A very subtle and funny writer - one I've become obsessed with over the past year - in a decidedly Muriel Spark mood. Imagine The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie with less sex, violence, and fascism, but every bit as much humour and absurdity. Fitzgerald even borrows Spark's flash-forward technique of suddenly, almost as an aside, letting us know where a character will end up a few decades after the main story is over.

At last: something new. (Coming: July 2023.)

Nothing Beside Remains

Life is currently offline.

Annus a little less horribilis

Congratulations On Everything got named a Book of the Year.

Intensities in 3 Cities

For a few days every year, I get to act like a capital-A Author. Those days are upon us.

On Tuesday, October 25, I will be reading and talking in Ottawa.

On Wednesday, October 26, I'll be talking in Toronto.

On Thursday, October 27, I'll be reading and talking in Hamilton.   NOPE




And then on Friday, October 28 I'll be... I don't know, probably watching Toy Story 2 for the thousandth time with a two-year-old.

Open Book

For the month of July, I am the writer in virtual residence at Open Book: Toronto.

So far, I've written about Donald Trump, plagiarism, work in literature, Alice Munro, my brilliant wife, waitresses being asked to dispose of vomit, and much more.

Read all the nonsense here.

Congratulations On Everything reviewed in The Globe & Mail

"These are believable creations. They speak and fail and contradict themselves with the regular inelegance of real people. The day-to-day pleasures and pains of the service industry are also rendered with fine-tuned realism, an ear for the strange within the mundane. Whitlock is a very smooth, competent stylist, in an understated way. There’s no flash or bang here: His characters propel the action, calling attention to narrative style only with metaphor and image – which are always arresting, always right."

The whole thing here.