll who had worked on the killing floor of a meat-packing plant but quit finally, saying it took too much of you, all that death. My fellow roughneck was a farmer whose modest crop had been lost to drought. He was in his late sixties, with a deeply lined face, a face that could hold a spring rain, as my grandmother might have said. Between connections he would roll a cigarette and walk to the edge of the lease and smoke and stare at the horizon.

Photo: Check out Don Gillmor’s new feature in Maclean’s.

I went up in the derrick when Pete was drunk or too hungover to climb the thirty metres onto his perch. We were south of Calgary and I was ten storeys off the ground, a view of the Rockies to the west and limitless prairie to the east, farms and ranches laid out like a Mondrian painting, a glorious solitude.

With my first paycheque I bought a plane ticket to Europe, then counted the days like a convict. Four months later, I was sitting on a beach on the Greek island of Crete, blobs of sticky oil dotting the sand around me. A tanker carrying crude oil from Libya had run aground off the south coast of Crete and here was the residue. Only two months earlier, the Amoco Cadiz had split apart off the Brittany coast in France, spilling 230,000 tonnes of oil, at that point the largest spill in history. Twenty thousand birds were killed and millions of sea creatures. Two months after the spill, six thousand French soldiers were still cleaning up the coastline.

The 1970s was a banner decade for oil tanker spills. More happened in that decade than any decade before or since. It was peak spill, with an alarming 788 of them (by contrast, the 2010s saw 63 spills). Millions of tonnes spilled into the seas. The world was awash in oil.

***

In good publicity news:

  • Don Gillmor, author of On Oil, was interviewed on TVO’s The Agenda, and wrote the article “Why Trump Needs Canadian Oil” for Maclean’s.
  • Ripper was mentioned in The Hill Times: “A bracing reminder of some of the reputations Poilievre has ruined, the malicious fictions he has promoted, [and] the tiresome slogans he stitches into every utterance.” Mark Bourrie was also featured in Vancouver CityNews’s Bookshelf.
  • Question Authority by Mark Kingwell was reviewed in the New York Journal of Books: “A master of words . . . [Kingwell] writes with deep affection and hope for humanity and openly shares his darkest and brightest moments along life’s bumpy road.
  • A few of our titles appear in the Literary Review of Canada’s May 2025 issue:
    • Review of On Book Banning by Ira Wells: “Persuasively explains how book banning reduces and devalues art and how it constitutes an attack on intellectual autonomy and on ‘your right to determine the future of your own mind.’
    • Review of Baldwin, Styron, and Me by Mélikah Abdelmoumen (trans. Catherine Khordoc): “Demonstrates the good faith conversations being held within a cultural scene that is both local and transnational in its outlook.
    • Review of UNMET by stephanie roberts: “With a resolute inward stare, Roberts reveals the cumulative nature of life.

BREAKING AND ENTERING longlisted for the REPUBLIC OF CONSCIOUSNESS US & CANADA PRIZE!

Biblioasis is thrilled to share that the longlist for the second annual Republic of Consciousness Prize (US and Canada) worth $35,000 was announced, and it includes Breaking and Entering by Don Gillmor (Aug 15, 2023)! The prize celebrates the commitment of small presses to exceptional literary merit.

Biblioasis publisher Dan Wells says,

“We’re so pleased that Don Gillmor’s Breaking and Entering has made the Republic of Consciousness Prize longlist. As independent booksellers and publishers both, we know how stiff the competition is. I’ve admired this prize since its inception in the UK several years ago, especially the way it highlights both often overlooked books published by smaller independent presses and those very same independent presses themselves. If people paid more attention to who published their favorite books, they’d be disappointed less often: this list is a way to discover things you might otherwise have missed, including Don’s novel, a savage and bleakly funny revelation of the rot and rage resting under the veneer of polite company.”

Chosen from dozens of submissions, the longlist for the Republic of Consciousness US & Canada Prize includes a range of novels and short story collections, including those written in English or another language. Jury Chair Lori Feathers said:

“In this, our second year honoring small publishers in the United States and Canada, we are excited to once again celebrate the accomplishments of independent presses. These longlisted titles highlight the indispensable role of small publishers in bringing books to print that expand the idea of great literature, privileging exceptional writing over commercial sales. Their work demonstrates courage and a commitment to ensuring that fiction of the highest quality and imagination finds its readers.”

A Zoom party celebrating the longlist, with publishers, authors and translators, will take place on Tuesday, February 27 at 6PM CT. The shortlist of five books will be announced on Tuesday, March 5 and the winner announced on Tuesday, March 19. More information about the Republic of Consciousness Prize, founded in 2022, can be found here.

Get your copy of Breaking and Entering here!

ABOUT BREAKING AND ENTERING

An Oprah Daily Best Book of 2023 • One of the Globe and Mail’s Most Anticipated Titles of 2023 • Listed in CBC Books Fiction to Read in Fall 2023 • A 49th Shelf Fall Book To Put On Your List • One of the Globe 100’s Best Books of 2023

During the hottest summer on record, Bea’s dangerous new hobby puts everyone’s sense of security to the test.

Forty-nine and sweating through the hottest summer on record, Beatrice Billings is rudderless: her marriage is stale, her son communicates solely through cryptic text messages, her mother has dementia, and she conducts endless arguments with her older sister in her head. Toronto feels like an inadequately air-conditioned museum of its former self, and the same could be said of her life. She dreams of the past, her days as a newlywed, a new mom, a new homeowner gutting the kitchen—now the only novel experience that looms is the threat of divorce.

Credit: Ryan Szulc

Everything changes when she googles “escape” and discovers the world of amateur lock-picking. Breaking into houses is thrilling: she’s subtle and discreet, never greedy, but as her curiosity about other people’s lives becomes a dangerous compulsion and the entire city feels a few degrees from boiling over, she realizes she must turn her guilty analysis on herself. A searingly insightful rendering of midlife among the anxieties of the early twenty-first century, Breaking and Entering is an exacting look at the fragility of all the things we take on faith.

ABOUT DON GILLMOR

Don Gillmor is the author of To the River, which won the Governor General’s Award for nonfiction. He is the author of three novels, Long Change, Mount Pleasant, and Kanata, a two-volume history of Canada, Canada: A People’s History, and nine books for children, two of which were nominated for the Governor General’s Award. He was a senior editor at The Walrus, and his journalism has appeared in Rolling Stone, GQ, The Walrus, Saturday Night, Toronto Life, the Globe and Mail, and the Toronto Star. He has won twelve National Magazine Awards and numerous other honours. He lives in Toronto.

Media Hits: HOW TO BUILD A BOAT, OFF THE RECORD, THE FUTURE, and more!

IN THE NEWS!

GLOBE 100 BEST BOOKS OF 2023

How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney (Nov 7, 2023), Breaking and Entering by Don Gillmor (Aug 15, 2023), Instructions for the Drowning by Steven Heighton (Apr 18 2023) and The Full-Moon Whaling Chronicles by Jason Guriel (Aug 1, 2023) have been featured by the Globe and Mail as a part of “The Globe 100: The Best Books of 2023.” The article was published online on December 8, 2023.

You can read the full list here.

ON COMMUNITY

On Community by Casey Plett (Nov 7, 2023), was selected as one of CBC Books’ Best Canadian Nonfiction of 2023. The article was published online on December 14, 2023.

You can read the full list here.

Get On Community here!

SETH’S CHRISTMAS GHOST STORIES

A review of Seth’s Christmas Ghost Stories (Oct 31, 2023) was featured in Cemetery Dance Magazine. The review was published online on December 12, 2023. You can read the review here.

Critic Blu Gilliand writes,

“Seth’s illustrations suggest more than they actually show, adding to the quiet horror creeping around the edges. These are perfect for a quick read on a cold winter’s night, and are sure to warm the cockles of any jaded horror fan’s heart.”

Also, a “visual taste” of Seth’s Christmas Ghost Stories was featured in the Literary Review of Canada‘s Bookworm newsletter. The excerpt was published online on December 12, 2023. You can check out the excerpted illustrations here.

Grab all three 2023 Christmas Ghost Stories here!

Check out the rest of the series here!

HOW TO BUILD A BOAT

How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney (Nov 7, 2023) has been reviewed in the New Yorker as part of their “Briefly Noted” column. The article was published online and in print on December 18, 2023. You can read the full review here.

The New Yorker writes:

“Feeney’s prose is beautifully crisp.”

Get How to Build a Boat here!

THE FUTURE

The Future by Catherine Leroux, trans. by Susan Ouriou (Sep 5, 2023) has been featured on CBC Day 6’s Holiday Gift Guide. The list was published on December 18, 2023. The complete CBC Day 6 gift guide can be seen here.

Catherine Leroux was also interviewed on CBC’s Afternoon Drive. The interview aired on December 15, 2023. Listen to the full Afternoon Drive interview here.

Get The Future here!

OFF THE RECORD

Off the Record edited by John Metcalf (Dec 5, 2023) was reviewed in The BC Review. The review was published online on December 18, 2023. You can read the full review here.

Brett Josef Grubisic calls it:

“Carefully wrought, tonally diverse, artful, thoughtful, revelatory, and nothing short of enticing.”

An interview with Caroline Adderson on her experience contributing to Off the Record was featured in Open Book. The interview was published online on December 12, 2023, and can be read here.

The book is described by Open Book in glowing terms:

“Metcalf challenges six decorated Canadian authors to consider and share just how they became writers. Each essay is accompanied by a short story, showcasing each writer’s literary identity and style, and providing insight into how each writer approaches their work and their editorial relationships.”

Get Off the Record here!

SLEEP IS NOW A FOREIGN COUNTRY

Sleep Is Now a Foreign Country by Mike Barnes (Nov 14, 2023) has been reviewed in Publishers Weekly. The review was published online on December 9, 2023, and can be viewed here.

Publishers Weekly writes,

“The volume’s particular magic lies in Barnes’s adept use of free-flowing chronology and hallucinatory language to immerse readers in the depths of his psychosis … This isn’t easy to forget.”

Mike Barnes was also interviewed on CBC’s Fresh Air on December 9, 2023 and published a playlist for the book on Largehearted Boy on December 11, 2023.

You can listen to the full interview here, and check out Barnes’ playlist here.

Get Sleep Is Now a Foreign Country here!

POGUEMAHONE

Poguemahone by Patrick McCabe was listed on The Book Beat‘s Year-End Favorites by Tom Bowden. The list was published online on December 14, 2023, and can be seen here.

Bowden writes,

Poguemahone, for all its bleakly comic episodes, is more seriously about the tensions between traditional and modern ways, trust and betrayal, memory and vengeance, and British / Irish power dynamics.”

Get Poguemahone here!

Media Hits: ALL THE YEARS COMBINE, BURN MAN, CHRISTMAS GHOST STORIES, and more!

IN THE NEWS!

SLEEP IS NOW A FOREIGN COUNTRY

Mike Barnes, author of Sleep Is Now a Foreign Country (Nov 14, 2023), was interviewed in Open Book. The interview was posted on December 5, 2023 and can be read here.

Open Book writes,

“Mike Barnes is one of those rare writers who can do it all—in poetry, short fiction, novels, and memoir, he takes readers on nuanced, brainy, powerfully moving journeys. Fiercely intelligent yet consistently accessible and relatable, Barnes has a unique perspective informed by a deep empathy gained through his own difficult and complex experiences with mental health and grief.

His latest book, Sleep is Now a Foreign Country (Biblioasis), is a deeply personal, thoughtful, unflinching exploration of madness and imagination.”

Sleep Is Now a Foreign Country was (rave!) reviewed in the Toronto Star. The review was published online on November 23, 2023. You can read the full review here.

Brian Bethune writes:

“For all the ways Barnes’s book is indescribable, this much is true—it is a thing of beauty and courage.”

Get Sleep Is Now a Foreign Country here!

ALL THE YEARS COMBINE

Ray Robertson, author of All the Years Combine (Nov 7, 2023) has been interviewed on Bookin’ podcast, hosted by Explore Booksellers’ Jason Jeffries. The episode aired on December 4, 2023. You can listen to it here.

All the Years Combine was reviewed in Anti Music as part of their holiday gift guide for 2023. The article was published online on November 22, 2023. You can read the full review here.

Kevin Wierzbicki writes:

All the Years Combine is a fast, enlightening read but it is also something to savor, like one of the Dead’s notorious hour-long jams.”

All the Years Combine was reviewed in The Ultimate Guitar. The review was published on November 27, 2023, and you can read it in full here.

Greg Prado writes,

“Author Ray Robertson … put[s] it all in perspective.”

Ray Robertson was interviewed in Roots Music Canada, which was published on December 1, 2023 and can be read here.

Jason Schneider writes,

“One of Canada’s most prolific writers … one thing that’s always made Ray’s work stand out is how he seamlessly blends his favourite music into his prose, whether it’s fiction or non-fiction.”

Get All the Years Combine here!

THE FUTURE

The Future by Catherine Leroux, trans. by Susan Ouriou (Sep 5, 2023) was featured by CBC Books as one of their “Best Books of 2023.” The article was published online on December 5, 2023.

You can read the full list here.

Get The Future here!

ON COMMUNITY

Casey Plett, author of On Community (Nov 7, 2023), was interviewed on CBC’s The Next Chapter and in the Globe and Mail. Both interviews were published online on December 1, 2023. You can listen to the full episode of The Next Chapter here. You read the full Globe and Mail interview here.

On Community was reviewed in the Winnipeg Free Press. The review was published online on November 18, 2023. You can read the review here.

Matt Henderson writes:

“Plett ruminates on the importance of community in succinct, snappy prose.”

On Community was featured on The Tyee’s 2023 top reads for the holidays. The article was published online on December 1, 2023, and can be read here.

Casey Plett was also interviewed on “The Maris Review,” Lit Hub’s podcast hosted by Maris Kreizman. The episode was published on November 30, 2023, and you can listen to the interview here.

Get On Community here!

SETH’S CHRISTMAS GHOST STORIES 2023

Seth’s Christmas Ghost Stories (Oct 31, 2023) have all been featured in the Chicago Tribune’s holiday gift guide which was published on November 30, 2023, as well as the Toronto Star‘s holiday gift guide which was published November 24, 2023. You can read the Chicago Tribune list here and the Toronto Star here.

Christopher Borelli (Chicago Tribune) writes:

“For the past several years Canadian publisher Biblioasis has revived the tradition, one thin, tiny book at a time (illustrated by minimalistic, idiosyncratic cartoonist Seth). They’ve revived ghosts by Edith Wharton, Charles Dickens and others. The newest installment … includes “The Captain of the Polestar,” a polar fright by Arthur Conan Doyle. What is, after all, “A Christmas Carol” but a ghost story, handed down, every holiday?”

Seth’s Christmas Ghost Stories were also reviewed in the Literary Review of Canada! The reviews of The Captain of the Polestar, The House by the Poppy Field, and A Room in a Rectory were published in their December print issue.

The three reviews write:

The House by the Poppy Field is a spare and chilling tale that’s as much psychological as it is spectral. A perfectly sized collectible with Seth’s signature illustrations throughout, this latest edition would make for a fine stocking stuffer. Just don’t wait until Christmas morning to open it.”

“Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Captain of the Polestar (Biblioasis) is full of foreboding, with whispers of both Coleridge and Melville. In this edition, Seth complements the artful story from 1883 with bold and evocative imagery that  transports readers to the haunting scene.”

“Caldecott’s A Room in a Rectory … may well spook those who gather on Christmas Eve … Ultimately, the author’s and the illustrator’s treatments of ‘the obscene and macabre’ make for a lot of fun.”

Get all three 2023 Christmas Ghost Stories here!

Check out the rest of the series here!

BURN MAN

Burn Man: Selected Stories by Mark Anthony Jarman (Nov 21, 2023) has been reviewed in the Toronto Star. The review was published online on November 30, 2023. You can read the full review here.

Sara Harms writes:

“One doesn’t read a Mark Anthony Jarman story so much as one experiences it … These 21 stories in Burn Man selected by the author himself, are not ordered chronologically but rather the way a musician might sequence tracks on an album, paying careful attention to modulations in tempo and rhythm and how individual pieces play against one another.”

Get Burn Man here!

HOW TO BUILD A BOAT

How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney (November 7, 2023) has been listed in Lit Hub as one of the “10 Best Book Covers of November,” and on Bookmarks as one of “The Best Reviewed Books of the Month.” Both articles were published online on November 30, 2023.

You can read the Bookmarks article here, and Lit Hub here!

How to Build a Boat was also reviewed in the Winnipeg Free Press. The review was published online on November 20, 2023. You can read the full review here.

Malcolm Forbes calls it:

“A wonderful book that earned its rightful place on this year’s Booker Prize longlist.”

Get How to Build a Boat here!

BREAKING AND ENTERING

Don Gillmor, author of Breaking and Entering (August 15, 2023) was interviewed on CBC’s The Next Chapter on November 25, 2023, and All Write in Sin City on November 26, 2023.

You can listen to CBC Next Chapter here, You can listen to All Write in Sin City here.

Get Breaking and Entering here!

COCKTAIL

Cocktail by Lisa Alward (Sept 12 2023), was reviewed in the Literary Review of Canada for their December print issue. It was also featured as one of The Miramichi Reader’s “Best Books of 2023.” Both the review and the list were published online on November 20, 2023. You can read the full LRC review here and The Miramichi Reader‘s list here.

Emily Latimer writes, in the LRC,

“Throughout Lisa Alward’s debut story collection, deceptively unassuming items … prompt a diverse cast of characters to reflect on events that have changed their lives … Alward’s sure-footed writing ably steers readers through stories about injuries, marriages, new parenthood, and other watershed moments.”

Cocktail was also featured on The Tyee’s 2023 top reads for the holidays. The article was published online on December 1, 2023 and can be read here.

Get Cocktail here!

INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE DROWNING

Instructions for the Drowning by Steven Heighton (Apr 18 2023) was featured by CBC Books as one of their “Best Books of 2023.” The article was published online on December 5, 2023.

You can read the full list here.

Get Instructions for the Drowning here!

Events

On Oil: Don Gillmor at Words Festival

Join Don Gillmor as he speaks about his new book On Oil, a searching reconsideration of our long, complex, tortured relationship with oil, in this virtual event with the Words Festival. Don will be in conversation with host and Words Director Josh Lambier.

This free virtual event will take place on Tuesday, April 29 at 7pm EST over Zoom.

More details and event link here.

Grab On Oil here!

ABOUT ON OIL

A journalist, and former roughneck, considers our long, complex, tortured relationship with oil.

Oil has dominated our lives for the last century. It has given us warmth, progress, and life-threatening pollution. It has been a gift and is now a threat. It has started wars, ended wars, and infiltrated governments—in some cases, effectively become the government. And now oil’s enduring mythology is facing a messy, complicated twilight.

In On Oil, Don Gillmor, who worked as a roughneck on oil rigs during the seventies oil boom in Alberta, looks at how the industry has changed over the decades and illustrates the ways our dependence on oil has led to regulatory capture, in Canada and elsewhere, and contributed to armed conflict and war across the world. Gillmor documents the myriad ways that oil companies have misdirected environmental action and misinformed the public about climate concerns and illuminates where we went wrong—and how we might yet change course.

ABOUT DON GILLMOR

Don Gillmor is the author of To the River, which won the Governor General’s Award for nonfiction. He is the author of three novels, Long Change, Mount Pleasant, and Kanata, a two-volume history of Canada, Canada: A People’s History, and nine books for children, two of which were nominated for the Governor General’s Award. He was a senior editor at The Walrus, and his journalism has appeared in Rolling StoneGQThe WalrusSaturday NightToronto Life, the Globe and Mail, and the Toronto Star. He has won twelve National Magazine Awards and numerous other honours. He lives in Toronto.

On Oil: Don Gillmor at Ottawa Writers Festival

Join Don Gillmor as he speaks at the Ottawa Writers Festival about his new book On Oil, in which the journalist and former roughneck considers our long, complex, tortured relationship with oil.

This event, hosted by Jennifer Baker, will take place on Saturday, May 3 at 4PM.

Tickets and more details here.

Grab On Oil here!

ABOUT ON OIL

A journalist, and former roughneck, considers our long, complex, tortured relationship with oil.

Oil has dominated our lives for the last century. It has given us warmth, progress, and life-threatening pollution. It has been a gift and is now a threat. It has started wars, ended wars, and infiltrated governments—in some cases, effectively become the government. And now oil’s enduring mythology is facing a messy, complicated twilight.

In On Oil, Don Gillmor, who worked as a roughneck on oil rigs during the seventies oil boom in Alberta, looks at how the industry has changed over the decades and illustrates the ways our dependence on oil has led to regulatory capture, in Canada and elsewhere, and contributed to armed conflict and war across the world. Gillmor documents the myriad ways that oil companies have misdirected environmental action and misinformed the public about climate concerns and illuminates where we went wrong—and how we might yet change course.

ABOUT DON GILLMOR

Don Gillmor is the author of To the River, which won the Governor General’s Award for nonfiction. He is the author of four novels, Breaking and Entering, Long Change, Mount Pleasant, and Kanata, a two-volume history of Canada, Canada: A People’s History, and nine books for children, two of which were nominated for the Governor General’s Award. He was a senior editor at The Walrus, and his journalism has appeared in Rolling StoneGQThe WalrusSaturday NightToronto Life, the Globe and Mail, and the Toronto Star. He has won twelve National Magazine Awards and numerous other honours. He lives in Toronto.