I read Yorkville Diaries and Clara by Don Lyons nine years ago and have been on the lookout for any more of his works. At the end of Clara, Lyons stated that two more short novels were forthcoming, entitled Robert and Colleen, but my search has turned up empty-handed. I believe that neither novel was ever published. I bought Yorkville Diaries over forty years ago, and I read Clara as an interlibrary loan. On-line retailers and book websites link the Don Lyons name to other works, but knowing the subject matter of his writing, I believe these are false links with other author(s) having the same name.
Mark and I took a Jane’s Walk a week and a half ago and the tour leader, Mitch, brought up several references to Toronto in fiction. Our neighbourhood tour of Bennington Heights was featured in a couple Margaret Atwood works since Atwood herself had grown up in the area, on Garden Circle. Mitch asked the rather large group if we knew of other novels where Toronto featured, and I suggested the works of Don Lyons.
Ever since then I decided to embark on another Don Lyons book hunt. I managed to find a copy of Clara, autographed by Ludo Schmidt, the illustrator of the cover. I was most delighted to find Brown Rice, which is undated but a blurb on the inside flap by Paul Quarrington mentions both Yorkville Diaries and Clara, so this is the most recent of the three:
Brown Rice is the slightest of the three at only 84 pages. By the way, Yorkville Diaries is 206 pages long and Clara is 110. My scans from nine years ago were not as clear as the ones I am able to make today. The copy of Clara (below) is my own, and not from York University:
The books are of different sizes. I stitched together all three in a row and formatted them to show their relative sizes:
I would love to know if Lyons has any more works–and if in fact the works linked to the author(s) of the same name are really by this Don Lyons, but I doubt it–and if he is still living. The first two novels seem autobiographical, so he would be in his late seventies now. I should try to contact the people he thanks and dedicates his books to.