For such an ardent Canadian nationalist, Peter C. Newman’s life conforms in many respects to the clichéd image of the American dream. A poor immigrant boy arrives on these shores with nothing but a dream. Through hard work and sheer force of will he succeeds despite the odds, rising to the top of his field, gaining renown, and becoming an inspiration to the next generation.

Here Be Dragons is Newman’s own account – and accounting – of his life. Beginning with Newman as an 11-year-old boy in flight from the Nazis in early 1940, pinned down by machine gun fire as a Stuka strafes the beach at Biarritz, the book is absolutely compelling. The narrative follows Newman through his adolescence (his description of the nocturnal sexual shenanigans after lights out at Upper Canada College will likely cause most observers of the Canadian establishment to break out in a cold sweat), his marriages, and the development of his multifaceted career.

Newman has never been shy about naming names, and his own life reads like a who’s who of the Canadian press, business, and publishing communities. Individual chapters are dedicated to his time covering Parliament (first for Maclean’s magazine, then for the Toronto Star) and to his editorship of Maclean’s magazine (during which time he transformed the moribund monthly into a thriving weekly and a voice for the rising nationalist movement). He also provides detailed backstories for many of his bestselling books (including The Empire of the Bay and the Canadian Establishment series). Newman’s writing on writing amounts to a textbook for fledgling journalists, who don’t have the opportunity to hand in copy to a man whose resignation from Maclean’s sparked “a bitter chorus of ‘Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead.’”

Far from being dry or dull, Here Be Dragons is scintillating, the sort of book one wants to read in a single sitting. While many of the anecdotes are clearly well seasoned, the book reads with a surprising freshness and verve. It ends all too soon.

Newman’s best writing here is characterized by a mixture of understanding and invective. He shows little mercy for Conrad Black and Barbara Amiel (the “Black Magic” chapter is not only a brilliantly composed account of Black’s rise and fall, but a cogent analysis of the Lord and his lady), but his account of John Diefenbaker’s ill-fated final campaign for prime minister is touching without being maudlin, balancing informed critique with a fondness and respect.

Jack McClelland emerges as a larger-than-life Canadian hero. When Newman expressed concerns that Diefenbaker’s reaction to Renegade in Power, Newman’s study of the Chief’s government, might be violent, the father of Canadian publishing replied, “Not to worry, Peter. If the worst happens, we’ll publish your book posthumously.” Pierre Trudeau meets with considerably more ambivalence: “His acid candour, his intellectual acrobatics, his nose-thumbing at the staid traditions of his office qualified him as our first existential political hero.”

It is only if the quality of a memoir is judged according to the subject’s true self-awareness that Here Be Dragons might fall short. While Newman is quick to stake claim to his mistakes, particularly his failings in his marriages, his sense of his own fallibility is somewhat limited. While his abrasiveness, for example, is legendary in some circles, little mention is made of it here (although the distinction he draws between Peter Newman the person and Peter C. Newman the professional creation could be read as a sort of explanation). That’s of little account: that sort of thing will be dealt with in the inevitable biographies.

The final section of Here Be Dragons reads as an envoi, a valediction, as Newman attempts to make sense of his life and his actions. It’s saddening: a generation is passing into memory, and of the lions who once roamed the Canadian literary landscape, lions with names like Berton, Davies, and McClelland, the fiercest was Newman.