Kathleen Molloy

Let me tell you about Lippy Zundar. I don’t know if I love her or hate her. How am I supposed to write a story about a protagonist that I am not sure if I love or hate? On the one hand, I love her vulnerability. I love her maternal instinct. I love that she kicks butt. On the other hand, she’s quick to jump to conclusions, she’s bitter, she dances between shades of grey in what is right and what is wrong. And now she is full of self doubt. I don’t like that.

How can she possibly do her job well if she’s always worried that the school is going to call because her kid popped another kid in the nose when the other kid said Daddy’s new wife had nicer boobs? Life distracts her from work and those distractions are deadly. Lippy Zundar is a paid assassin for Canada’s Department of Homeland Insecurity. And she’s worrying about baloney sandwiches, indoor sneakers with non-streak treads, and passing grades, when she should be focusing on her next mark.

And I have to get Lippy out of my head and into my computer. But some days I don’t want to let her out. I don’t like her. She’s mean.

Late to post. Here are a few books enjoyed by Islanders and tourists alike this Summer.

From the August 2009 paper journal The Buzz:

- Prince Edward Island Tales - Montague Library Writers Guild

- Gail of Wind, by Gail Duguay

- The Fixer Upper, by Lorne Elliott

- Passing the Torch The Community Living Movement in Prince Edward Island

- Prince Edward Island: an illustrated history, by Douglas Baldwin

And which one will youstuff into a backpack? Go with the Montague tales, for a true taste of the island.

As Canadians reading CanLit, it is a pleasure seeing ourselves on the page. Now, with the help of Project Bookmark Canada we can see the page on the street. Huh?

Project Bookmark Canada is crossing the country to place plaques with CanLit excerpts in specific geographic locations related to those works. Toronto’s inaugural plaque remembers a passage from Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion and the construction of the Bloor Street Viaduct.

From the Project Bookmark Canada website it isn’t clear which blurbs will be featured next or where. Shall we send the founder, Miranda Hill, a wish list?

I’ll compile your suggestions and send the Wish List to Hill care of Project Bookmark Canada. I’ll also give away a copy of Ondaatje’s In the Skin of a Lion that I have ready to book cross.

Here’s how to do it:

1)      Suggest locations for a CanLit-plaques, provide titles and authors

2)      Post them as a comment here by May 30.

At the beginning of this year, Christine from the blog She Reads Books included Dining with Death as one of her Best Books of 2008. It was around this time last year that she enjoyed Dining with Death and with her review I happily borrowed the description:

“A blood-and-guts, bitter love-song to ageing”

She her full review on the website www.diningwithdeath.ca and her blog.
Naturally, Christine devoured a number of favourite books last year including Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov. It’s wonderful to be in such good company alongside Nabokov!

On his blog, Hugh Mcguire asks “What if the Book Business collapses?”

 It would be a disaster for the armies of Canadian publicists. Mayhem for the distributors, printers, and book designers. What of the book sellers? What of the Canadian library system?

Would we have to recycle all of our old favourites?

Would we have to book cross already loved stories instead of churning out new fables with unbent covers?As an author, I should panic at the thought of the Canadian book industry imploding. Yet as a reader I find comfort in the idea. Weird. 

Somehow, and maybe this is me being naïve, … somehow I think we’d revert to the oral tradition.  I think we’d get back to storytelling.Reading has become a solitary pursuit (save for book cubs).  Yet when sharing a story you are never alone.

So … what if the book business collapses? What if no single novel is printed in Canada in 2009?

Jobs will be lost; this is certain and regrettable. You can bet that Harper won’t be bailing out the book business if that happens. Indie bookstores would close if they couldn’t keep old favorites in stock. Literary agents would migrate to the US.  Canadians wouldn’t get Rebecca Eckler’s next book in the hip mommy series “My Kid Lost her First Tooth and I can’t Find it!”

No new books.

But think of the stories we’d tell.

Peter at the CanCult.ca blog introduced us to Christian Bok, a PhD candidate at the University of Calgary who is attempting to tackle the culture and politics of Canada’s literary awards system. If you have been following the hullaboloo over Di Brand’s alleged endorsement of a hot young poet, you will agree that this study is well timed.

Bok’s full inteview with Owen Percy is available. Check out this snippet as captured by CanCult:

OP: What do you think of the concept of national prizes or recognition—for example the Governor General’s Awards, which purport to speak for “Canadian Literature.” What do you think of an award which claims to be ‘national.’

CB: Oh, well I think that any prize that aspires to be “national” is probably more concerned with propaganda than aesthetics. All the prizes, of course, claim to pick the most meritorious work. To me, assertions about merit have to address the innovation that a work might have to offer literary history—not simply for one minor nation, but for our whole planet. Nevertheless, nobody creates a prize saying ‘We’re going to pick only the most conservative, most recognizable, work.’ Every panel of judges is going to say that their choices for winners represent the cutting edge of all contenders. But from my perspective as an academic looking at the history of literature on a planetary scale—the shortlists for these prizes often seem very pathological. The jurors are supposed to be selected from among your peers—but when I see the results of their deliberations, I always ask myself:’ What the hell are my peers thinking?’ How is it possible that they can call themselves writers, aspire to greatness, know something presumably about literary history, and yet nevertheless pick mediocre work—work likely to be forgotten within fifty years?  

Now here’s the thing, I still believe there is merit in the Canadian book award system.  Yet at the same time, I also feel like the winners are cursed. Once you get a fancy little gold sticker slapped on the cover of your book you are doomed to continue to write in whatever style you won in, and you can’t deviate because the masses have spoken. You risk loosing your gold sticker edge if you stray. 

Just this weekend I had a conversation with my favourite bookstore maven at Chelsea Books. Frances and I were talking about how some books catch like wild fire (with the help of the book promotion industry and the awards folks striking the matches). Once you get that sticker, you are made. I suggested to Frances that “Toews could now write a grocery list and it would sell.” 

But would Toews take the chance? After her successful Kindness and Troutmans works? Doubtful. Like so many Canadian award winners, she may have written herself into a corner.

Once we had finished discussing how we would run the U.S.A if we had been elected president, my lunch date suggested that American election fever was not unlike an episode of Jerry Springer.  “Sure the election didn’t have the Jerry-Springer-bare-swinging-breasts guests, but you had the name calling, the posturing, and the finger pointing.”

She could have been speaking about any election. “And how different is an election from a reality TV show? Politicians are naked cuz we want to see all their dirty laundry hanging on the line.”

By the time we had finished our salad, my guest and I had developed a number of scripts for Jerry Springerish political reality shows. My favourite was the Political Pugilist.

The concept is simple: the wannabe pugilists participate in all televised debates with the party leaders. If they don’t like what they hear BAMMM the pugilist slams the politician into the podium, drops them on their knees, and pulls their blazers over their heads – giving them cheap shots in the ribs.  Throughout the lead-up to Election Night audience members would vote on the best hits, as the wannabe pugilists move up through the primaries. The stupider the misdirected policies, the bigger the blows. Finally, the winning pugilist would win his or her own room at the White House and rest there for the full presidential term. They’d be on the Opposition’s payroll, sort of like a conscientious observer, and get dragged out to every news conference to sit on the panel and wait for some ridiculous presidential statement. Then BAMMM the gloves come off.

Of course, my lunch date and I agreed that we would never advocate beating up a politician. It would all be for the ratings. And if it sparked a little more interest in the debates all the better. But we all know there is no reality in reality TV.

Mark Medley has interviewed Louise Penny at the International Festival of Authors for the National Post. His introduction of Canadian authors has been a treat. I particularly liked the interview with Louise Penny, in part because I love the way Louise communicates with readers via her blog posts and interviews.  She might have the best job in the world – being paid to drink café au lait while killing people with her pen.

Medley asked: Who is your perfect reader?

Penny responded: The wonderful Canadian crime writer, Mary-Jane Maffini and I shared a panel recently and she had the best answer to that question…she said, ‘Intelligent women with colds’.  I agree.

As an intelligent woman with a cold, I agree.To celebrate Canadian crime writers I’m giving away a signed copy of Barbara Fradkin’s Do or Die –an Inspector Green Mystery. The dedication reads: “To Susan, a great mystery lover, enjoy!”

To win it, post your favourite make-believe crime title for a Canadian content mystery here. The more outrageous the better! I offer up:

·         The Missing Moose

·         Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow

·         Parliament Hell

Okay, okay, I’ll leave Penny, Maffini, and Fradkin to do the crime writing. Submit your cancult crime titles before the end of November for your chance to win Do or Die.

Slinking along the Whale Route up 138 toward Quebec’s northern coast, we discovered after only a few days into our adventure that the whales were also on vacation.

During our trip, our family collectively saw 1 whale’s back plunge at Longue-Pointe-de-Mingan and one whale’s tale briefly wave at Les Escoumins. Who knew that whales take vacation too?

But it makes sense. It was the timing of it all. Every year, during the last two weeks of July Quebec celebrates Construction Workers’ Vacation. I don’t know if this is a good translation – I made it up. But the way it works is that the construction industry hangs up its hard hat for two weeks. Few nails are hammered. Walls remain naked. The bathroom reno you started the second week of July is put on hold forcing you to cross your legs for two weeks.

This is what the provincial website tells us about Construction Workers’ Vacation:

 “In Québec, the last two full weeks in July are known as the “construction holiday”, when practically all construction workers are on compulsory leave. Many other Quebecers choose the same two weeks for their summer vacation, travelling long distances by car. Traditionally, the “construction holiday” results in a mass exodus and heavy traffic at the beginning and end of the 14-day period.”

http://www.gouv.qc.ca/portail/quebec/international/usa/quebec/mode_de_vie/conges/vacances_secteur_construction/

Mass exodus, indeed! During the drive we were snugly wedged between pick-up trucks advertising drywall services. And some of these vacationing construction workers don’t travel lightly; big pick-ups lugging big loads – the trailer tent following the truck, the trailer tent followed by a trailer stuffed with an ATV and loaded with bikes, preceding a boat.  One-family convoys were cramped into municipal camp grounds all across the province because nobody could afford the gas to stray too far into Canada.

And the RVs, and Winnebagos, and homes-on-wheels…heated by propane, air-conditioned, generators humming…no wonder the whales buggered off for Construction Workers’ Vacation.

In our adventures we met a lot of plumbers, a few painters, and one base-board specialist. I couldn’t muster the vocabulary to ask the base-board specialist at what point a base-board guy graduates from generalist to specialist. We met a lady who dried out basements, an older gent who drove a septic system cleaning truck who introduced himself in English as the “Shit Sucker”, and a family of book keepers that travel with their parrot. And I couldn’t help but notice the young shirtless roofers.

But no whales.

I long to learn more about these majestic beasts.

I plan to start my schooling with Canadian author Cheryl Kaye Tardif’s tale Whale Song.

http://www.whalesongbook.com/

http://www.cherylktardif.com

At the author’s request, I’m going to launch Whale Song into the wild via Book Crossing. But I have to get my hands on a copy first and I just hope it isn’t as elusive as the north coast whales.