Not all eyes are on the Prizes
By Noah Richler - Wednesday, October 14, 2009 - 0 Comments
The reality of book awards is a crapshoot, but the crapshoot matters less and less
Gil Adamson’s The Outlander, Joseph Boyden’s Three Day Road, Steven Galloway’s The Cellist of Sarajevo, Lawrence Hill’s The Book of Negroes, Guy Vanderhaeghe’s The Last Crossing, Alistair MacLeod’s No Great Mischief, Yann Martel’s Life of Pi—and, this year, Michael Crummey’s Galore. What a fabulous Giller list, a litany of some of the best (and bestselling) Canadian novels of the last several years—but not one of them shortlisted for the prize! Drat.
Instead we must debate these five—Kim Echlin’s The Disappeared, Annabel Lyon’s The Golden Mean, Linden MacIntyre’s The Bishop’s Man, Colin McAdam’s Fall, and Anne Michaels’s The Winter Vault—and, if you’re into the game of it, whose choices they might be. Linden MacIntyre? An Alistair MacLeod pick, surely. Anne Michaels? Victoria Glendinning, chair of the Booker bunch that gave Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient half the prize, must have backed her floating prose, no? And Kim Echlin’s Cambodian romp—well, isn’t Russell Banks a fan of the Caribbean and other steamy, politically charged places? And who, tell me, is the one who cares for McAdam’s libidinous and truncated teen dialogue? Continue…
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Sister Atwood's traveling salvation show
By Jonathon Gatehouse - Wednesday, October 7, 2009 at 8:20 AM - 0 Comments
Sadly, the dance moves she busted out in London are gone, but it’s still quite the book rollout
The audience looks just like a Margaret Atwood crowd should. A CanLit casual mix of grad students, people carrying bike helmets, the hard of hearing, and older women who bear an uncanny resemblance to the country’s marquee author. Tilley hats stowed safely in backpacks, they sit shoulder to shoulder in the pews of a deconsecrated Ottawa church, clutching glasses of white wine and trying to avoid the disapproving gaze of Christ still nailed high on his cross. It’s an atmosphere of anticipation—downright giddy by Upper Canadian standards—as they await the North American debut of the buzzy road show promoting Atwood’s new novel The Year of the Flood. A book tour like no other.The lights go down, a cowbell sounds, and a choir starts a shabby procession down the aisle. Dressed in tattered robes, they carry chalkboards emblazoned with slogans like “Animals R Us,” and “Don’t Eat Death!” Their sweet voices are united in a mournful, minor-key hymn. “ ’Twas once the finest Garden / That ever has been seen / And in it God’s dear Creatures / Did swim and fly and play / But then came greedy Spoilers / And killed them all away.” Continue…
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Margaret Atwood didn’t kill me
By Rebecca Eckler - Wednesday, September 23, 2009 at 6:00 PM - 13 Comments
Rebecca Eckler paid to get her name in the novelist’s new book, but what would Atwood do with her?
I’ve achieved literary immortality. Sadly, it had nothing to do with the four books I’ve written or any of my countless newspaper, magazine and blog columns. It was made possible by the woman sitting across from me, sipping an organic soy latte with honey. Margaret Atwood. Or Peggy Atwood. I’m not sure which one I like more. Margaret Atwood is why I wanted to write. I’ve read and reread all her books. I send Peggy emails about boy troubles. “My goodness, why don’t you just send him an email and be done with it?” she’ll write back. Or I’ll tell Peggy I was stung by a bee while pumping gas. Peggy responds with, “Oh dear. Public gas station? It may not have been a bee. Maybe a wasp? There are many kinds. May not have been a honeybee, if bee. Did you keep its tiny corpse?” Peggy will read my palm and always signs her emails with “Xm.” Not exactly the way people might imagine the woman described by many as “among the most brilliant writers of English.”Two years ago, I bid $7,000 at a charity auction to have my name in Atwood’s next book. (I promised I wouldn’t buy shoes for two years.) Now, the book is out. Called The Year of The Flood, it is by far my favourite of all Atwood’s novels. When I send Atwood an email telling her I’m loving it, she writes back, “Well that’s very nice to hear . . . could NOT be because you’re in it!” All Atwood had told me before I got the book to read was that I “don’t die,” which is “always a good thing.” Continue…
