Book Reviews: Ernie Loutit and Mark Abley

StarPhoenix book reviewer Bill Robertson takes a look at two non-fiction books — Ernie Louttit and Mark Abley.

The Unexpected Cop by Ernie Louttit Supplied photo

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The Unexpected Cop by Ernie Louttit Supplied photo

The Unexpected Cop: Indian Ernie on a Life of Leadership (U of Regina Press, 21.95) is retired Saskatoon police officer Ernie Louttit’s third foray into writing about his life as a First Nations man growing up, being in the military, and patrolling the streets. So, what’s the “unexpected” part of his being a cop? Well, he doesn’t come right out and answer that question, but his subtitle about leadership gives something of a clue.

One can gather from Louttit’s story that being raised in a small community in Northern Ontario and making his way into the military at a young age was not so much about a passion to serve as it was about getting a decent job and a training. Then came the decision to go to police college and serve in Saskatoon. But in both the military and the city police he found himself in uniform with a serious expectation placed upon him not to desecrate in any way that uniform and what it stands for. In this way he may have found himself thrust into a leadership role he hadn’t expected.

In a number of ways throughout The Unexpected Cop, Louttit turns his memories of policing into lessons about how to be a leader and make a positive difference in a community.

Sure, there are some extreme and dramatic examples. In one such instance, Loutit let his fatigue and post-traumatic stress build to a breaking point, and then he was involved in a high-speed chase that saw two innocent people killed in downtown Saskatoon. None of it was his fault, but he knew he’d pushed himself past the point of being able to deal with the trauma on an even keel. He hadn’t taken the initiative and shown others that he was willing to go first in taking a break. He thought being a leader was covering it up and pushing on.

On a more mundane level, but one to which I particularly related, Louttit talks of attending to a bicycle theft and taking down all the boring details that go into a heist as common as this. With murders and chases in his life, a crime of this nature is dullsville. Then this kid’s bike, one the family had to budget and save for, got stolen. He gained a whole new perspective on thefts of this kind and it changed him into a more effective officer in dealing with a crime that is a big deal to the victim involved.

The humility Louttit shows here is always welcome, as he asks himself repeatedly, “Do I get it right every time? Hell, no! I can use all the help I can get.” Louttit takes that approach into community policing, the question of check stops, the value of women on the front line, racism in the community and in police forces, his own new path in writing, and his many public speaking events. Life has again thrust Ernie Louttit into a leadership role, and in The Unexpected Cop he rises to the occasion with lessons on leadership and on life.

The Organist by Mark Abley Supplied photo

Montreal writer Mark Abley was once a wunderkind here in Saskatoon. He lit up the University of Saskatchewan’s Department of English with his prodigious intellect, he wrote for The Sheaf, and he went off to Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship. While many of a certain generation know well who he was, there were others who knew just as well of his father, Harry Abley: organist and choirmaster at St. James Anglican Cathedral, composer of countless musical scores, teacher of a multitude of students, and a sought-after concert performer across Canada and Europe.

In The Organist: Fugues, Fatherhood, and a Fragile Mind, (U of R Press, $24.95), son Mark struggles mightily to understand the sources of conflict he felt with his father and which continue to this day, long after the man’s death in 1994. Mark was an only child, and how his father and mother got along, how his father behaved with his son and around the house, and the public persona his father projected created a turbulence that still unsettles the son.

Through the course of The Organist, Mark takes us through his father’s childhood in Wales — what he knows of it anyway, as his father wouldn’t talk about it. The man didn’t get a good education, but he learned to play the organ so well that by April 1939 he was performing in theatres in London for 3000 people and being written up in the newspapers as “a most stirring spectacle.” He’d gone further than anyone from his hometown, then war broke out and he drove trucks up and down England for the duration. Mark discovered much later that his father did some heroic things during the London Blitz, but he wouldn’t speak of it. That was boasting.

What young Mark wanted growing up in England, Lethbridge and Saskatoon was a father who could be a hero to his son, a lesson in manhood. What he got was a man whose artistic sensibilities were so fragilely balanced that he was only as good as the last bit of praise he received — and that rarely acknowledged his true worth. “He felt cheated by fate; he lashed out for no other reason. . . . My father didn’t merely have issues with anger, prejudice, and inappropriate social behaviour: he was afflicted by mental illness.” That mental illness was profound depression. He had moods that “could darken like a thundercloud.”

What makes The Organist truly remarkable is that Mark includes testimonials of former students and parents who dearly loved Harry. They praise his kindness, patience, and devotion. Has Mark got it wrong? He quotes writer Kazuo Ishiguro who claims writers “stroke the wound.” Because Mark had a tumultuous relationship with his father, does he need to make the man more of a moody diva than he really was? On this question turns Abley’s well- and torturously-considered book. One thing is clear: it’s not easy being the child of a much-loved artist.