The Giller's Man

Being in something like the second trimester as far as this new novel goes, and having to keep all the other balls in the air and dishes spinning, I've been even more out of the loop, Giller-wise, than usual this year. It's not an unpleasant feeling, by any stretch, especially since the toe-dipping I did do with some of the shortlisted books often left me shuddering and/or despondent. (Even more so than when I read my own book-in-progress – and that's saying something.)

However, I did get to hear Linden MacIntyre read from this year's winner a couple of weeks ago, and had to admit it sounded solid and readable. (Usually when I'm at readings I just let my mind unhook and float around the ceiling for a quarter of an hour until the author says "thank you" and walks off.) Plus I chatted with him later on at a party, mostly about the despair our respective mothers have expressed over all the swearing in our respective books.

So I don't feel any particular angst over his win, and even sense a most unusual feeling creeping over me: pleasant surprise.

(And if that wasn't the most miserly congratulatory note you've ever read, I'll eat my hat...)

The Best Canadian Essays 2009

I'm in this thing ("best" being a relative term), and will be reading aloud at the Toronto launch, so won't you come and listen?

There'll be booze, laughs, and trenchant insights for all.

Top ten titles for upcoming David Adams Richards novels

Read my list at the Atlantic Canada's 100 Greatest Books site.

One Hoarse Open Sleigh: Bob Dylan’s Christmas Tinselectomy

[Cross-posted at Drivenmag.com]

“All I can do is be me, whoever that is.” – Bob Dylan

It’s very, very late in the day to make a fuss about Bob Dylan’s voice, though whole flocks of second-rate comedians and online jokesters are still making damp hay about it. At this point, nearly a half-century into the man’s singing career, pointing at that Dylan’s pipes lack the range of Judy Garland and the sweetness of The Beach Boys is not exactly going to set the collective jaws a’dropping. Notions of “authenticity” in pop music are often only reductive, snobbish constructs, but there is a kind of music lover who, in part thanks to the work of Mr Dylan, both as a singer and as a lifelong proponent of oldey timey music, prefers a throat full of frog than a velvet fog.

But still: even full acceptance of Dylan’s characteristic croak and whine can be strained. Personally, I could never take the sneezy nasality of “Lay Lady Lay.” I’d rather he shouted the thing in my ear in a fake German accent than whistle it, as he did, through one nostril. Thankfully, he rarely went there again.

Lately, he has been settling into a kind of growl/grumble that suits perfectly the jumped-up country blues he’s been sitting on for the past few records. The early reediness had given way to something closer to Joe Cocker or Tom Waits. If you occasionally feel like sucking on a Lozenge a few tunes in, that’s a small price to pay.

And then along comes Christmas in the Heart, Dylan’s new, 100% un-ironic collection of yuletide tunes, and all of a sudden, the man’s voice has become a question again....

Read the rest....

An Open Letter to Yann Martel

My sort-of review of Yann Martel's What is Stephen Harper Reading? in the Toronto Star.

(For the curious, here's my original take on the whole thing.)

Living, Loving, Party Going

Just checking in – life is elsewhere right now.

I have three or four book reviews to write before the end of the month, plus I'm interviewing a Famous American Author! on Friday (whose new novel I need to get read at some point before then), I'm doing a few things at the IFOA next week, I'm helping close a cottage at some point, there's a children's Halloween party to wade delicately through this weekend, I'm still dumping content into the Driven web site pretty much every day, plus day job, plus the usual school lunches and drop-offs/pick-ups/playdates.

And always always always waiting to get kicked around and stuffed with fluff on a near-daily basis is The Novel, which gets longer and more diffuse every time I look at it. (It's much more idiot than savant right now, but further drafts will help correct that, I hope.)

Speaking of the Internet (were we?), here's Henry Green, back in 1958:

People strike sparks off each other; that is what I try to note down. But mark well, they only do this when they are talking together. After all, we don’t write letters now, we telephone. And one of these days we are going to have TV sets which lonely people can talk to and get answers back. Then no one will read anymore.

And, because I've been loving the song:

Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby

My review of the new Nick Hornby in the Toronto Star.

The last few words of the review got lopped off, by the way – it should read "a criticism he seems to anticipate, interestingly enough, with the novel’s too-cute 'life goes on' epilogue."

(I also originally wrote "assholes" instead of "jerks." What, you can't say "assholes" in a newspaper? What children read the book section?)

Get a room

An adult raccoon has spent the entire day on the roof of the building across from mine, snoozing and licking its crotch.

You notice such things when you spend most of your day in front of the computer, shovelling word-coal into a very slow-moving novel-in-progress.

One other thing I've been doing is putting together a grant application for the Canada Council. (Hey, it's free money.) Given the odds against my seeing dollar one from that institution, and the difficulty I've had in making said novel-in-progress sound like something that more than eight people will want to read, I may as well have spent my day snoozing and licking my own crotch, too.