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Serial poet >> Paul's Case rises above the wank by JULIET WATERS
Given the 105 sheets of original rap lyrics found by police in Bernardo's home ("I'm the solo creep/I make the girls weep/Acting out my crimes, while the others sleep"), it shouldn't surprise anyone that he was dabbling in poetry. But there's something only marginally less creepy and laughable about the idea of writing a book of poetry about Paul Bernardo. As it turns out in the case of cultural critic Lynn Crosbie's Paul's Case, you pretty much can judge a book by its cover. The nasty look in the poison blue eyes of cover boy Paul is not dissimilar to the look Crosbie shoots out from her back flap bio-portrait. This, I hope, is for ironic effect. For about 50 pages, nothing unravelled my jaded expectations of Paul's Case. In this first third of the book we are treated and mistreated to the fairly stimulating but ineffectual ruminations of a woman writing letters to Bernardo in Kingston. Letters that could be described as the serial wankings of someone with a tormented post-graduate crush on Evil. They encompass assassin revenge fantasies, tidbits from Barthes and Derrida, a cranky chapbook of perverse comic illustrations of Canada's creepiest couple, a fictional reconstruction of Tammy Homolka's adolescent infatuation with Paul, remarkably unimaginative pictures (is that a real iguana?), and a fictional dramatization of Paul and Karla killing an iguana for a suburban B.B.Q. But at page 52 the book shifts into a deeper gear, one that starts to make me reconsider some initial judgments. Crosbie is at her strongest when she starts to take on the voices of Bernardo's victims: Jane Doe #13, Mahaffy and French. She has a beautiful and authentic sensitivity to suburban innocence. So much so that at mid-point a weird integrity seems to gel in this book. "Writing you allows me to feel constructive, to know who you are, who I imagine you are," writes the letter writer. I wouldn't go so far as to find this project actually constructive, but there are certainly moments when it feels like it could be. Proving that while you can sometimes judge a book by its cover, even the worst indulgers of serial masturbation have their moments of triumph. And for a certain kind of reader, Paul's Case will be a fine addition to the bathroom bookcase. Paul's Case: The Kingston Letters by Lynn Crosbie, Insomniac Press, pb, 185 pp., $18.99
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In Paul's Case, a woman writes to Paul Bernardo: "While testifying, you said you thought you might need to seek professional help, and everyone laughed. I never did, Paul; I want to help you. Through therapeutic art you could express your feelings, good or bad. Clifford Olson, the serial killer (west of Kingston) writes poetry, and this has enabled him to dream of beauty. He writes of love and children; the Canadian Shield; the way the Prairies look on a hot clear day. Like looking into infinity."