Customer Reviews

3 reviews

• Dennis Archambault

  Daniel Hertel-Cournoyer offers a memoir of resilience and liberation, having given his all to be a good government bureaucrat and a lover — only to be denied both. A Pin Striped Suit: A True Story of Trying Too Hard, is the story of a young man’s struggle to be accepted as a dedicated, competent public servant, only to be ignored, insulted, and assaulted in an odyssey of a stranger in a strange land. Daniel was the kid who got picked on in school, and was burdened with that identity well into adulthood. He offers his story which he admits, in parts, is incredulous. The pathos of being beaten down, time and again, is his recurrent theme, complete with a tragic ending. The narrative voice of this memoir recounts his story in a casual way, as if we were his guest and that the story he had to tell is strange but very much worth your while. The narrative is years removed but conveys an urgency to be told at this time. His musings on culture, existence, and human foibles offer a sometimes quirky, ironic wit to augment the harsh experiences he encountered. (“But wait until the end, a good surprise is always fun.”) Yes, these are often unbelievably strange and awful experiences. To have been robbed at gunpoint and stripped of your clothing is a god-awful nightmare, then to have to explain yourself literally naked must have been horrendous. Daniel seems to have strange episodes, one after another, that assault his personal and professional identity in different ways, but he emerges standing. Daniel tried too hard to do a good job for his government bureaucracy, which was never appreciated and too often ridiculed. He tried too hard in his efforts to find the true love of his life. I was reminded of the book of Job and the lessons that come with it. Daniel not only suffered from social rejection, he struggled with inner torment in trying to navigate both sets of minefields. That he emerged to tell his story seems to be a miracle. His professional outing ended a career without a future, but suggested a future yet to be revealed. His is a story of resilience, and the pin striped suit was his straightjacket. The symbolism of that conservative, conforming attire never really fit Daniel. Yet he was proud to present himself in it. There is a strain of spirituality in his stories, as well as his psychic abilities. In the end, he left the suit and the bureaucratic life, emerging from trauma as a kind of creative butterfly, though tortured soul, breaking out of a cocoon. Love would elude him and leave him with the enduring effects of physical and emotional trauma, but his story of resilience offers the reader with a sense of hope.

• Joan MacDonald, Artist

  Here I am today, in my old log cabin house in the Colorado foothills sitting in front of my wood stove, feeding the fire with logs while re-reading “A Pin-Striped Suit: a True Story of Trying Too Hard” an autobiography by author Daniel Hertel-Cournoyer. I got immersed in the writing and the stories that were coming organically one after another and didn’t realize it was now dark outside and I had neglected my fire. In the beginning of the book, Daniel talks about his garage as his writing room and calls it the recycling room—the place where the past takes place while his home is a separate place reserved for the present. It is the place where he comingles his present and past in a compelling stream of consciousness narration of his life events that focus on the period of his late teens and early to mid twenties. Daniel manages to relate past and present that is frequently laced with humor and satire. He takes us through mostly the 1970s when he was beginning to find his path in life as he attended college, then law school in Ottawa, Ontario, then various jobs all the while navigating gay relationships. He grew up in Canada and the US, and speaks both French and English fluently. He dealt with adversity when he was attacked and escaped with nothing but a long t-shirt. Being a kind and gentle human is sometimes a disadvantage when dealing with nefarious characters. He learned the hard way that not everyone has good intentions and will exploit someone who has “never been a danger to anyone except myself….” Stories flow to an occasion where he had a clairvoyant moment , day-dreaming of his uncle’s funeral only to be with his uncle’s sister shortly after and as he was relaying his vision to her in person, the phone rang and she picked it up and was told that her brother had just dropped dead on the tennis court. Sometimes poetic prose, sometimes stream of consciousness, we learn about the man today as we learn about the young man of yesterday. Scenes that range from humorous and poignant, to traumatic and tragic are displayed throughout the stories that unfold onto the page. We learn of his perspective when he is talking about driving from the US to Canada, after dropping off a hitchhiker, he says, “When I finally crossed the border Canada I had the same impression I have always had about it, as if it had just been cleared and plowed for the first time. Fresh and new and raw and civilization is always in the distance. Back to basics, engineering, the application of mind to matter. Unlike America which strikes me as the application of mind to advertising budget.” Law school became traumatic when Daniel began having episodes of depression. He ended up dropping out. It was a difficult time that was relieved when he and a group of friends went on spring break to Daytona, Florida. They had “fun”—Daniel felt that it was the first time in his life that he actually had fun. He felt that he made more progress with a bunch of guys in a van than he had after 9 months and $100,000 spent on therapy. Eventually, he ended up in a management position with the Canadian Counsulate, Office of Tourism, located in Cleveland, Ohio,; then in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He worked long hours to get to management level, but in the end “trying too hard” did not pay off when a co-worker outed him for dancing with a man at a gay bar. This was the 1970s and at work, things did not go well after this incident. This is the job where the pin-striped suit first appeared; its demise resulted in an unforgettable experience. Before this incident, he had gotten into a relationship with the man he was dancing with and there were stresses involved in the relationship as well as in his work situation. He felt as his life was in chaos and eventually he had to quit the job. Meanwhile, Daniel began to realize that his creative self was “yearning to be acknowledged.” He says, “I thought maybe I could write a novel, instead kept living in one.” Today Daniel is finally sharing his life and creativity in his writing of this book, telling the stories that somehow got him to where he is today as an artist, writer, world traveler and gallery owner in Sorel-Tracy, Quebec, Canada. Just as I was oblivious to my fire going out and being engaged in the writing and the stories, there will be resonance with everyone who has gone though their late teens and twenties searching for their place in the world.

• Charles Koutnik

  A Pin-Striped Suit” reminds me of the 1973 British film “O Lucky Man”. This is high praise being compared to this classic film. The bulk of the film is fanciful fiction based on a simple look at what might have happened to a man of the 1970’s trying his best to succeed in a world dominated by Western capitalism.and materialism. This book by comparison presents an actual account of what happened when the author tried to live a liberated life. For his land of promise (made possible by having dual-citizenship) he chose Canada. His goal was realistic: A law degree from McGill University. , After a time, however he is nonplused that his academic work is falling far short of acceptable.. “Is it because of differences between U.S. and Canadian law? Later he discovers that it was all an office mistake fueled by an incompatible grading system between the U.S. and Canada. This may have been ironed out except that our protagonist chases instead an opportunity in Canadian civil-service. Seemingly caught out of the line of fire in the tourism division “H.C.” learns that this job is just another disaster like the time he is mugged by gang in Ohio, his time looking for some peace in Florida, and the mysterious death his uncle, a Catholic priest. At the tourism job, although he meets some fine people, he is beaten down by a system of gossip and unclear directives. During this time period it didn’t help much either to be gay. I loved the part where [H.C.] was in a club discussing a possible tourism program. The only other person in the place discussing putting on a show was the still singing and dancing today Barry Manilow. ]”H.C.] lives through some more hard times trying to establish a career. No time is harder then when the book ends. He tells the story of his lover committing suicide. But “H.C . is not a quitter. He emerges as an artist. He makes a statement near the end of the book: ”I guess to grasp Art you have to wait for Art to synchronizewith SOMETHING IN YOUR OWN LIFE.” Thank you Mr. Hertel-Cournoyer for writing this book.

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