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casting decision that appropriately underscored the similarity in appearance and character of these two characters). Ironically, given Young’s patriotism and her conviction that the novel is distinctly Canadian, 42 she is quoted by Toronto reporter Lotta Dempsey as agreeing that Saville’s plan to shoot the film in Great Britain will enable him to capture “the complete essence of the milieu.” “I’ve seen the mining areas in England and Wales, and they’re perfect for background,” she explains, “And when I found Victor Saville wanted it, the man who did ‘Goodbye Mr. Chips’ and ‘Mystery Ship’ was good enough for me.” 43 Unfortunately, Saville was ultimately unable to make the movie.
    Despite the novel’s success, its ability to evoke a tingle of recognition in Canadian readers who recognized “a realistic background so palpably our own,” 44 and its exploration of a theme that emerged as a key concern of Canadian writers and critics alike during the latter-half of the twentieth century (the search for identity),
Psyche
has been out of print for a number of years, little mentioned in histories of Canadian literature, and notably absent from
The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature
as well as surveys of bestselling genre fiction in Canada. Particularly striking in this regard is
Psyche’s
absence from the
Chronological Index of Crime Fiction by Canadians
compiled by Skene-Melvin. Its absence is all the more curious when one realizes that all Young’s other books -with the exception of
The Torontonians
and
Anything Could Happen! -
are listed:
The Ravine
(1961) by Kendal Young (an alias used for that one novel) is listed as crime fiction written by a Canadian but set elsewhere
Undine (1964)
and
AQuestion of Judgment
(1969) are also included. One wonders whether, had
Psyche
been listed, it would have appeared as fiction written by a Canadian and set in Canada, or whether the absence of particular place names and privileging of plot over locale would also have placed it within the category of Canadian fiction set “elsewhere.” That
Psyche was
not categorized as crime fiction per se is not entirely surprising. Whereas
The Ravine
(which appears in a film version as
Assault)
focused on the criminal act,
Psyche
, by contrast, used the initial criminal act only to set in action the chain of events that drive the novel - a chain of events that subsequently involve other crimes (a shooting, prostitution, and the various deceptions of everyday social interaction). Skene-Melvin’s very useful and broad definition asserts that crime fiction “encompasses adventure, crime, detective, espionage, mystery, suspense, and thriller fiction and includes tales of intrigue and violence as well as those of crime and investigation, with or without a solution.” 45 He identifies four particular branches of crime fiction: crime, detective and mystery, espionage, and the thriller.
Psyche
, on Skene-Melvin’s scheme, belongs to crime literature, which draws its inspiration from the picaresque - a narrative tradition in which the protagonist gathers experience and self-knowledge as s/he moves from one place to another. Skene-Melvin points out that Canada has a long history of crime fiction with a strong and vibrant writerly community. While it “hasn’t lacked artists ... it has lacked the audience,” 46 and many Canadian crime writers found themselves publishing abroad and appealing to British or American audiences. During the twenties and thirties, for example, Canadian writers often masqueraded as British or American, a subterfuge adopted even by members of the Montreal Arts and Letters Club. William Lacey Amy, for example, who wrote as “Luke Allen,” set his Blue Pete series in Canada but all his detective stories outside Canada, with the exception of
The Black Opal
(1935). But a number of Canadians, even early in the