"The book Paul Quarrington produced as a last gift to his many fans
is in a category of its own, a layered, rambling, deceptively
casual mixture of music history, coming-of-age narrative and
reflection on mortality.""
Globe & Mail Top 100 for 2010
An enthralling read, a wonderful mingling of musicological musing
and personal memoir, made more poignant as we are aware of the
ending before we begin."
Wholenote
Cigar Box Banjo: Notes on Music and Life...is a celebration of
those things [Quarrington] valued most: music, friends, food,
travel, and writing. While etched with sadness, it is nonetheless a
joy to read...Cigar Box Banjo is the perfect testament to the man,
and to his work. He will be missed."
The Georgia Straight
[Paul Quarrington] focuses on his subject (music) without wavering,
even though death's waving at him through the peephole. He writes
an unabashed, unsentimental and beautiful treatise on how a life
spent dabbling, experimenting is still a life spent in study and
devotion, a life well lived."
The Coast
It's doubtful we will see a better memoir this year than Paul
Quarrington's Cigar Box Banjo...He didn't shy away exploring in
detail his own dark journey toward death, but the path is illumined
with humour, courage, [and] generosity...This is not a book about
dying and death, it is about living and life... You can't read
Cigar Box Banjo without being punched in the emotional solar plexus
by the force of our loss...it is comforting to know this
'remarkable' artist spent his final months on earth singing his way
into his own song."
Waterloo Region Record
Cigar Box Banjo is the work of passion, of a writer trying to defy
the odds of time to make one last trip to the well...It's a
rollicking ride across musical genres and time, one that shows its
author trying to squeeze every ounce of life onto its pages. One
couldn't have asked for a nicer ending...for a guy who was
seemingly as nice as Paul Quarrington."
Popmatters.com
[Cigar Box Banjo] is a book almost utterly free of sentiment,
regret or anger. First and foremost, it is funny, perceptive and
sometimes, oftentimes, blushingly self-deprecating. In this it is
Quarrington...at his essential, bull-free best."-
Toronto Star
The 'Life' sections of the book...explode with Quarrington's
personality and include road stories as he travels from one gig to
another."
Ottawa Citizen
[Cigar Box Banjo] is full of those qualities that aroused such love
for [Quarrington]-the good humour, the lack of pretentiousness, the
warmth, the generosity, the grit he demonstrated in pursuing his
art."
National Post
[Cigar Box Banjo], the book [Quarrington] produced as a last gift
to his many fans is in a category of its own, a layered, rambling,
deceptively casual mixture of music history, coming-of-age
narrative and reflection on mortality...Sad, funny and wise-the
writer's trifecta...Quarrington's description of how he reacted to
his diagnosis will double as an account of what reading this book
feels like: 'The truest thing to say would be that it wasn't a
single emotion, it was quite a few of them stumbling into each
other to get out, like drunkards in a doorway.' Yes,
exactly."
Globe & Mail
His memoir is an elegant eulogy for deep culture. Without ever
losing the same light tone, he sketches a vivid picture not only of
his own eventful life but of an entire generation of 20th-century
rebels whose accomplishments, like his own, are becoming clear only
as they disappear."
Globe & Mail
Paul Quarrington's final outing is a delightful memoir and an
uplifting epitaph...Rich with an acerbic wit, The Cigar Box Banjo
is a treat. Self-effacing and humble, and never maudlin or
self-pitying, Quarrington peppers his pages with wonderful
anecdotes of his musical coming of age, and the trials, tricks, and
trauma that come with being a travelling band in a broad
country."
Winnipeg Free Press
[Prior to his death, Quarrington] wrote his final book, the
engagingly ruminative Cigar Box Banjo: Notes on Music and Life. No
literary reflective, this is a memoir powered by a love of
music."
Toronto Star
Quarrington's honesty, candour and willingness to share this
unalterable part of his life is remarkable, resulting in a
documentary filled with sweet, bitter and poignant moments."
Bravo!
This final work from the late, beloved and multitalented
Quarrington (writer, musician, fisherman, trivia maven) focuses on
his life as experienced from inside the music. Facing death with
great courage, Quarrington just kept on rocking."
Globe & Mail
Among his final projects were three music CDs; a memoir, Cigar Box
Banjo (to be published by Greystone Books in May), that charts his
life in song; and a documentary that follows him on tour to his
final months. These threads were interwoven in the way his projects
had always been, as if he conceived of culture not as something set
apart but as the living, breathing texture of daily life. Something
that meant simply being alive to your own story, and being willing
to tell it whatever way you could."
Nino Ricci, Quill & Quire - Quarrington Remembered
In Cigar Box Banjo, the author, musician, and screenwriter reflects
on a life lived in words and music."
Quill & Quire