Dryden’s account of high-school chums gets top marks

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This article was published 21/10/2023 (1074 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Have you ever wondered about your elementary and high school classmates? Whatever happened to what’s-her-name, what’s-his-name or (nowadays) what’s-their-name? Surely, he ended up in jail; she always wanted to be a nurse. Hm.

Ken Dryden satisfied this probably universal and natural curiosity with his latest (ninth) book, The Class: A Memoir of a Place, A Time, And Us. In January 2020 he began interviewing as many of his 34 high school classmates as he could find. They were members of the “Selected Class,” the best and the brightest of Etobicoke Collegiate Institute between 1960 and 1965. Some called them, not always charitably, the Brain Class.

Dryden as a non-fiction writer has always been interested in history. He writes about present-day people and events but always within their contexts — thus the importance of “Place” and “Time” in his subtitle. His most famous book, the bestseller and widely praised The Game (1983), provides a history of the way hockey came to be the game it is.

As a Vezina Trophy winner — voted best goalie in the NHL — on a Montreal Canadiens team that won six Stanley Cups, Dryden is well-respected as an author on hockey topics. But he’s not just remembered as an ex-hockey player and as a writer he’s not been restricted to just that field.

Two early books, The Moved and The Shaken: The Story of One Man’s Life (1993) and In School: Our Kids, Our Teachers, Our Classrooms (1995) point the way to The Class. The former is a story about the life of “an average Joe” from school to late middle age; the latter about the importance of education to Canadian society.

The Class, he confesses at the outset, has been on his mind for 30 years, putting it right back alongside these two books. He also references Michael Apted’s Up documentary series as an influence.

The Class is divided into eight sections, each devoted to a different era of Canadian history — from “The Early Years” (post-war 1940s and 50s) to the time of “The Big Changes” (1980s) to “Getting to Here” (retirements and deaths in the 21st century). His history is mainly generalizations spiced with pertinent, brief stories about events in the lives of relevant classmates to illustrate each era.

Dryden seems to have strong observational powers and an astonishing memory. His introductory characterizations are brilliantly precise, if not models of good sentence variety. Peggy Clark, for instance, “was this fun, tidy little person who took up no more space than she needed. She wasn’t much over five feet tall, probably weighed a hundred pounds. She had short hair. She liked to talk and laugh, but not too loud or too much. She was eager without being annoying, upbeat without being exhausting, nice but not teeth-achingly so, capable and competent without being anal.” Such thumbnail sketches bring everyone to life.

Not every student gets equal coverage. Dryden is carefully complimentary to them all (it’s like a hagiography with no mention anywhere at all of acne, sex, drugs, illicit love affairs or even teenage hijinks), but some of their life stories merit a mere page or two. Those classmates whose lives are more varied and richly dramatic get as many as 10 or 12 pages.

Dryden recounts moments from his own life to cap off each era. He tries to be modest, spending a few scanty paragraphs on such things as his Canadiens career and his Liberal Party years. But he’s a man of varied and interesting accomplishments, so he invariably tops almost all of the others — though some of their lives are more dramatic.

The Class is like an anthropology text — an insider writing about a tribe of white, suburban Baby Boomers during an important era of Canadian history. It’s contemplative, thoughtful and revealing, probably best appreciated by other Boomers or their kids.

Gene Walz is not a suburban Toronto Baby Boomer, but he could relate to many of their experiences.

Ken Dryden launches The Class on Monday at 7 p.m. at McNally Robsinson Booksellers’ Grant Park location, where he’ll be joined in conversation with Free Press editor Paul Samyn.