view . summer 2012
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Marty Gervais MA ’72 grew up in a Catholic home in
Windsor, Ont.
He attended Catholic schools where nuns
ruled the day and taught their students English, phonics,
arithmetic, history, and religion.
“We knew the names of every Pope from St. Peter to
Pius XII. We could rattle off the names of the saints.”
Gervais, University of Windsor’s Resident Writing
Professional and the City of Windsor’s Poet Laureate,
takes his readers back to those days with his latest offering
Afternoons with the Devil, Growing up Catholic in a
Border Town.
Afternoons with the Devil
is an immensely enjoyable
collection of Gervais’ boyhood
memories of growing up in a
devotedly Catholic Windsor
home in the 1950s, where a
boy’s world revolved around
the school yard of St. Thomas
School, sandlot baseball, and
the hair-splitting distinction
between sins that would land
a six-year-old boy in Hell...or
just Purgatory.
“We stood in front of
the class and practised our
‘confessions’ with made-up
sins (of course),” says Gervais,
who is also the publisher of Black Moss Press and an
award-winning
Windsor Star
columnist.
The book describes his struggle with conflicting
career goals: hoping to play third base for the Detroit
Tigers and becoming a priest because “We all wanted
to go to Heaven.”
Gervais’ writing has the ability to transport his readers
to the gloriously golden last day of school, or bring them
up short by an encounter with the fire-breathing Sister
Bartholomew.
The book focuses on young Marty, his brother and
trusty sidekick Bill, and the hapless, possible firebug cousin
Dennis, through the trials and tribulations of growing up
Catholic in mid-century Windsor.
“Our whole life – education, home life, school yard, and
our days – were spent in relation to the church. I remember
my oldest brother wanting to join the navy, and my father
– still concerned 10 or 11
years after the Second World
War, – about such a decision.
He drove my brother to the
church rectory and spoke
with the priest to get his
approval. Who would do
that today?”
Readers can almost smell
the little-boy sweat and grass
stains as young Marty and
his pals walk the line between
mischief and amassing the
“indulgences” that would keep
them from the fires of Hell.
Prayers were a good way and
so was confession – dutifully
recited every Saturday after a trip to the Centre Theatre.
Gervais’ deftly juxtaposes the memories of his
childhood terror of bullying nuns and priests with those
individuals who shaped his love of the arts and encouraged
his creativity, keeping the stories light and providing
perspective for readers.
BY LORI LEWIS AND JENNIFER AMMOSCATO
AFTERNOONS WITH
THE DEVIL
UWINDSOR AUTHORS
The University’s resident writing professional and author Marty
Gervais tells of growing up a Catholic and a Detroit Tiger fan.
Growing up with rosaries,
Wonder Bread and
Sister Mary of Perpetual Help
