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He calls himself a "literary leper," and the separatist political leaders of his native Quebec call him worse names than that. But Mordecai Richler, writer and patriot, remains what he has always been - an exile in his own country, an incisive examiner of the human condition and an unflinching critic of prejudice and dogma. Needling the Parti Quebecois, condemning the independence movement as the offspring of anti-Semitism, Richler has carved a unique niche for himself within the province - as perhaps the only Anglophone fearless or reckless enough to stand up publicly to what he labels the "thought police." His chain-smoking celebrity sometimes eclipses his literary gifts, making him better known today for his politics than for The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravtiz or St. Urbain's Horseman. Who is this whisky drinking legend? Following Richler through a season of his very public life in Montreal and London, meeting his family and St. Urbain Street crowd, we dive deeply into the universe of a novelist.

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