A hard-luck Yankee fortune seeker. A Hamilton wagon maker hoping to sell cars to the new railways. A howling swamp so isolated and foul that pioneer farmers had steered it a wide miss. An unlikely trio indeed. And yet these three seemingly unconnected elements came together at just the right moment in time, to create one of the great but little known stories of Canada's early years.Hard Oiler! is the story of how oil was discovered near Sarnia, Ontario, one hundred and for...

An FBI's informant's role in the murder of a civil rights activist by the KKK is explored in this "suspenseful and vigorously reported" history ( Baltimore Sun).In 1965, Detroit housewife Viola Liuzzo drove to Alabama to help organize Martin Luther King's Voting Rights March from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery. But after the march's historic success, Liuzzo was shot to death by members of the Birmingham Ku Klux Klan. The case drew national attention and was...

An evocative novel about identity, loss, and the enduring bonds of family Known for his acclaimed biographies and award-winning books on the history of the oil industry, Gary May' s literary talents shine in Unburdening, his first venture into fiction. In 1975, James O' Malley, a journalist-turned-college professor, returns to his family' s Ontario apple farm to grapple with his mother' s suicide. As he delves into his family' s history, he realizes how little he truly understands about th...

The first "accidental president," whose secret maneuverings brought Texas into the Union and set secession in motion.When William Henry Harrison died in April 1841, just one month after his inauguration, Vice President John Tyler assumed the presidency. It was a controversial move by this Southern gentleman, who had been placed on the fractious Whig ticket with the hero of Tippecanoe in order to sweep Andrew Jackson's Democrats, and their imperial tendencies, out o...

Gary May's The Tunesmith brings to vivid life the sights and sounds . . . of M.K. Jerome, whose songs become a sort of time capsule for vital American musical and cultural history, from Tin Pan Alley to early Hollywood to World War II patriotic blockbusters. This is a beautifully researched and rendered story, not only about a moment in American music, but also a cherished relationship between a lifelong tunesmith and his grandson.— Dahlia Lithwick, senior editor, State, and author ...

" An unknown and hitherto untold story of one of the true pioneers of the international oil industry." William McGarvey was crowned the " Petroleum King of Austria," dubbed " Europe' s Rockefeller," advised the British government in the great debate over converting its naval fleet to oil fuel in preparation for World War I. His story is one that links Canada, the US, Austro-Hungary, Russia, and Romania. Today, we are witnessing a global campaign to bring to an end King Oil' s 150-year reig...

Christ Our Saviour by Gary May. A collection of poetry.

In 1948, William W. Remington was one of the bright young men in the Truman administration. He was tall and handsome, a product of Dartmouth and Columbia. From 1940 on, he had risen through government ranks, serving on wartime boards, the President's Council of Economic Advisors, and eventually as a major official in the Department of Commerce, with a promising future ahead. By 1954, however, Remington was dead--assassinated in his cell by a team of inmates in a high-security Federal priso...

When the Fifteenth Amendment of 1870 granted African Americans the right to vote, it seemed as if a new era of political equality was at hand. Before long, however, white segregationists across the South counterattacked, driving their black countrymen from the polls through a combination of sheer terror and insidious devices such as complex literacy tests and expensive poll taxes. Most African Americans would remain voiceless for nearly a century more, citizens in name only until the passa...

In 1948, William W. Remington was one of the bright young men in the Truman administration. He was tall and handsome, a product of Dartmouth and Columbia. From 1940 on, he had risen through government ranks, serving on wartime boards, the President's Council of Economic Advisors, and eventually as a major official in the Department of Commerce, with a promising future ahead. By 1954, however, Remington was dead--assassinated in his cell by a team of inmates in a high-security Federal priso...