WEIRD 1970's TORONTO COMES TO LIFE IN NEW BOOK I OWN THIS TOWN: THE MAYOR BERT XANADU XANTHOLOGY

Twitter favourite @MovieMayor makes his book debut May 17^th

TORONTO, May 5, 2022 /CNW/ - A Toronto Twitter favourite since 2009, the charmingly bombastic Bert Xanadu -- the mayor and movie showman Toronto never had -- makes his book debut on May 17th with the publication of the satirical work of fiction I OWN THIS TOWN: THE MAYOR BERT XANADU XANTHOLOGY, by Gerry Flahive.

A Toronto-centric collection of essays, screeds, proclamations, asides, orders, observations, outbursts and flattery, the book draws from the 9,000 + tweets written by Flahive as Bert Xanadu (@MovieMayor) since 2009, and includes original articles written for the book, such as a foreword by Lorne Greene and a sexier foreword by Marlene Dietrich. The book is illustrated by photos from the phenomenal collection of the City of Toronto Archives, re-captioned to transport their meaning into Bert's world of 1973.

The book debuts Tuesday, May 17, and can be pre-ordered now on Amazon.ca, Kobo, Apple Books, Google Books and Nook. It will also go on sale in paperback that day at Spacing, 'Toronto's City Store'. 

Elected 27 times as mayor, and a confidante of such Hollywood royalty as Morey Amsterdam and Peter Lawford, Xanadu presides over a mythical and dishevelled 1973 City of Toronto, and the slightly fictionalized Imperial Six cinemas (Yonge Street's long-gone palace of guilty pleasures, where Flahive worked as an usher).

***

Actor & Comedian Brent Butt: "I'm always equal parts fascinated and entertained by the clippings and quippings of Mayor Bert Xanadu. @MovieMayor makes me genuinely laugh out loud."

Giller Award-Winning Novelist & Poet Michael Redhill: "A loony but loving send-up of Toronto that plays with the city's vanity and aspirations with Scud missile accuracy. Bert Xanadu is to Toronto what Dame Edna is to snobbery: a satire more accurate than the real thing."

Gerry Flahive is a writer and creative consultant in Toronto, and former Senior Producer at the National Film Board of Canada. His articles have been published widely, including in The New York Times, the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, the National Post and The Walrus. His productions won many international prizes, including two Emmy Awards and seven Canadian Screen Awards.

SOURCE Modern Story

FOR REVIEW COPIES, INTERVIEW REQUESTS, IMAGES AND MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT: Gerry Flahive, 647-542-1867, [email protected]; @gflahive; @moviemayor; https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerryflahive