Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town

Stephen Leacock's masterpiece collects twelve interconnected sketches of Mariposa, a fictional town on Lake Wissanotti that is either the most important place on Earth or the most absurdly insignificant one, depending on whom you ask. The narrator treats every local scandal, civic meeting, and mishap with the gravity of international affairs, which is precisely what makes the comedy so devastating. We meet Mr. Smith, the hotel owner whose liquor license troubles become a municipal crisis, and Jefferson Thorpe, the barber whose speculations send the whole town into financial paroxysms. The legendary Mariposa Belle steamboat disaster, which sinks in water less than six feet deep while brave townsmen attempt rescue in a leaking lifeboat, captures Leacock's genius perfectly: the absurdity of the events and the earnest pride with which the narrator describes them are inseparable. Though inspired by Leacock's Ontario hometown, Mariposa represents dozens of similar towns from Lake Superior to the sea. The affection is unmistakable, the satire is surgical, and the laughter is inevitable. This is the book that made Canadian humor a thing the world took seriously.