The Return of Jacob Two-Two

After renowned Canadian author Mordecai Richler died in 2001, Tundra Books had some tough questions to answer. Richler had written three successful and beloved children’s books about Jacob Two-Two, the youngest boy in a large family who has to say everything twice to be heard over his siblings. The books have sold more than 200,000 copies since Tundra inherited the series from its parent company, McClelland & Stewart, in 1995. Richler had planned to write a fourth book, and the Richler family told Tundra they wanted the series to continue after his death, but that left the company with the task of finding an author capable of filling a big pair of shoes.

Tundra publisher Kathy Lowinger said the company considered various authors and book formats, including picture books and graphic novels. Adding to the pressure of getting it right, because Richler is an important Canadian writer—both for his adult fiction and nonfiction as well as the Jacob Two-Two books—was the fact that the books are intimately connected with the Richler family. The characters in Jacob’s family were based on and named for each of Richler’s children. All five of his children are accomplished writers themselves, so they were natural choices to consider. Lowinger would not say how extensively those possibilities were explored, only that “there’s a whole family of writers and we wanted to make the whole family happy.”

Cary Fagan.

In the end, Tundra chose writer Cary Fagan. Author of both children’s and adult fiction, Fagan had worked with other authors before, having written Beyond the Dance: A Ballerina’s Life for Tundra with ballerina Chan Hon Goh. “He’s really got a knack for listening and finding people’s voices,” Lowinger said. “And he also is very, very funny.”

Then the decision was Fagan’s. “I was a bit flabbergasted by the proposal, and unnerved and excited,” he said. “Richler is, in Canada, a very big figure. And for a writer who is Jewish, like me, he looms even larger.” Fagan said he asked himself the same questions anyone else might: “Should there be another Jacob Two-Two? What would Richler have said about the idea of someone else writing a Jacob Two-Two book?” But knowing he had the family’s blessing, Fagan felt confident he could tackle the project.

Richler had in fact sketched out a tentative idea for his planned fourth book in the series, and had met with Lowinger before his death to discuss it. They agreed that his idea about a theft of the National Hockey League’s Stanley Cup wouldn’t have the broad appeal outside of Canada that the other books had, so he was going to change it, but then fell ill. After he died, Lowinger said, they decided that instead of asking Fagan to try to second-guess Richler, “It would be best for him to go where his own imagination took him.”

Mordecai Richler. Photo: Martha Kaplan.

According to Fagan, he was given creative freedom and had no directions from or contact with the Richler family. Still, he said he felt a bit like walking on eggshells while writing the first few drafts, trying to get the voice right. But once he thought he had some Richlerian characters and humor, he loosened up and felt that he could make the book his own as well.

The result is Jacob Two-Two on the High Seas—which is set directly after Richler’s first book, Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang. In Fagan’s book, the family is moving from England back to Canada, because Jacob's father has written an important novel and the prime minister has requested his return. Their vessel turns out to be a pirate ship.

Sacrilege or Smart Move?

Tundra knew there would be some resistance among readers to the idea of any other author taking on Richler’s creation. Last summer when the news broke, Nathan Whitlock, Quill & Quire’s children’s literature review editor, ended a blog post about it with this one-liner (in true Jacob Two-Two fashion): “With all due respect to Fagan and the good folks at Tundra, continuing a series by a late author is usually just a cash-grab, usually just a cash-grab.” Several of the post’s comments used the word “grave-robbing.” But Lowinger emphasizes that Richler wanted the series to continue and so did his family.

“We’re absolutely thrilled to continue the franchise and feel very strongly that Mr. Fagan and the illustrator have been true to the spirit of what Mr. Richler created originally,” said Michael Levine, the lawyer for Richler’s estate. Richler is credited on the cover of the new book as the creator of the character.

High Seas, which comes out in September, is illustrated by Toronto artist Dusan Petricic. According to Lowinger, the previous books were illustrated by multiple artists and didn’t look like a series. “We thought this was an opportunity to really freshen them up.” So Tundra asked Petricic to re-illustrate the previous three books, for a new and cohesive look, and will re-release the entire series simultaneously.

Indigo Books and Music, Canada’s biggest book retailer, has bought the book “fairly assertively,” said Trevor Dayton, v-p of kids and entertainment for the retailer. Dayton said Indigo was not apprehensive about buying a book by the new author. BeforeGreen Gables, a prequel for Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables series, recently written by Nova Scotia author Budge Wilson, was a “huge success,” he said. “She definitely respected the original series, and I would expect that would be true of Cary Fagan.”

Dayton also cited Return to the Hundred Acre Wood by David Benedictus, a revisiting of Winnie-the-Pooh, written with the permission of the estate, which also comes out this fall. “There does seem to be a bit of a trend in the last few years of classics getting updated by the estate with other authors,” he said. “So long as they are done tastefully and in the spirit of the original, I think that they can work pretty nicely.”

Fagan will make appearances at literary festivals across Canada in the fall, and has a new novel for adults coming out with Cormorant Books; three other kids' books are also on the way. “I’ve been touring a fair bit this year,” he said, “and I sometimes get introduced as the guy who is writing another Jacob Two-Two book.” But he doesn’t mind. “Kids just love those books and they love those characters, so I felt it was an honor to do.”