Published by Greystone, 272 pp, $30, hardcover

Fans of Paul Quarrington who were expecting something either momentous or maudlin from his final book should remember one thing: this is Paul Quarrington we’re talking about. That’s clearly not the way he wanted it.

Instead, Cigar Box Banjo: Notes on Music and Life, written and substantially revised in the months after Quarrington’s diagnosis with terminal cancer last year, is a celebration of those things he valued most: music, friends, food, travel, and writing. While etched with sadness, it is nonetheless a joy to read.

Cigar Box Banjo is an overview of Quarrington’s “involvement in music” (“I am assiduously avoiding the word ”˜career,’?” he writes at one point), from his early familial experiences of the folk tradition to his life-changing exposure to the Beatles and Bob Dylan (“To this day,” he writes, “I can’t hear the opening strains of ”˜Like a Rolling Stone’ without experiencing a thrill”). From there, it was a straight line from high school–era basement bands to his time on the road with Joe Hall and the Continental Drift, to his own band, the Porkbelly Futures. It’s a largely chronological account, with frequent digressions into songs, styles, equipment, and some of the people he knew, including Daniel Lanois and Dan Hill (with whom he played as a teenager, before “Sometimes When We Touch”).

While the tone of the book is celebratory, Quarrington doesn’t shy away from his diagnosis and his looming demise. This is however never treated as an occasion for sadness. As the old saying goes, there’s nothing like a pending execution to sharpen the mind. As detailed in Cigar Box Banjo, Quarrington lived the last months of his life as fully as he could, embracing his passions and celebrating what he had, rather than mourning what he was about to lose. “Why shouldn’t one year be as full of beauty and grace as forty?” he asks.

The Paul Quarrington revealed by his books was larger than life but firmly grounded, characterized by a wry wit and an often self-effacing world view. He wrote of quirky, off-centre characters, driven by passions and minutiae, trying to find their place in a world that was often hostile to them. In those terms—in every way—Cigar Box Banjo is the perfect testament to the man, and to his work. He will be missed.