Fool’s Gold: the Life and Legacy of Vancouver’s Official Town Fool
Jesse Donaldson, 123 pgs, Anvil Press,anvilpress.com, $18
I have been talking about this book all week. I have been shouting from the rooftops that someone—anyone!—must make this story into a podcast. Jesse Donaldson’sFool’s Gold:The Life and Legacy of Vancouver’s Official Town Foolis the book that has me demanding the BC curriculum be rewritten to include this story. Fool’s Gold finds Donaldson playing a biography wizard and constantly getting blood out ofstone. His focus, Joachim Foikis, is an intentionally elusive subject. In 1968, Foikis was a 36-year-old husband and father of two in the final stages of completing a Masters of Library Science. Instead, on April 1, he began the process of giving it all up and becoming a Town Fool. Foikis died in obscurity in Esquimalt, BC, and had long since lost touch with his family. Friendshad often also lost touch and there is little record of Foikis beyond the hey-day years of his fool-dom when he received a Canada Council Grant and travelled widely preaching his holy food octrine. Still, Donaldson persists and paints a picture of a fascinating man whose mission wasto “create joyand confusion.”I was shocked to learn of this man for the first time. Donaldson does an admirable job of documenting Foikis without working too hard to “solve the mystery” which Foikis would likely have appreciated. Donaldson has found a fine balance between myth and biography and created a book that is hard to put down. (Megan Clark)