Boo-yah, baby!

Well, I gotta say, while I'm sure the rug will soon be yanked out from under me, I'm really enjoying the reviews for Husk thus far.

I've already listed a few (here), but there's a few more I'd like to draw your attention to:

First, the venerable American publication BookList (which many libraries and such consult for ideas on orders), gave me this sterling nugget of awesome:

Redekop follows up his 2007 debut, the very funky Shelf Monkey, with the story of Sheldon Funk, a struggling actor, who wakes up during his own autopsy. Undead but still functional, Funk looks for a way to keep himself out of the wrong people’s hands, land a plum acting job, and (eventually) weather the storm of zombie superstardom before decomposition inevitably gets the best of him. Featuring Funk’s ambitious agent and an unsavory doctor who finds gruesomely clever ways to keep Sheldon’s body from falling apart too quickly, the story is a lesson in practical zombieing: what to do when you become a member of the walking dead, how to pass yourself off as (relatively) normal, how to learn to speak and walk again, and how to deal with your new meatcentric dietary requirements. Very funny and full of nifty surprises, the story has a big heart, too, presenting Sheldon as an ordinary fella trying to come to terms with his extraordinary new situation. The ending is appropriate and packs a serious emotional wallop. Highly recommendable—perhaps to more than zombie geeks.

And now, on the eve of actual publication (October 1!), The Toronto Star, which had already labelled Husk as one of their Top 20 Fall Reads of 2012, weighs in with a full review that completely and utterly gets me:

There's a point near the end of Husk where the narrator, long dead and without much of a body left to drag around, decides to embrace his "pop culture heritage" and start acting more like a traditional zombie...That heritage isn't essential to enjoying Corey Redekop’s book, his second novel, but some background helps...Redekop tosses so much into this zombie stew that instead of wearing out his premise quickly it almost seems as though he needs a bigger pot. By the time we get to the end, which involves a reclusive billionaire's bid for immortality and an apocalypse that stirs together pages torn from Philip K. Dick and H. P. Lovecraft, one feels there's no more ground to cover. Zombiedom's entire pop culture heritage has been thrown against the wall in bleeding chunks, where much of it sticks.

Feeling pretty warm in the belly right now. Hmmmm. Warm.

Monkey droppings - The Blondes - Just a trim, please. Wait, put down that knife!

The monkey decides to lighten up his doldrums and make himself feel pretty.

And how shall he do this? With highlights. Lots and lots of highlights. And a perm!

Ever seen a monkey with a perm? Not good. Like one of those elderly C-list stars who've had way too much plastic surgery yet somehow feel they're presentable enough to parade down Rodeo Drive looking to buy purses that cost more than you make in a year.

You know the ones I mean.

I don't know...I don't think the highlights worked.

The Blondes (Random House, 2012)
Emily Schultz

Personally, I've always preferred brunettes, or redheads. Just a matter of personal preference. But if the events in Emily Schultz's The Blondes ever come true, I'm going to be very happy I didn't fall hard for a dame with golden locks.

Because Blondes is every fashionista's worst nightmare come true. A mysterious virus begins infecting women with blonde hair (even those who've gained blondedom through dyeing), turning them into violent mindless people who attack at random, and kill without a second thought. Kind of like a zombie novel with split ends. Ba-zing!

Schultz being Schultz, however — which means, being the author of Joyland and Heaven is Small, that she is a damned talented individual — there is far greater depth to The Blondes than the surface would indicate (see what I did there?). As much a satire of society's obsession with looks as it is a Outbreak-like contagion thriller, Schultz expertly entwines a speculative fiction premise with social commentary, making Blondes akin to Dawn of the Dreadfully Good Looking. Ka-pow!

I'll stop punning now.

Our hero, Hazel Hayes, is a young grad student working on a thesis on the media obsession and transformations of standards of female beauty. She is also new to New York, newly pregnant with the child of her (married) thesis advisor, and understandably freaked out a little. Her bad luck, then, to be at what appears to be ground zero of the new epidemic, soon dubbed "the blonde fury" by media wags. When a woman randomly attacks a young girl, Hazel tries to help, but find that her fellow citizens aren't the type to rush to anyone's aid:

Then cellphones came out into palms, and people punched into them, some reticently, some frantically. The punching continued for what seemed like forever, but no one lifted a device to an ear. Lack of reception. A couple of the high school kids didn't even bother trying to phone; instead, they held up their devices and calmly filmed.

Such inaction is a major plot device here, the idea that the 'other' (government, the CDC, etc) knows best, so we shouldn't get involved. Leave it to the professionals. Which the world does, and Hazel soon discovers herself in a world of rampant security, hysterical paranoia, and increased insanity (the idea that men will pay scads of money to have sex with infected blondes being one of the more memorable/disturbing).

Corollary to this epidemic scenario is Hazel's own crisis of begin pregnant, alone, and when the borders increase security, suddenly cut off from family. Being a redhead, she is close enough to blonde to be a cause for suspicion, and while I do not wish to give away spoilers, suffice to say that North America goes down a very dark path indeed, one that has all-too-obvious parallels to historical and present events.

Yet being as Hazel's work is in female body image, the bulk of the subtext is a concise examination of women as they are, as they are seen, and as they regard themselves. Hazel begins her tale with the phrase, "Women have stupid dreams," and from there Schultz unearths an entire world in thrall to appearance rather than substance. Baldness becomes chic, and wigs become de rigueur. Interestingly, while Hazel goes on about the myriad of ways women look to attack each other (not physically like the infected, more of a passive-aggressive taunt-her-into-an-eating-disorder sort of way), it's her friendships with women that allow her to make it through to the (hopefully) other side. In a world without hope, Schultz finds the key to survival, and it is others.

Blondes gives us not only a fine novel, but a fine author completely coming into her own. Schultz deserves all the accolades she gets.

VERDICT: MONKEY LOVES

Time for the publicity juggernaut to start up again

Well, it's been awhile, but after much, much, much laziness on my part (catching up on Lost turned out to be a real timesuck), I have finally got the second novel done somewhat to my liking. Which is fairly lucky, since it comes out in less than two months.

Husk final cover, designed by David Gee

Yes, Husk (click the link for description) is on its way to terrorize bookstores with its ridiculous tale of a zombie with glimmers of morality. Meaning that yes, he does eat a fair amount of people (a zombie novel without cannibalism is like a vegetarian who still eats fish; completely wrongheaded on the concept), but at least he feels conflicted about it.

I've decided to branch out and start an official author page, which you can find here. Already I've posted a few entries on my thoughts concerning zombies, and I'll continue to focus most of my energies on keeping the site filled with current information. Expect it to fill quite rapidly with reviews and events, and I'll be using it to promote further writings and projects down the road. I've also begun a public Facebook page for the novel, which I do hope you'll all check out and join (with the possibility of a free copy up for grabs to all members). I'll keep up my reviews here from time to time, but very likely in a reduced capacity for the foreseeable future.

Already, the buzz is building. Husk has been noted as a hot Fall release by Quill & Quire, and Russell Smith gave it a muted mention in one of his Globe and Mail columns (the title's not there, but I'm fairly certain I'm the only CanLit author with a zombie novel on the horizon, unless Alice Munro has decided to finally publish her long-awaited Lives of Undead Girls and Decomposing Women). I've also been lucky enough to cajole remarkable blurbs from some of my favourite authors (Andrew Pyper, Andrew Kaufman, and Peter Darbyshire, a trio that proves CanLit ain't all about  prairie winters and hardscrabble lives), which you can find on my author website.

I've been contacting bloggers and websites with a bent for the horrifically unusual or the unusually horrific to get some early review coverage. If you know of any that get a fairly wide readership, don't hesitate to contact me with the details. I've also been working on the launch in my current habitat in Fredericton, NB, and will get those details finalized ASAP.

Best of all, I've been accepted to two prestigious Canadian literary festivals for autumn 2012. In late September, I'll be travelling to Manitoba to participate in two events at the Thin Air Winnipeg International Writers Festival. One will be in Winnipeg proper (date and time TBA), and the other (on the evening of Sept. 21) will be a special event in Brandon, MB, where I'll be having a reading of Husk followed by the local premiere of the new Canadian horror comedy A Little Bit Zombie. This film was actually financed in large part through crowdsourcing, and has garnered a fair amount of good reviews as it travels the festival circuit. Needless to say, I'm quite stoked about pairing up my novel with this by-all-accounts very silly and very gory little slice of Canucksploitation. Should be a great evening, and a great overall time back in the prairies.

The highlight for me, however, is having two events (TBA) at the International Festival of Authors in Toronto, ON, near the end of October. I don't yet know who is on the bill with me (I'm not so deluded as to think I have a huge amount of drawing power), but just getting in the festival is a huge career highlight for me. Looking at the full list of participants, I can only assume I'll be paired up with Michael Chabon, Rohinton Mistry, and Gordon Pinsent. Only makes sense.

Finally, next week I shall be unveiling the spanking new book trailer, created and edited by yours truly, with invaluable help from a gaggle of nieces and a murder of nephews. I shall place it up on this site eventually, but I shall showcase it first on my author website and the Husk Facebook page. If you like the trailer, please distribute it on your own pages, tweets, and blogs accordingly.

It has been quite a ride for me so far, and there's still two months until I see it sitting atop the shelves. I hope you'll all enjoy my strange little monster, and perhaps we'll get a chance to meet when I'm on the road.

Tiny Monkey reviews - Red Means Run by Brad Smith

Red Means Run (Simon and Schuster, 2012)

by Brad Smith

Description (from the publisher)

Mickey Dupree is one of the most successful criminal attorneys in upstate New York. The upside of being Mickey: he has never lost a capital murder case. The downside: Mickey has a lot of enemies, and one of them has just driven the shaft of a golf club through his heart, leaving him dead in a sand trap at his exclusive country club.

The cops, led by a gung ho but dim-witted detective named Joe Brady, focus their attentions on Virgil Cain. Just two weeks earlier, Virgil told a crowded bar that “somebody ought to blow Mickey’s head off,” after the slippery lawyer earned an acquittal for Alan Comstock, the man accused of murdering Virgil’s wife. Comstock, a legendary record producer, gun nut, and certifiable lunatic, has returned to his estate, where he lives with his wife, the long-suffering Jane.

Virgil is convinced that the fix is in when Brady immediately throws him into jail with no investigation. So Virgil escapes from custody, determined to find Mickey’s killer himself. His only ally is the smart and sexy Claire Marchand, a detective who is at least willing to consider that Virgil may be telling the truth. Now it’s up to Virgil to prove his innocence, and to do that he needs to find the killer. Before the killer finds him.

What the Tiny Monkey thinks 

I think it's still too early to proclaim Brad Smith as Canada's answer to Elmore Leonard; after all, Smith has written only six books, and Leonard has umpteen-million novels and stories behind him. But based on Red Means Run, combined with his past output, it's clear that Smith knows his way around the genre, and has a hell of a lot of fun navigating the terrain.

As with Leonard (and the best crime practitioners such as George Pelecanos and Joe R. Lansdale [a genius who straddles genres with ease, and whose Hap Collins and Leonard Pine series is required reading]), Smith understands that a mystery/thriller is really only as good as its characters. From his debut One-Eyed Jacks, Smith has excelled at crafting entertaining low-lifes and underbelly dwellers, and Red Means Run finds him in fine form. Virgil is the crafty sort of protagonist that best propel outlandish plot lines, a fundamentally honest, wryly funny man who is well-nigh incapable of just sitting by and waiting for results. Claire is also nicely nuanced, and while the sexual tension between her and Virgil is never in doubt (on a side note, the cop/criminal sex trope is really played out for me), Smith keeps the banter light even as the plot bobs and weaves its way through murder and mayhem. There's nothing particularly innovative in Smith's approach, but he has the goods to move the story like a motherfu@#er. Red Means Run is pure pleasure to read.

TINY MONKEY REALLY LIKES

The Last Hiccup - The First Rave

Before I begin a post of unabashed enthusiasm on Christopher Meades' weirdly wonderful new novel The Last Hiccup, a note of caution:

Through careful research and self-imposed paranoid fear-mongering, I have determined that Chris, having never met him physically, is undoubtedly one of the following:

• my doppelganger;
• my long-lost twin, the one I thought I devoured in utero;
• a pod person bent on destroying me.

Why this belief, Corey, oh master of hyperbole? Take a look, and you tell me I'm freaking out over nothing:

All together now;

Meet Corey, who's done most everything,

From practice law to plane jumping.

But Chris has only stayed the course,

He's never even seen a horse.

What a crazy pair!

'Cuz they're authors,

Identical authors and you'll find,

They dress alike, they walk alike,

At times they even write alike:

You can lose your mind,

When authors are two of a kind.

Spooky, no? Maybe it's a coincidence, but I'm afraid to go to sleep at night. Should we meet I have no doubt the universe will cease to exist, or at least suffer a splitting headache.

On the plus side, should I ever die, we have a spare.

But I come here to praise Chris, not to fear him. I was a fan of his debut novel The Three Fates of Henrik Nordmark, an unceasingly silly chase novel that gave me no end of pleasure. So when approached, I gladly agreed to blurb his novel (a professional first!), for his sophomore effort The Last Hiccup is everything I look for in a novel; funny, weird, vaguely historical, barely linear, ambiguous, and saturated with synchronous diaphragmatic flutter. Having suffered from a lengthy bout of the devil's esophageal convulsions myself (seven days, no fooling), perhaps I'm inclined to sympathize with Vladimir, the young Russian boy who starts hiccuping at age eight and continues to do so for decades.

If the novel were simply that, twenty-plus years of hiccuping, I think I'd have tired of it. Meades, however, takes the Kurt Vonnegut route of torturing the protagonist, placing his hero in early 20th century Russia and submitting him to horrendous ordeal after horrendous ordeal. In short order, Vladimir, a strangely self-possessed little boy, is abandoned by his mother, experimented on by a mad doctor, and sent to live in the mountains with a strange and silent monk. And I haven't even begun to factor World War I into Meades' melange.

I do love a story that never takes me where I expect, and Hiccup certainly fills that bill. It's also extremely clever, dark, surreal, and unexpectedly poignant. I certainly hope Chris continues to push himself into the unexpected, for I sense there are fathoms of fantastic weirdness in him just aching to be discovered.


[NOTE] Should there ever be interest in mine and Chris' life story, perhaps as a Patty Duke-like family comedy with hijinks galore, I hereby submit the following unknown Canadian actor for consideration:

'Cuz they're triplets!

Identical triplets, and you'll find,

They act alike, they brood alike,

Sometimes they're even subdued alike...

Tiny monkey - Natural Order by Brian Francis

Natural Order (Random House, 2011)

by Brian Francis

 

Description (from the publisher)

Joyce Sparks has lived the whole of her 86 years in the small community of Balsden, Ontario. “There isn’t anything on earth you can’t find your own backyard,” her mother used to say, and Joyce has structured her life accordingly. Today, she occupies a bed in what she knows will be her final home, a shared room at Chestnut Park Nursing Home where she contemplates the bland streetscape through her window and tries not to be too gruff with the nurses.

This is not at all how Joyce expected her life to turn out. As a girl, she’d allowed herself to imagine a future of adventure in the arms of her friend Freddy Pender, whose chin bore a Kirk Douglas cleft and who danced the cha-cha divinely. Though troubled by the whispered assertions of her sister and friends that he was “fruity,” Joyce adored Freddy for all that was un-Balsden in his flamboyant ways. Years later, Joyce married Charlie, a kind and reserved man who could hardly be less like Freddy. They married with little fanfare and she bore one son, John. Though she did love Charlie, Joyce often caught herself thinking about Freddy, buying Hollywood gossip magazines in hopes of catching a glimpse of his face. Meanwhile, she was growing increasingly alarmed about John’s preference for dolls and kitchen sets.

Today, as her life ebbs away at Chestnut Park, Joyce ponders the terrible choices she made as a mother and wife and doubts that she can be forgiven, or that she deserves to be. 

Voiced by an unforgettable and heartbreakingly flawed narrator, Natural Order is a masterpiece of empathy, a wry and tender depiction of the end-of-life remembrances and reconciliations that one might undertake when there is nothing more to lose, and no time to waste.

What the Tiny Monkey thinks 

I usually approach novels set up as "remembrances of things past" with high caution. There's a certain sameness to the form I find off-putting, as the elderly protagonist looks back at the mistakes in life and either a) bemoans cruel fate, or b) comes to terms with the vagaries of existence. Perhaps it's because I was forced (yes, forced!) to read Margaret Laurence's The Stone Angel in school (twice!) well before I was primed to appreciate it that I dislike the subgenre so fervently. I've never gone back to Laurence's book, and despite its sterling reputation, I stand by my teenage opinion that it's about an old woman who was mean to everyone, and then died, and I was glad of it. (Next week; my issues with Pride and Prejudice: hidden feminist classic, or claptrap as boring as a sack of doilies?)

Nevertheless, I dive into the pages of Brian Francis' follow-up to his best-seller Fruit, and find myself quickly and completely under his spell. Natural Order is not a game-changer, but it is a subtle portrait of a woman who could not help herself but try to do what she thought was right even when the outcome was hurtful. Joyce is not a selfish person in most respects, but her selfish refusal to see what her son actually is leads to family dysfunction and eventual unhappiness. Francis may stumble occasionally with some plot contrivances, but his overall sense of the character is riveting, and his refusal to go maudlin is to be congratulated. I truly enjoyed Fruit, but Natural Order is of a new level altogether, far more layered and affecting, the blossoming of a truly fine author.

TINY MONKEY REALLY LIKES

Tiny monkey - The Dead Kid Detective Agency

The Dead Kid Detective Agency (ECW Press, 2011)

by Evan Munday

Description (from the publisher)

Thirteen-year-old October Schwartz is new in town, short on friends, and the child of a clinically depressed science teacher. Naturally, she spends most of her time in the Sticksville Cemetery, which just happens to border her backyard. And that backyard just happens to be the home of five dead teenagers, each from a different era of the past: there’s the dead United Empire Loyalist! The dead escaped slave who made her way north via the Underground Railroad! The dead quintuplet!

Soon, October befriends the five dead kids. Together — using October’s smarts and the dead kids’ abilities to walk through walls and get around undetected and stuff — they form The Dead Kid Detective Agency, committed to solving Sticksville’s most mysterious mysteries. October’s like Nancy Drew, if she’d hung out with corpses.

When Sticksville Central High School’s beloved French teacher dies in a suspicious car accident, it provides the agency with its first bona fide case. Soon October and her five dead friends find themselves in the midst of a nefarious murder plot, thick with car chases, cafeteria fights, sociopathic math teachers, real estate appointments, and a wacky adventure that might uncover the truth about a bomb that exploded almost 40 years ago.

What the Tiny Monkey thinks 

Look, I ain't a kid no mores, see? I don't whitewash fences for nickels and a smile, I don't mow lawns 'cuz my Dad sez it ain't gonna cut itself, I don't go to school to gets me some of that fancy book-learning. But I do, on occasion, read YA. Perhaps its the latent librarian in me, but sometimes it's refreshing to read for a different age bracket. Like adult fiction, the quality varies, from the sublime highs of The Golden Compass to the doltish lows of Twilight. Author and illustrator (and genius publicist for Coach House Press) Evan Munday aims for the highs, and although The Dead Kid Detective Agency does not transcend the genre, it is an enjoyably sardonic adventure with an appealing lead and a surprising trek into a violent chapter in Canadian history. October (wonderful name) is a primo heroine, resourceful, slightly demented, and unafraid of ghosts, murderers, or, worse than both, stuck-up teenage girls (is anything more terrifying than a fifteen-year-old girl with a sense of entitlement?). Her home life is remarkably unvarnished; I can't recall any similar books where a parent is clinically depressed and another has simply run off in the night. It's the realism of these details which help ground the more fantastical elements, and if the plot occasionally careens off the rails, Munday's dry sarcasm and weird asides keep the narrative hopping. His style reminds me of Sean Cullen's Monty Pythonesque writing voice in the Hamish X series (check it out!), but Munday has a firmer grasp of character, and is less prone to leaving the plot altogether for the sake of an admittedly funny witticism. There is certainly enough in Sticksville to keep the series going, as Munday promises, and I hope October will get a few more chances to shine.

TINY MONKEY REALLY LIKES

CANadian literature, Or CAN'Tadian literature? (Boy am I ashamed of that pun)

Today, the shelf monkey goes all flag-waving and whatnot to answer an age-old question that has tormented Canadian bibliophiles since we first learned to write; what the hell are we reading, anyway?

There has been a lot of talk/complaining/buzz/whining/questioning/whinging/probing/babbling/hand-wringing/soul-searching/teeth-knashing by persons much smarter than myself lately, as there usually is around award season, as to what exactly constitutes what we refer to as 'Canadian literature' (best exemplified in this Globe and Mail article). Patrick deWitt's The Sisters Brothers, winner of the Governor General's Award for Fiction, and Esi Edugyan's Giller-winning Half Blood Blues have earned some backhanded criticism for winning Canadian awards with stories set in 1800's California and Nazi Germany, respectively.

As I see it, the major questions are:

1. Is its being written by a Canadian enough to qualify a book as an example of 'Canadian' literature?
2. Are Canadian writers being appropriately Canadian in their published works?
3. Should 'Canadian' literature have a strictly Canadian setting to qualify as such?
4. How much 'Canadian' content should a book have to qualify as 'Canadian'?
5. What is the proper ratio of beavers and moose per page? Is six enough?
6.  I may have made that last one up.

There are seemingly no easy answers to this conundrum. What constitutes American literature, or English, or Greek, Polish, Lithuanian, Narnian? Does everything Irish have to come tinged with authentic Roddy Doyle wit? Should American author Annie Proulx's The Shipping News, with its Newfoundland setting, qualify as Canadian despite the author's nationality? Does Clive Barker's setting of his horror novel Cabal in Alberta disqualify it as an English product? Should we try and convince Howard Norman to accept Canadian citizenship, since most of his novels are set here anyway?

For me, the answer is deceptively simple, as befits my deceptively simple mind: Canadian literature is something written by a Canadian citizen. It matters not its setting, nor subject, nor genre. If you're Canadian, and you've written a novel, short, story, or poem, hey, you're in. Whether or not your work is any good is another matter, best left to wizened reviewers lurking behind their keyboards like trolls beneath a bridge, but as one who harbours an instinctive distrust of those who differentiate between 'literature' and 'fiction', I feel that if we settle on citizenship as a baseline, we'll all be a lot happier.

For some perspective, let's quickly look at some Canadian novels of note:

• The English Patient (1992) by Michael Ondaatje - A novel set in wartime Europe, written by a Canadian of Sri Lankan origin. Only a few Canadian characters in a novel rife with many nationalities. Won the Governor General's Award and the Booker.
• The Life of Pi (2001) by Yann Martel - A novel involving an Indian child trapped at sea with a tiger. The author hails from Saskatchewan. No major Canadian characters of note. Won the Booker and The Hugh MacLennan Award for Fiction, shortlisted for the Governor General's Award.
• The Handmaid's Tale (1985) by Margaret Atwood - A dystopian tale of religious patriarchal tyranny set in the fictional Republic of Gilead, located within the borders of the U.S. No Canadians. Written by a Canadian from Ontario. Won the Governor General's Award and the Arthur C. Clarke Award, shortlisted for the Booker.
• A Complicated Kindness (2004) by Miriam Toews -  Set in a Mennonite community in Manitoba, a young woman struggles to reconcile her yearnings for more with the regimented religious structure of the township. Written by a Manitoban. Won the Governor General's Award.
• A Fine Balance (1995) by Rohinton Mistry - A story set in India, examining changes in Indian society. No Canadians. Written by an India-born Canadian. Won the Giller, shortlisted for the Booker, and was an Oprah Bookclub Pick.

Do you see a connecting theme, other than the awards and acclaim that accompanied each novel? Yeah, me neither. I do know that these all are accepted examples of Canadian Literature, and that, last time I checked, no one was accusing Margaret Atwood of not being Canadian enough (like anyone'd have the balls). And while this ain't near an exhaustive list, I hereby, in my accepted roll as legally accepted arbitrator of all things Canadian (it's true, don't dispute me!), claim that there is no single accepted definition of a 'Canadian' novel. And excepting only the caveat that the author must have some sort of Canadian citizenship, nor should there be (gasps from the gallery!).

Look, anyone who wants to write about Canada will write about Canada, that has never been a problem. Whether it be a tale of the immigrant experience (The Amazing Absorbing Boy), a trip backwards through time to uncover new facets of our shared history (The Time We All Went Marching), a legal thriller (Old City Hall), or an africentric sci-fi/fantasy adventure (The Coyote Kings of the Space-Age Bachelor Pad), Canadian authors will always set novels in Canada, covering themes and genres both classic and modern. I don't think we'll have to worry if, one year, we don't get enough novels about Canadian settlers braving the elements and/or frostbite. Somehow, we will survive as a culture.

But if we start (or continue) to argue that classifiable CanLit must adhere to certain standards, we risk alienating the artists we rely upon to create things for us to argue over. It is a well-worn trope that 'Canadian Literature' is viewed as being about history, and the prairies, and hard-scrabble lives, and fighting the elements. Indeed, it is precisely that form of literature (as fine as some of its novels may be) that drive people scarred from middle-school attempts to form them into functioning Canadians by having them read Who Has Seen the Wind? and The Stone Angel to make sweeping statements such as, "I never read Canadian fiction." This has been uttered to me by many people over the years, and none of my attempts to remind them of the works of Robert Sawyer, Will Ferguson, Timothy Findley, Minister Faust, Nalo Hopkinson, Thomas King, W.P. Kinsella, Timothy Taylor, Lynn Coady, Cory Doctorow, William Gibson, Michael Winter, or Spider Robinson will dissuade them from their opinion. And if they somehow have read these authors, or countless others, they will wave they hands dismissively and comment that these authors do not count as Canadian Literature, because they are entertaining, which is a state of being anathema to 'true' Canadian literature.

I have shouted myself hoarse at these people to no effect save restraining orders. I ain't proud of making a public spectacle of myself, but I would bristle and scream to the heavens and tear down walls with the force of my umbrage if anyone dared say to me that my work isn't Canadian Literature. You can call it sloppy, call it juvenile, call it a left-wing screed, call it just plain bad, but don't you dare question its nationality.

So I applaud this year's multiple awards for The Sisters Brothers and Half Blood Blues, for continuing the tradition (as evidenced above) of Canadian citizens writing about whatever pleases them and letting the awards fall where they may. Because for me, this is proof of a prime Canadian trait: accepting and rewarding others for who and what they are, rather than what we may wish they were.

Tiny Monkey droppings - The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt

The Sisters Brothers (Anansi, 2011)

by Patrick deWitt

Description (from the publisher)

Hermann Kermit Warm is going to die. Eli and Charlie Sisters can be counted on for that. Though Eli has never shared his brother's penchant for whiskey and killing, he's never known anything else. On the road to Warm's gold-mining claim outside San Francisco—and from the back of his long-suffering one-eyed horse—Eli struggles to make sense of his life without abandoning the job he's sworn to do.

DeWitt spins a violent, lustful, hung-over and humorous odyssey through the underworld of the 1850s frontier. Doffing his hat to the classic Western, he then transforms it into a comic tour-de-force with an unforgettable narrative voice that captures all the absurdity, melancholy, and grit of the West -- and of these two brothers, bound to each other by blood and scars and love.

Film rights have been sold to actor John C. Reilly's production company in a major deal, with Reilly to play one of the brothers.

What the Tiny Monkey thinks 

If I hadn't recently read Charles Portis' classic western True Grit, I would have claimed The Sisters Brothers to have a glorious style and cadence utterly unique to me. I can see that deWitt has perhaps co-opted the overall style of another (an arguable point, as his first novel Ablutions [a terrific read as well] has much of the same voice), but who cares when the result is this much fun? Very likely my favourite read of 2011, deWitt has created a profane, violent, funny, and just plain awesome piece of work, and the fact that this novel—written by a Canadian who has long made the U.S. his home, and with nary a mention of Canada anywhere—is up for major Canadian awards tickles me. deWitt's dialogue is superb, laden with dry wit, and the characters of Eli and Charlie are wonderfully done, the perfect mixture of psychotic killers and melancholy dreamers. Some have complained that deWitt's style is too 'cinematic' to be considered literature (who ever complained of a movie being too literate?); I say, it's not the story, it's how you tell it, and deWitt tells his story superbly in a style that completely suits the story. I wish more novels were this bloody alive: dialogue as rich, subtle, and memorable as this is hardly any easier than obtuse poetic descriptions of windswept Canada prairies (I'm being snarky, I know, sue me). The cinematic possibilities are present, of course—the Coen brothers desperately need to get their hands on this; keep John C. Reilly as Eli, add Philip Seymour Hoffman as Charlie—but merely because a movie can be envisioned is no excuse for needless denigration. The Sisters Brothers is a major achievement, as gutsy and vital and just damned entertaining a novel as you could hope for.

TINY MONKEY ADORES 

Tiny Monkey - Annabel, by Kathleen Winter

It's time for a new style of review, methinks. I am far behind in my postings of late, and a lesser monkey would likely give up.

A bigger monkey would post every day. A silverback gorilla, say.

But I, a lowly chimp stuck in the middle, can only do so much.

And so, I present my newest review format, the Tiny Monkey (who doesn't love tiny monkeys?)! A quick rundown of a novel that allows you access to my innermost thoughts, yet dispenses with the long-winded criticism and obscure asides that are my hallmark!

Yes, I'm lazy, but to catch up, this is what I'm doing. I will not be completely abandoning in-depth critical snarkiness, mind you, just forgoing it for the time being.

And so, the inaugural entry of Tiny Monkey:

Annabel (Anansi, 2010)
by Kathleen Winter

Plot (from the publisher website):

In 1968, into the beautiful, spare environment of remote coastal Labrador, a mysterious child is born: a baby who appears to be neither fully boy nor girl, but both at once. Only three people are privy to the secret -- the baby's parents, Jacinta and Treadway, and a trusted neighbour, Thomasina. Together the adults make a difficult decision: to raise the child as a boy named Wayne. But as Wayne grows to adulthood within the hyper-masculine hunting culture of his father, his shadow-self -- a girl he thinks of as Annabel -- is never entirely extinguished, and indeed is secretly nurtured by the women in his life.

Haunting, sweeping in scope, and stylistically reminiscent of Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex, Annabel is a compelling debut novel about one person's struggle to discover the truth in a culture that shuns contradiction.

What the Tiny Monkey thinks: 

Captured within the pages of Annabel is some of the most exquistely exacting prose I've come across. There are sentences that take my breath away, and I have rarely if ever witnessed an author so accurately capture the dynamics of family relationships. Winter's reproduction of Jacinta's and Treadway's marriage is breathtaking, and the undercurrent of confusion that paints Wayne's relationship with his father is heartbreaking. The ending is somewhat of a letdown, being more traditional and unsurprising than what has happened before, and I'm not entirely convinced of Treadway's ultimate circumstance being organic to the story. But Wayne's unique bildungsroman is a treasure, and when Annabel flies, it soars. Kathleen Winter has penned a jewel, and joins her brother Michael (go read The Big Why right now) into the ranks of Canada's next generation of great authors.

Tiny Monkey Really Likes

Monkey droppings - Canadian authors and their demons. Seriously literate demons.

Once again, the shelf monkey pits genre writers against one another! In the octagon!

This time, two Canadian genre authors, each dealing with unimaginable horrors in their own unique ways.

An unimaginable Canuck horror? Sounds unlikely, but have you seen our government lately? More terrifying than ogopogo and sasquatch combined.

The Thirteen (Random House Canada, 2011)
by Susie Moloney

The suburbs were deadly boring. And there were too many cats.

I'm not a huge fan of witches. When compared to their counterparts (wizards, magicians), the witch just seems to pale in comparison. Sure, they've got chants and potions, and the right ear of Satan himself, but they just aren't as cool. Genre-wise, they peaked right about when Margaret Hamilton first tried to steal the ruby slippers from Judy Garland.

And between you, me, and the Internet trolls, promoting Susie Moloney's new effort the The Thirteen as a cross between Desperate Housewives and The Witches of Eastwick isn't helping win me over (I'm assuming that the Moloney's publicist is referring to the enjoyably daft Jack Nicholson/Cher/Susan Sarandon/Michelle Pfeiffer movie, and not the original and immeasurably darker John Updike novel).

I'm willing to give Moloney a chance, however. Her novel A Dry Spell was an often riveting piece of genre thriller/horror, and The Dwelling a nifty and atmospheric haunted house tale. Moloney has the gift of rooting fantastic tales in the real, creating tension through an appreciation of character as well as a real sense of menace.

At first, The Thirteen has menace in spades, with a gangbuster prologue involving a grieving widow, a lighter, and several gallons of gasoline. Her friends do not respond quite as one would anticipate, and it does not detract from the story to reveal that the women of the neighbourhood have formed a cabal of witches. Now that one of their own is gone, the circle is incomplete. Yet there is a chance; after one of the oldest, Audra, takes mysteriously ill, her long-absent daughter Paula returns, her daughter Rowan in tow, and the surviving witches see not only an opportunity to reseal the circle, but to present an offering to the dark one in the bargain.

Moloney is careful to lay the groundwork for her main characters, allowing us to better sympathize with the mother/daughter team as they move back to a neighbourhood of weirdly cheerful citizens. At times, Moloney evokes the subtle satire and horror of Ira Levin at his best (Rosemary's Baby, The Stepford Wives); there is true creepiness in many scenes, especially when the cabal meets to woo Paula over, with inane promises of "It's great. You'll love it. Your hair will be thicker, your skin so clear and smooth." There is the promise that The Thirteen could become an incisive satire of the forced domesticity of the suburbs, of the need to stay young and beautiful forever and the lengths we travel to keep themselves in comfort.

Alas, it was not to be. Despite such ripe possibilities, Moloney barely grazes the satire and instead amps up the horror. There's nothing inherently wrong with this, and she proves herself again a terrific talent when it comes to gruesomeness. She certainly does not shy away from some of the more unsavory aspects of witching, rewarding the reader with scenes of unsettling carnality and violence.

Yet The Thirteen is a novel that could have benefited from another hundred pages or so. It feels like the author is rushing to the finale, so quickly that several secondary characters who prove themselves vital to the conclusion get short shrift, their actions thus appearing random and essentially unmotivated (in particular the troublesome indecisiveness of Paula's childhood friend Marla, whose motivations appear to grow from plot necessity rather than a fully-formed character need). This is a dilemma common to all of Moloney's work so far: superb set-ups, but rather unsatisfying conclusions. There is so much that is good that it's a letdown that the end result is only entertaining. Moloney has proven herself as a genre writer of talent and verve; I only wish she had fleshed out the story a little more to give it an emotional base that would serve to heighten the horror.

VERDICT: MONKEY LIKES IT AS A BEACH READ, WANTED TO LOVE IT AS A CLASSIC


A Rope of Thorns (Chizine, 2011)
by Gemma Files

This was no mere confidence-show, some drab provoking ghosts for profit, telling sad and frightened folk what they most wanted to believe, but the truth behind a thousand pretty lies made flesh.

As Moloney is to Stephen King (finding horror in the mundane), so Gemma Files is to Clive Barker (anything freaking goes).

I laid down a lot of praise for Files' first entry in her Hexslinger trilogy, A Book of Tongues, finding it a delightfully nasty/tasty treat, a sui generis grab bag melange of magical realism, Aztec, Mayan, and Christian gods, cowboys, horses, and repugnant anti-heroes, all tied together in the form of a western so gruesome and gritty it made me want to take a shower. Lovely stuff.

Now, scant weeks after I acquainted myself with her talents comes A Rope of Thorns, the second novel in the trilogy, and an equally impressive follow-up. At this rate, the third novel better explode the world at least twice to keep up the level of excitement and intensity. This is a fantasy series for adults, so you'd better cowboy up if you want to survive. For those who yearn for the next Harry Potter-like series, be warned; the brave and resourceful Harry would have been dead and his body desecrated and defiled within five minutes in Files' universe.

Following on the heels of the first, Thorns finds the outlaw and newly-minted hexslinger Chess Pargeter wandering the west with his companion Ed Morrow and a young spiritualist named Yancey Colder, looking for the Reverend Ash Rook, the man who stole Chess' heart. Literally. Had it ripped right out of him in a resurrection ceremony in book one: "His breastbone . . . cleft and barely re-sewn, each no-beat of his own missing organ a hammer-blow echoing from the inside out." Rook has joined forces with the goddess Ixchel to form Hex City, the first place on the planet where magicians can live without feeling the urge to tear each other apart (a side effect of having such powers). To get to Rook, however, Chess has to face many foes, including the whole of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, his own hair-trigger temper, and most gory of all, the resurrected Sheriff Mesach Love and his fearsome evangelical powers over death:

[Yancey] felt herself stagger, caught up one more time by Ed Morrow's welcome arm; clutched close to its warmth for comfort, finding none. Because—those figures arrayed 'round Love, just waiting—she knew them . . . had known them. They hung as if by hooks through the neck, all their weight dangling limp, black eyes staring off to a dozen different quarters. And woven over it all, pallid flesh and dirty rigs alike—sewn through the muscle, covering bone where it showed, blossoming crimson pods at every cheesecloth-skinned joint—a net of Weed throbbed and knotted, a hundred thousand marionette cords grown thick and juicy, hideously animate.

After the vicious Tongues, Rope is a true middle chapter, as our heroes (?) wander on their quest, vanquishing foes while incrementally getting closer to their goal. What that goal is, is in some doubt, as Chess—as violent and psychotic a protagonist as there has ever been— actually grows as a character, learning the limits of his power and actually evolving into something far more interesting. He starts Rope looking purely for revenge, but as Chess becomes more self-aware, he begins to see his place in the world, and understands the concepts of consequences and fate. If Chess had simply remained a remorseless stone-cold killer, Rope would still have been entertaining, but this stab at personal growth, Chess' actual attainment of empathy, is what allows the narrative to grow accordingly. There is still all the frank intergender sex of the first, but Files has leavened the outrageousness of the first through a deepening of the bonds between the leads. Chess and Ed may not become the next Frodo and Sam, but their quest is just as dangerous, and unlike those lovable hobbits, there is no doubt on the subject of homoeroticism.

Where is Files going with all this? I cannot tell, except that the finale will no doubt be apocalyptic in scope, a battle which will make Potter's last stand at Hogwarts seem a slap fight between fifth graders. Right now, I put The Hexslinger series in the top tier of my favourite urban fantasy series, right up there with King's Gunslinger/Dark Tower mythos, Barker's Art Trilogy (if the third is ever finished), and (hopefully, as I have not yet read the upcoming second installment) Lev Grossman's Fillory novels.


VERDICT: MONKEY LOVES

hidden monkey - Crisp by R.W. Gray

Oh monkey, why do you hide from me?


Is it my breath?


TELL ME THE TRUTH, DAMN YOU!





Today's hidden monkey:

Crisp (NeWest Press, 2010)
by R.W. Gray

the hidden monkey plot: Well, these are short stories, so there is no plot per se (however, there is a perfect excuse to use the phrase per se). But to give you a taste of their contents: "Waves" is an exquisite glimpse into a one-night stand with a whale trainer; "Crisp" concerns two brothers whose father is burning eternally in a car fire while their mother swells to bursting inside their house; "Sunflowers" is a breathtakingly sweet tale of an old woman's infatuation with the new young priest of her church; "Wabi Sabi" maps out a wife's attempts to mold and whittle her fisherman husband into a more pleasing form.

why is this monkey hidden? Short stories are classically a harder sell for audiences, and unless a collection catches fire (or awards glory), they more often than not gather dust on the shelves. I really only became aware of Gray's collection after the two of us joined forces in a Writers' Circle event out here in Fredericton. Crisp may yet gather a larger audience, however, as its recent nomination for the Danuta Gleed Award certainly provides it with an extra oomph.

what does the shelf monkey think? I'm a big fan of magic realism, when done correctly, and Crisp has more than its fair share. Witness this small segment of "Wabi Sabi" after the husband has come home and destroyed his wife's pottery:

In the crisp morning air, she reached out with her two hands and placed them around his ridged and bent-to-purpose neck. She began again, kind, the way she was with flawed clay. Smaller clumps of him fell to the porch as she worked out the impurities, the air bubbles.
In the morning she awoke to peaches in the air, and found him in the kitchen making impressionistic waffles, a wounded apology on his lips. He was smaller now, shorter than her, and several kinds of sorry.

That's the kind of imagination I love, the ability to combine the fantastic with the humdrum ordinariness of life. In Crisp, no one questions how it is a woman can continually whittle a man into something new, how a fire can never be extinguished, why a trailer should suddenly up and slowly (oh so slowly) roll to the ocean and no one thinks to stop it. Beyond this, Crisp is a revelatory collection, delicate in execution and brutal in impact. Gray has a light touch, almost invisible, and his stories dance across the page even as they leave indelible impressions in the mind. Like the best short story writers, Gray understands the importance of being concise, of never wasting a word. His characters are all yearning for something, something beyond their control; love, or stability, or silence, or sanity.

hidden monkey verdict: this monkey shouldn't stay hidden. come out, little monkey, don't be scared

I have been remiss! Oh, bad, bad monkey, thy name is ... remiss? Is that a name?

I would be remiss if I were not to mention the recent online publication The Winnipeg Review, a literary endeavour which describes itself thus:

The Winnipeg Review publishes on-line every quarter, with weekly updates, from its eponymous home. Like the inhabitants of this midcontinental city, TWR is always opinionated, occasionally cranky, and ethnically confused. We exist to review literary books, mostly Canadian fiction, and to showcase interviews, excerpts, poems, and columns by writers with something to say.

Why bring this up, you ask? Well, aside from being a darn sight better than many similar websites, with insightful commentary and in-depth book reviews, it has a marvellous lineup of reviewers.

Do you really not see where I'm going with this?

Yes, I have gouged away heaping hunks of my free time to through a few reviews their way, which I have been sadly neglect in mentioning here, a neglect I will now remedy.

First, my very recent review of Timothy Taylor's remarkable The Blue Light Project:

The Blue Light Project does not do things the easy way; there are no clear lines of plot, the agendas of secondary characters flit in and about, not everything is tied up in a neat bow. Some reviewers have tried to compensate by refusing to follow the inner logic, instead imposing upon Blue Light a structure Taylor never intended: one reviewer in a major Canadian publication takes this so far as to devote the majority of the review to Pegg’s interview with the hostage taker, all but ignoring Eve and Rabbit, removing much of the mystery Taylor delicately builds, and emphasizing all out of proportion what turns out to be a fairly small segment of the actual novel.

Blue Light, despite some remarkably tense moments, is not a thriller, and Taylor never posits it as such. The hostage situation is integral, but it functions as a pivot point for the others to balance on, not as a central theme. What is far more important is Taylor’s conjecture that only through trauma can we see clearly and possibly hope to achieve something meaningful in our lives. Blue Light’s characters are all seekers; of what, they are not sure, until something jars them from complacency. We see this in the various mobs that surround the building, yearning to be a part of the conclusion, wanting to be a part of anything that might affect them and thus add significance to their existence.

And secondly, from two months ago, my two-hander review of Alexander MacLeod's Light Lifting and Sarah Selecky's This Cake is for the Party:

At this point, any review of Sarah Selecky’s or Alexander MacLeod’s recent work could be argued as superfluous. Their fame, for the moment, is secure. Two collections of short stories, each acclaimed to a degree that would make most authors collapse under the weight of their envy. Each a Giller finalist. Each now shortlisted for Commonwealth Best First Book, winner still to be determined. Each taking a comfortable roost inside national and regional bestseller lists. Selecky earns comparisons to Alice Munro. MacLeod escapes the sizable shadow of CanLit heavyweight and father Alistair to carve his own small niche in the canon. These are truly auspicious beginnings for any literary career.

Taken side by side, weighing each collection against the other as we would combatants in a field of battle, Selecky’s This Cake is for the Party and MacLeod’s Light Lifting showcase sizable talents, displaying unique voices and mastery of craft. They each contain stories of memories captured in time, stories that tell of personal moments and hint at larger ramifications beyond the last sentence. Yet of the two, This Cake holds together better as a whole, but Light Lifting hints at a slightly broader range. It is doubtful anyone would mistake a Selecky story for a MacLeod, but MacLeod could, in the future, pull off a reasonable Selecky.

And there you have it. Drop in to The Winnipeg Review for some terrific reviews of a few of my recent favourites, including a sterling treatise by Lee Kvern on Valerie Compton's affecting Tide Road and Michelle Berry on Miriam Toews Irma Voth (on my TBR pile).

Monkey droppings - Elle by Douglas Glover: "When the New and the Old Worlds meet, first we exchange corpses."

Today, the monkey continues his chimp-love of a Canadian literary master.




Elle
by Douglas Glover

[WARNING: THE FOLLOWING QUOTE IS LIKELY NSFW. ALSO, IT IS AWESOME.]

Oh Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I am aroused beyond all reckoning, beyond memory, in a ship's cabin on a spumy gulf somewhere west of Newfoundland, with the so-called Comte d'Epirgny, five years since bad-boy tennis champion of Orleans, tucked between my legs. Admittedly, Richard is turning green from the ship's violent motions, and if he notices the rat hiding behind the shit bucket, he will surely puke. But I have looped a cord round the base of his cock to keep him hard.

Now that is an opening paragraph to be reckoned with.

A few months ago I came across a copy of Douglas Glover's Precious, a novel I had always been meaning to read. I found it an utter delight, a Canadian hard-boiled noir that ranks with the best of Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald. Thus emboldened, I picked up a copy of Elle, somehow expecting more of the same.

Witness my shock, then, at not only the opening paragraph (see above), but at the content, as far at odds with Precious' subject matter as you can get. Imagine discovering that Dashiell Hammett also wrote Naval histories; that weird.

And double my shock at this; Elle is very likely a masterpiece, a breathtaking, bold, coarse, witty, sexy, mythic, and scatological take on Canadian history unlike any historical novel I have ever read. Keep in mind I'm not a historical fiction type of guy, all told, but still: wow. This may be my favourite historical novel of all time.

As you can see from above, Elle starts with a bang. The narrator (only known as Elle) is on her uncle's ship, travelling from France to Canada in 1542. Elle is a desperately intelligent woman, and is prone to questioning all that is somehow taken for granted in her world:

In Orleans, in 1542, there are forty-three tennis courts . . . it makes you think. There are only thirty-seven churches. Yet we burn Protestant heretics (also horse thieves, book publishers, books themselves and the occasional impolitic author when we can get one) and not maladroit tennis players. What one is to make of this odd circumstance, I cannot say.

Elle may be too smart for her own times - "Like many women, I know what I don't know - a duplicity of mental operation caused by living in a world run by men and Dominican priests." - and her unusual nature makes her prone to condemnation. After being caught with her lover by her uncle, Elle is quickly set ashore in the Canadian wilderness along with Richard and her nurse.

Her companions quickly perish, but Elle, stripped from her high European upbringing, somehow manages to survive the harsh new terrain:

I have made many mistakes. I blame printed books for this, a recent invention which has led us to solitary pleasures: reason, private opinions, moral relativism, Lutheranism and masturbation.

Elle soon discovers that the new world is scouring her of her past, making her into something more than she ever thought possible. She is stronger than she ever thought, evolving into something new and unseen, something harder that the world may be unprepared for.

What Glover accomplishes in Elle is something wonderful and rare; he makes Canadian history come alive. I don't mean to say that the novel is completely factual (although it is based on certain historical accounts); I mean that in a genre often typified by ponderous tomes of deep research and accuracy at the expense of narrative drive (I'm looking at you, Parrot and Olivier in America), Elle is, gosh darn it, fun. It's a lively beast, this book, with a story that leaps off the page. It moves, it breathes, it zigs and zags with glee, and goshdarnit, it breaks your heart. And while Glover keeps a light touch, Elle is hardly insubstantial, with a breadth of compassion and drama that puts most other novels to shame, historical fiction or not.

I'm not much for high-toned reviews; I like them, but I don't think I'm smart enough to complete one on my own without a lot of advance prepwork. I read this book for pleasure, and believe me, I was pleased. So I'll leave it at this: Elle is an amazing piece of work.

VERDICT: MONKEY LOVES