Bookshop Browsing, from The Guardian
| Posted on: Monday, March 01, 2010 |
Blog
Category: 'Inspiration for my novels' |
In Cambridge some years ago, I went into a terrific secondhand bookshop, picked up a collected version of John Donne's poems and opened it to a very well-thumbed page. It was a lewd--almost pornographic--elegy that had never made it into any school anthologies that I'd seen. I bought the book and read it from cover to cover . . . Until then, I'd seen him mainly as a love poet because of the fabulous poems he wrote to the woman he eloped with, Ann More. But this was different--much more exciting. With Donne's words buzzing in my head, I went into St Paul's Cathedral to look at his effigy. There, I discovered that it was the only monument to survive the Great Fire of 1666 intact. This stirred up a wild dream that became the opening scene in my novel Conceit, which is about John Donne and Ann More, and their daughter, Pegge. So, happy browsing everyone. You never know where it will take you!
from "The Joys of Bookshop Browsing," The Guardian, Review section, February 27, 2010, p. 19 (print edition) and The Guardian Books Blog, February 22, 1010.
My Doubleday Editor, Nita Pronovost
| Posted on: Wednesday, January 27, 2010 |
Blog
Category: 'Editor and writer relationship' |
Most of the time editors toil in their offices, reading manuscripts and struggling to make silk purses out of sows' ears. Thoughtful authors remember to thank them (not nearly as often or as unstintingly as they should) in the acknowledgements at the end of their books. And once in a while these backstage heroes make dramatic appearances on stage, as my Doubleday editor Nita Pronovost has just done to promote one of her authors. Here's Nita's blog about it:
In one of the stranger moments in my publishing career, a few weeks ago I found myself in a morgue with one of my authors. Fortunately, neither of us was performing an autopsy. Fortunately, neither of us was dead.
In Nicholas Ruddock’s brilliant debut novel, The Parabolist, a group of earnest young med students in the seventies dissects a body—through skin, tendon, flesh and bone they slice, as layer by layer, they unravel the mystery of a murder and the truth about their own lives. So, when it came time to drum up some promotional ideas, Nick, a family physician and an incredible writer (yes, some people have way too much talent), thought it might be neat to shoot a short video in a morgue. I had to agree: that did sound neat.
So that’s what we did.
I didn’t think much more about this—about the reality of this—until we actually arrived at the site. We were escorted through fluorescent hospital halls to those ominous stainless steel doors, and then it suddenly set in with a shock: this was not a movie set. Our plans were delayed because there was an actual autopsy in progress.
We returned a few hours later to learn that the “job” had been completed, and that “the crew” had cleaned up the morgue. We were ready to enter.
As we walked in, I couldn’t help but notice the small details: the chemical smell of disinfectant in the air, the line of rubber boots along a wall, the clipboard that read: “Processed Limb: For Disposal” … and in the centre of the room, that cold metal table, where a short time before, a person had been unravelled—skin, tendon, flesh, bone.
Here’s the thing: those are my toes in the video. I had volunteered to be the body in our shoot, proving that I will do just about anything for the love of book. I soon found myself lying on that freezing table with a white sheet draped over me, toes exposed and tagged. I’ll admit it: my heart was racing, and I was feeling more than a little spooked, but as we progressed, I started to relax into the role. I mean, how many times in my life would I get to play dead?
Fortunately for me, Nick’s a great reader and a lot of fun. The shoot was fast-paced; Nick’s gallows humour quelled my jitters; and my resurrection came mercifully quickly. As the shoot rounded to a close, we needed just one more shot. Nick asked the videographer, “Where do you want me this time?”
I knew the answer, and I couldn’t help myself. “Over my dead body,” I said.
From http://www.booklounge.ca/blogs/2010/01/for_the_love_of_book_the_parab.html
Throw Away Your Lasso and Your Labels
| Posted on: Sunday, January 10, 2010 |
Blog
Category: 'Historical fiction' |
In The Globe and Mail, Joan Clark said that "The fact is our literature has been too easily labelled and corralled into genres – not only children’s books but science fiction, fantasy, mystery, historical fiction and so on. Which is why the recent breakthroughs of Annabel Lyon’s The Golden Mean and Mary Novik’s Conceit, both historical fictions, are thrilling beyond measure."
Within a few hours, Clark was quoted in the opening salvo against historical fiction by literary roustabout Steven Beattie in "The Historical Fiction Rant: The GG Edition". Beattie objects to the fact that not only the 2009 winner of The Governor General's Award for fiction, Kate Pullinger's The Mistress of Nothing, is set in the past, but that six of the previous nine winners were: Clara Callan, 2001; A Song for Nettie Johnson, 2002; Elle, 2003; The Law of Dreams, 2006; Divisadero, 2007; The Mistress of Nothing, 2009. To these, he adds other successful books such as The Big Why, The Communist’s Daughter, Effigy, The Trade, The Navigator of New York, The Stone Carvers, Three Day Road, Gratitude, The Book of Negroes, The Sealed Letter, The Outlander, The Last Crossing, The Boys in the Trees, Blackstrap Hawco.
Historical fiction, according to Beattie, now has such a "hammerlock . . . on our country's literary imagination" that it has squeezed out contemporary fiction. He offers a handy list of gloomy subjects (9/11, SARS, the recession, war, bombings, etc.) that he believes Canadian writers should have addressed instead.
A national literature is created by the free choice of readers, critics, and writers. Novelists, who pick their subjects years before publication, don't want to be handed a list of worthy subjects to choose from. The surge in fiction set in the past is not only a Canadian phenomenon. It is happening in the U.S. as well, and has been going on for a decade in the U.K., where Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall recently took the Man Booker.
Steven Beattie should have taken a closer look at his own list of novels. Deserving of the attention they received, most are "as fierce and contemporary as a novel set in the writer's present" (Natasha Walter). Few of these authors would call their books "historical fiction". Most would simply call them novels.
Writers don't want to see their books "labelled and corralled into genres", which was Joan Clark's point. Steven seconded this point himself when he compiled his list of genre-busting novels that have won the GGs or otherwise been singled out. Each of those novels is unique. Throw away the lasso and the labels like "historical". Read the book and ask yourself, "Is it good?"
Beattie's blog received some interesting comments here.
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