Bill Marantz

Signs of Life Bill Marantz

No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar," Abe Lincoln said. Nor does any man (or woman) have a good enough memory to write an entirely credible memoir. Diaries are a different story. What reason would Ann Frank or Anais Nin have to lie to their "invisible friend"? Unlike the world's most famous diarists, Bill Marantz, an obscure lawyer in Winnipeg, Manitoba, was over forty when he began to keep a personal journal. The year was 1975. The Viet Nam War was over, Nixon was history, and a peanut farmer was heading for the White House. By 1988 George Bush had replaced Ronald Reagan, the Cold War was history, as was William Marantz's "middle aged crises". Having made the transition from part-time lawyer to full-time writer, the diarist "closed the book" on that period of his life, literally as well as metaphorically. For the next thirty-odd years, the twenty-odd volumes, that not only contained a record of the author's daily grind but his views on life, love, family, art, politics, sports...languished in the bottom drawer of his filing cabinet. Perhaps they should they have stayed there?You be the judge.