“My name is Stephen Reid. I used to rob banks for a living. Now I’m a professional liar.”

Writers reveal truth through fiction, he explained, pacing in front of the small group gathered at the Yellowknife Public Library to hear him speak. I sat transfixed, thrilled to be so close to a famous bank robber.

This was June 1998, and Reid had been out of prison for 10 years, paroled after serving 14 years of a twenty-year sentence. He’d achieved literary success with the release of his autobiographical novel Jack Rabbit Parole and personal happiness with his marriage to celebrated poet Susan Musgrave.  The twin redeemers of love and letters had saved him.

Yet, his criminal past didn’t seem entirely behind him that day, and he had little else to say about writing. Instead, he paced, and recounted his exploits in the 1970’s with the infamous Stopwatch Gang.  He looked like a literature professor  in his glasses and tweed jacket, but seemed nervous, and carried himself like a guy used to looking over his shoulder.  His sense of identity seemed strongly linked to his fame as a bank robber, and in interviews over the years he’d made no secret of his history of drug abuse.  I wondered if he’d really reformed.

A year later, high on cocaine, and armed with a shotgun, he robbed a Victoria bank. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Fuck. Sometimes I hate always being right.