A love letter to book clubs

One of the major activities of 2014 was visiting book clubs. (That's right: I have procrastinated on this blog post for over A YEAR. The last time I opened it to edit it was November 2014. Even more amazing: this is not even the oldest blog draft I intend to finally finish this year! My excuse is that I had a baby, who really is a pretty good...and awfully cute...excuse.)

I visited many book clubs all over Montreal: the Plateau, downtown, Westmount, NDG, and even Nun's Island. I even took a suburban commuter bus to visit a book club at the Brossard Library! (As a lifelong pedestrian, I have an actual suburban phobia, so this felt like more of a triumph to me than it might otherwise seem to someone with a driver's license.)

A lot of it was a learning experience. I didn't set out to do book club visits -- it was just something that started happening, and I was flattered and happy to be invited. I'm proud to say that I experienced a lot more anxiety before the early visits than I did before the ones at the end. I struggled a lot with what I should charge (if anything), and while that is probably a whole other blog post in and of itself (why artists..who usually need the money more than anyone.. end up doing things for free that anyone in any other profession would charge for!), I consulted with other writers and did some soul-searching and eventually arrived at a number I could feel good about and which clubs were happy to pay. My only regret is not taking more photos.

The most amazing and humbling part of it was meeting so many thoughtful readers. Clever readers with questions and opinions and theories and insights. And sometimes even favourite sentences (!!!)

The fact is that as a writer, you are not necessarily the authority on everything in your own book. Yes, you can say whether the bagel shop in your novel is based on this one or that one (Fairmount, for the record) or whether your character has an eating disorder because you used to have one yourself (nope), but I like to let other people talk about what the novel is about. And I like to take notes. I've learned a lot this way.

My other favourite part (besides the always mind-blowing experience of having a dozen people discuss your characters as though they actually exist) was how inspiring it has been to witness so many friendships between women that have endured over decades and that have been enriched by books and their shared discussions. Many of the groups I visited have been gathering for TWENTY YEARS! They have seen each other through the births of their children, divorces, cancer...everything. Female friendship is where it's at, and I got a sneak peek at some amazing ones.

These visits were truly soul-nourishing. As a writer you spend most of your time working alone, and the majority of writing events (e.g. public readings and panels at writers festivals) are for an audience who is unfamiliar with your work. If you're lucky, a few people will pick up your book at the end. But getting to meet people who have made a point of reading your novel and talking about it...? It's a treat I hope all my writer-friends get to experience.

And speaking of treats, did I mention the snacks? These book clubs had some great snacks!

There were many groups in contention for being my favourites, but I think I have to give it to the club that did themed food to match Bone and Bread.

Bagels and cream cheese, of course!

And even more amazing:

Hors d'oeuvres just like the ones described

as being prepared and served at Sadhana's 

housewarming party!!!

And the most fantastic thing ever:

A school bus cake! Just like Sadhana and Beena

bake for Quinn for one of his birthdays in Bone and Bread.

And here are a couple of photos of me and this amazing book club --  one of the twenty-year ones, whose members were all terrific readers and who had a very lively and passionate discussion about the novel. I'm sharing two shots as the obliging husband who took the photo caught some of us with smiles in one and some of us in the other.

Is this really happening?

Feeling ever-so-lucky!

It really almost makes one think it is enough to have engaged readers, even without literary prizes. I know a lot of writers would agree. Of course, the one (prizes) often leads to the other (readers), so it takes you back to square one, a little bit. At any rate, a sincere and profound thank you to every book club that hosted me: you made me feel as though my work mattered, and there is truly no better feeling. And thank you to all the other book clubs (I know you're out there) who have chosen Bone and Bread for your discussions over the past two years. I'm honoured and privileged to have played a part in the conversation.

garden of delights

So I'm all packed and waiting to go to the airport for my British Columbia Literary Festival Adventure. Trying to pack enough clothes for 10 days, including four events and four parties, and all the sundry T-shirts that I can never seem to go anywhere without was a major challenge. I also wanted to bring books by all my favourite authors I hope to meet in order to get them signed (Lisa Moore! Annabel Lyon!  Did I mention that I am reading with Annabel Lyon?!), but I had to cap the list at 6. It doesn't help that a lot of them are hardcover.  

Anyway, here are the promised photos from the Jardins Botaniques a few weeks back. It was an unbelievably warm day for September. 

Giant flower!

Giant gardener!

I took so many pictures of this amazing bird tree, which was stunning from every side. If you look at the people on the other side of the water, you can get an idea of the scale. 

The Montreal bird tree

Ghostly horses

Spirits of the forest

The next installation was my favourite (even topping the bird tree), though the crowds and the light and her sheer size made it hard to get a great photo.

In her other outstretched palm, she had deer coming out!

Me and a real garden sprite

With any luck my next post will be from the West Coast!

The Arcade Fire/Reflektors show!

One of the members of Arcade Fire was kind enough to put me on the guest list for Salsatheque last night. Excited does not begin to describe my state of mind yesterday! I've seen them play at least half a dozen times since 2004, in every kind of venue, (including a pre-show in St. Michael's church basement before the release of Neon Bible), and I have never, ever been disappointed.

9/9 9 p.m.

Waiting in line with the special wristband

Inside, everyone had conformed to the mandatory dress code of "formal wear or a costume," so it was a little bit like walking into that masquerade party in Eyes Wide Shut...but way less creepy. Everyone looked cool and weird and fabulous. The bobble-head versions of the band from the Corbijn video were mingling with the crowd, too, which added to the surreal vibe.

The venue, a downtown salsa club, started to make sense when I saw the reflective ceiling and walls around the dance floor. 

Two minutes before 9 p.m....waiting for the show to start.

The band played for around an hour, all new stuff, and it sounded amazing. They started with "Reflektor." A lot of the music was danceable in the way that Arcade Fire songs always have been, but it did not all (or even mostly) sound like the single. There was plenty of guitar. I loved a lot of the songs and I can't wait to hear them again. In one of the ones I really liked, Win sang (I think) "Am I cruel enough to be normal?"  (A line that definitely resonates with me.)

Here's a more detailed recap of the set, via Stereogum.

For part of the night, Win was wearing a mask.

Depending where you were standing, it was easier 

to watch them on the ceiling. A reflection of a reflection...

After the band was done playing, there was a super fun dance party for a couple of hours.

Dancing with Win Butler (I swear)

After awhile, an iPhone-shaped pinata appeared on the dance floor, and Win took turns putting his mask on people and getting them to smack it.  (I scored a pack of Popeye cigarettes and a Tootsie roll once it broke open...yesssss.)

Click here to actually watch the video.

Then we just kept dancing the night away. Thanks to Arcade Fire for an incredible evening!

How Should a Fan Be? On attending a Sheila Heti reading at McGill University.

This is almost old news now, but two Fridays ago I went to see Sheila Heti give a reading at McGill.  I was a little apprehensive because I’d already been to hear her read from How Should a Person Be? many months ago at Concordia, and quite often writers end up reading the same selection.  The section I’d already heard her read, from the very beginning, was hilarious and amazing and made me go straight out and pick up the book, but I remembered it well enough that I could still hear the passage in her voice in my head when I read it.

Anyhow, I needn’t have worried, and I was glad I attended.  She read from a few of her books, including The Middle Stories and The Chairs are Where the People Go, neither of which I'd read before, in spite of the fact that I have a few friends who have been obsessed with The Middle Stories for years (and the fact that we have not one, but two copies at home). 

The ever-growing to-read pile.

I wish there had been a way to take a surreptitious picture of the crowd.  Stylewise, it’s a relief to spend time in the Faculty of Arts (compared to science and medicine, where fashion is pretty much absent)  Everyone was young and interesting-looking.  Actually, ninety percent of the attendees looked like they’d walked straight out of a Girls episode.  I was worried enough that I had to ask the young woman next to me if it really was the Sheila Heti reading, or if I’d accidentally walked into an undergraduate class.  (I hadn't.)  Then, as I waited for the reading to begin, I overheard the girl behind me explain to her friends in a somewhat bored fashion about how something she did for the PR company she works for had turned into a freelance job writing for HuffPoCanada… which is a drag because her agent is totally waiting for her to finish her novel!  I listened while her just-barely-containing-their-seething-jealousy-and-awe friends duly expressed sympathy.  Meanwhile, I texted my own friends in an amazed and nervous fashion about the terrifying ambition and productivity of the next generation.

Sheila Heti was funny and smart and winning.  Apparently, there had been a request for her to read "the dirty parts" from How Should a Person Be? so she read the "Interlude for Fucking," which is extraordinary in the real sense of the word.

Another reason I was glad I went was because she mentioned this Paris Review interview with Jean Cocteau that she said had once made a big impression on her. 

Tiens, mon ami, it takes great courage to be original! The first time a thing appears it disconcerts everyone, the artist too. But you have to leave it—not retouch it. Of course you must then canonize the “bad.” For the good is the familiar. The new arrives only by mischance. As Picasso says, it is a fault. And by sanctifying our faults we create.

She cited it in response to a question from the audience (“Are you preoccupied with the ugly in your work?), and the way she described the impression it had made on her was that there may be things in your work that other people criticize or find ugly – and those are the things that make the work unique and which ought to be cultivated the most.  (Cf. the first Impressionists who were despised as making ugly works that we now consider beautiful.) 

I like this notion, though I don’t think that this principle would work ALL the time – I think it would depend a good deal on who’s giving the criticism – but I think it is very interesting nonetheless. 

As someone who also took a long time to write a novel, I was also relieved to hear that she had a lot of unused material leftover in the end. The other thing she said that I thought was interesting was that she wanted HSAPB to be more like a person and less like a book, and I think that she did a good job of achieving that.  (Well, except for the part where it is actually a book, but it is unlike quite a lot of other books.)

Still a book, but a good one!

I stayed afterwards to ask her to sign my copy (nobody else did this...maybe they all have the e-book?), in spite of the fact that I can have superfan qualities that definitely make me sheepish and awkward. (Nevermind that I’ve met her before, or that we share a publisher....there was no mitigation there.) But I love getting my books signed, which was enough to make me determined that we would both just have to endure my awkwardness and Sheila signed it in a really cute way:

Irresistible signing gimmick!  Love it.

There are lots of good profiles on Sheila and reviews of this book, but here is a recent worthwhile U.K. article which convincingly compares her to Philip Roth.

Livre Service Boxes -- Book Exchange Program in NDG Montreal

A new take-a-book, leave-a-book program is underway in NDG in Montreal. I was excited to discover this book box on my way to subway this week:

Libre service boite â livres - book box

The boxes look just like newspaper boxes and have a prominent notice indicating that they are not a return box for library books.  It's a great idea, and I really hope it catches on!

Click here for the official announcement of the new initiative from the City of Montreal.

Seen Reading

Today was my first post over at Seen Reading, hallowed website of literary voyeur, Julie Wilson. After years of spying on Montreal readers and nowhere to broadcast the news, I've happily become a contributor to the expanded site, which as of right now is featuring sightings across the country, in Nova Scotia, Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver.

I'm really excited about it! I've been having so much fun. It's one thing to see the bestseller lists, and quite another to spot someone on the bus 200-pages deep into Late Nights on Air or Tess of the D'Urbervilles. So watch out, Montrealers --- I'll be watching you.

I've been checking out everyone's shoes, too. This is Montreal, after all.

The Word Bookstore

The Word Bookstore, 469 rue Milton, Montreal

Last Friday was the Word's annual Christmas party, which seems like as good an occasion as any to offer my own little tribute to this amazing Montreal establishment.

I'd visited the Word a few times before I even moved to Montreal. A good friend of mine was doing her Ph.D. in philosophy at McGill, and while I was visiting we popped in a few times on our way to and from campus. I was always wowed by the stock and the conversations that people would be having in there.

After I moved to Montreal and started working at the philosophy department, it was usual to hear from Adrian (co-proprietor of the shop, along with his wife Luci) before the start of each term as he prepared his book orders, as a number of McGill profs put their required texts on order there. It was at last year's Christmas party that my friend Ian introduced me to Adrian, and it was wonderful to meet in person after so many years of business conversations on the phone. Ian has a really lovely essay about the store on the Vehicule Press website here.

Adrian and Luci and the Word were also profiled in the Montreal issue of The New Quarterly, in which I was lucky enough to have a story included. It's a fascinating little interview in which they talk about how they started the business (over 33 years ago!) as an underground bookstore (the only indication was a picture of George Bernard Shaw in the window) in their apartment on Milton before eventually taking over the Chinese laundry next door that remains their current location.

Although primarily a used bookstore (with a notably good selection at good prices), the Word's support of local authors is really tremendous, as evidenced by this display for my book, complete with poster and taped-up clipping of the Gazette review:

Too shy to go in while this display was up, I snapped this photo from outside.

Definitely the best bookstore in Montreal!