A tale of two Switzers

January 13, 2026.

By Maurice Switzer

Two Maurice Switzers`, two very different books.

Despite what it says in the byline above, I am NOT Maurice Switzer!

Well, actually, I AM Maurice Switzer, but just not THAT Maurice Switzer.

The principal difference between me and THAT Maurice Switzer is that he is dead, and I am not – at least the last time I checked my pulse about three minutes ago.

And THAT Maurice Switzer is not just dead – he is extremely dead. Since 1929, in fact, a number of years before I was even born.

Over the years, there have been occasions where I have been mistaken for THAT Maurice Switzer, but they were never frequent enough that I felt a public clarification was necessary.

But I have just published my first novel – “Sons of Tecumseh” – and received a Facebook inquiry from a pleasant-sounding lady from the United States who most definitely had me confused with THAT Maurice Switzer.

“While looking for new authors to explore,” she began, “I found your work and was immediately intrigued. If a reader were discovering your books for the first time, where would you suggest they start?”

This was a real ego-booster, so I thought I’d begin by listing some publishing credits -- “Grandpa, What is a Treaty, Anyway” (2018 – Near North District School Board); “We are all Treaty People” (2011 – Union of Ontario Indians); “Nation to Nation: a resource on treaties in Ontario” (2013 -- Union of Ontario Indians); and “Bruno Cavallo: a Conversation” (1991 –Laurentian University Museum and Art Centre) – then steer her into a possible purchase of my recently released novel.

Then I read her second e-mail.

“I already checked out your book ‘Letters of a Self-Made Failure’ and I am in the process of reading it. What has stood out to me so far is the raw honesty in the voice and the way each letter reflects both struggle and resilience.”

My hopes of a potential sale quickly faded. I’d like to think “Sons of Tecumseh” fairly oozes raw honesty, but Google says THAT Maurice Switzer published “Letters” three years before my father was born! Amazon.ca is selling facsimile copies of what the online retailer describes as “a scarce antiquarian satire on the American Dream.”

Hardcover copies are going for $142 – about three times what they’re charging for somewhat less-antiquarian (2025) editions of my novel, which just goes to show that one’s artistic creations are much more valuable when one has died.

I’d rather not wait that long, so it’s incumbent on me to point out some differences to help prospective readers differentiate between THAT Maurice Switzer and yours truly.

Firstly, there’s the dead thing, a condition which my namesake achieved when he was only 58 years old and which I am doing my very best to postpone as long as possible.

He was born in New Orleans, “The Big Easy.” I was born in Toronto, Ontario’s “Big Apple.”

He did not appear to have been bestowed a middle name; mine is Harold.

He worked for a distillery, then a tire company. I have been known to consume distillery products, and have four radials on my car.

He is listed as “a notable author” by Marquis Who’s Who. My credentials can easily be Googled, where I am described as a “veteran journalist,” which is a polite way of saying I’m a writer who is getting on in years.

Notably, THAT Maurice Switzer gained a degree of fame for fashioning some memorable quotes. The first time I realized I had a literary doppelganger was when a work colleague showed me an aphorism printed on his desk calendar that he assumed was mine: “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”

I confessed that I didn’t coin that phrase, and that my favourite saying is “You can’t suck and blow at the same time.” It’s perhaps not as elegant, but it seldom fails to strike a chord.

Hopefully, this public disclosure will clear up some annoying confusion, although I would not be terribly upset if some of THAT man’s royalty payments mistakenly managed to find their way into my publishing account.

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This Maurice Switzer still lives in North Bay.