Photo from cradkilodney.com
One of Canada’s great DIY underground publishing heroes (or anti-heroes, depending on your viewpoint) Crad Kilodney passed away last week at the age of 66.
A New York native, Kilodney (not his real name) studied astronomy in Michigan but ended up in Toronto, a place that he once dubbed “the ugliest of cities.” He had previously worked at a vanity publishing house and developed an obsession with the slush pile – what his website bio refers to as “the cranks, the hacks, the tabloids and the dredges of humanity.” And thus began a decades-long career of self-publishing and distributing his written work on the unforgiving streets of the ugly city. The works were released on his own imprint, Charnel House. He soon became a familiar staple to passers-by, out in rain or shine hawking his hand-copied and stapled story collections. Sometimes, he donned signs. “Slimy Degenerate Literature,” read one. Or “Putrid Scum.”
Kilodney was amazingly prolific, churning out dozens of books with titles like Gainfully Employed in Limbo, Sex Slaves of the Astro-Mutants, The Extremely Sane Postal Workers of Yellowknife, Simple Stories for Idiots, Excrement and many others. It’s estimated he sold over 35,000 copies of his books over his lifetime. His works could be described as an “acquired taste”, nihilistic, sexual and acerbic, paeans to weirdoes, jokers, down-and-out types, punks, drunks and losers. To a certain audience, his work was hugely beloved. He also wrote for National Lampoon and had work published with Black Moss Press and Coach House.
Kilodney continued churning out and distributing his work in this fashion until the ’90s, when left the streets and returned to previous work in the stock markets. He fought cancer and won twice. In the mid-2000’s, his work began appearing again online, including a series where he explored a newly-found interest in (and desire to subvert) the Bard, titled “Shakespeare for White Trash.”
Upon his death, Crad was memorialized by Margaret Atwood, the CBC’s Matt Galloway, above/ground press’s rob mclennan and many other poets, writers, publishers and agitators. For self-publishers, zinemakers, activists, misanthropes and DIY’ers of all stripes, Kilodney is a hero and an inspiration. He represents the end of an important period in Canadian indie literature and he will be missed.
You can read an archived story written by Rob Ruzic for our magazine documenting a memorable encounter with Crad and his ensuing homage here.
A foundation was set up in Crad’s name, along with a very comprehensive website documenting his life and work. Visit it here.
To read a lovely piece from BookThug’s Jay MillAr written in January, go here.
To see a short documentary from York University on Crad, go here.