Richler, writing about his Montreal Jewish childhood neighbourhood, helped put Canadian literature on the world map, though his uncompromising views were controversial at home. As a young writer, he wangled an invitation to visit Forster in Cambridge, but hit his sherry as if it were whisky (despite not seeing eye-to-eye, Forster attended his first wedding). He rented a house in a Provençal hill-town where Southern came to write (and was dragged by Richler to the casino to play poker). Lessing, an old friend, wrote amusingly about how the anti-romantic Richler was moonstruck by the woman who became his second wife.