The Angel Riots Sings

I've finally managed to read my first novel since the baby was born and it was a quick and dirty read.

The Angel Riots, by Ibi Kaslik, enters the touring mayhem of fictional bands The Divine Light Orchestra and The Angel Riots. Through the eyes of Jim, a teen aged violin prodigy, and Rize, a mentally unstable trombone player, we are introduced to a cast of rising Canadian indie pop hipsters.

The brush Kaslik uses to paint some of her characters is not always a kind one. Margo, the only female singer, is described as a chubby, manipulative lush. Kellogg, the mastermind behind the many-membered Montreal pop orchestra, is an egotistical, coke-sniffing self-promoter.

With more tender considerations, Rize and Jim emerge as complicated, poetic voices nearly consumed by the monster of pop success.

For this seriously sleep-deprived mom, The Angel Riots comes alive when Kaslik delves into the gritty lifestyle of touring. I flipped through the pages, hungry to read more about the drugs, the booze, the destructive force of such a transient lifestyle. The book is juicy but it was hard for me to discern how much of the thrill I experienced was informed by my sense that, ahem, some of the characters seemed awfully familiar.

Penguin made no bones when it was promoting The Angel Riots to suggest it was inspired by Kaslik's relationship to certain popular Toronto indie bands. And anyone who is familiar with the personalities in these bands may recognize certain physical and emotional characteristics in some of these characters.

At times I caught myself losing sight of the fiction of Kaslik's work and focusing mainly on the scandalous non-fiction possibilities. Oh my god, has he really done heroin? Wow, was her ex really that crazy?

These sorts of questions are not the kind that normally arise when I'm reading a novel, and Kaslik herself has mentioned to me that she is sick of folks forgetting that she is a fiction writer, not a tabloid editor.

Based solely on the strength of Kaslik's writing, the novel could maintain its page-turning pace for a reader less familiar with the indie scene in Toronto. And its poetic moments are strong. I'm just not currently in a head space to appreciate fine writing. Which is maybe why the dirty angels in Kaslik's novel entertained me the most.

93-Year-Old Writes Her Way to Old Lady Freedom

93-year-old Lorna Page has become one of the oldest first-time novelists, with the debut of A Dangerous Weakness.

The book is described as a "raunchy" feminist thriller set in the Alps. Page used her advance to buy a country house, where she plans to locate her friends who would otherwise be destined for the old folks' home.

I'm not surprised that a great-grandmother can write but it's reassuring to see that she can also be published. A couple of years ago I taught creative writing to seniors and while the talent was there, it was often presented (especially by the women) with a sense of embarrassed humility. And yet these writers had so much more to say than most of their young twenty-something counterparts.

Unlike the undergrad writing class I taught, where every other story involved a couple having an argument (inevitably over the phone or in a car), the seniors wrote about abandonment, war, immigration and domestic joy and strife.

Their stories offered surprises (and of course, some cliches) but they were eager to get their lives on paper. And yes, there were some raunchy stories (one male student always described his female characters' "bosoms") which when read out loud had to complete against the snoring of one student who could never remain awake for the entire two-hour workshop.

In retrospect, I loved my class. Hearing aids were more popular than Havaianas and when I asked them to bring in snacks for our last class, not one but two students brought in homemade Christmas cake. The students, who ranged in age from 70 to 92, were earnest, passionate and committed. Lorna Page would have fit right in.

James Bond Meets Iron Chef

Over the course of two days on the beach, I read the latest installment of the James Bond series, The Devil May Care. Penned by Sebastian Faulks as Ian Flemming, the novel follows Bond through Iran as he tracks an evil dude with a deformed hand (it looks like a monkey paw).

Bond attempts to thwart monkey paw's plans to kick start a cold war, relying on a cast of American, British and Iranians characters to assist him.

If it seems like I am being light on details, it's because very little of this novel's plot, characters or themes made any kind of impression. That said, what more does one want from a beach read?

I have never read a Bond book before, so I am not sure how Faulks fares in capturing Flemming's voice. I suspect Faulks relies too heavily on descriptions of food (I could list every meal Bond eats or doesn't eat during his time in Tehran) while skipping nervously over more intimate encounters (it is still not clear to me if Bond actually has sex in this story or not).

Rules on caviar are expressed with the kind of heavy-handed glee novice researchers usually impart in their early novels (Gee, did you know caviar should smell like the sea, not like fish?) and it betrays an authorial insecurity about Bond's character.

That said, now having the sweet joy of imagining Daniel Craig shirtless in every scene made reading The Devil May Care a much more enjoyable beach experience than say, imagining Roger Moore taking on a dude with bad teeth.

New Yorker Depends on Staff for Coke Leads

David, Carr, a culture reporter with the New York Times, is also the author of Night of the Gun, a forthcoming memoir detailing his darker days of addiction.

The book includes copies of Carr's rejection letters, including this one from the New Yorker.

I only wish my own New Yorker rejection slip had included an inadvertent reference to its coke-addled staff.

White Tiger: Indian Fiction That Crushes the Cardamom Cliche

Yesterday I finished reading Aravind Adiga's novel, The White Tiger. As I savoured the last word of the novel (which sums up the thrill I felt while reading it) I tried to thwart the sense of loss that creeps up on me whenever I reach the last page of a novel I adore.

The White Tiger (both the novel and its narrator) kicks ass.

For the last few years, publishers' catalogues have been packed with "new Indian literary talents." These writers are almost always female and almost always rely on sentimental descriptors, melodramatic plot lines and recycled mythologies.

In other words, most of these books have been shit.

But the world of half-baked cardamom fiction has been swept aside by the narrative strength of Adiga's first novel. The White Tiger fearlessly chronicles the hypocrisy of India's rich and poor. It is a scathing indictment of the country and its inhabitants, narrated by one of the most compelling characters I have ever encountered in fiction.

Balram Halwai is born into poverty and claws his way up into the driver's seat, both literary and figuratively. Driving his master around in his Honda City, Balram is introduced to call girls, shopping malls and government pay-offs.

Disgusted by the degrading influences of the city, his master's family, and the demands of his own family, he becomes increasingly (and unapologetically) absorbed by the corruption.

Early in the novel, Balram confesses to murder and the action of the story leads us to this pivotal scene. What is especially impressive of Balram's narrative prowess is how his particular crime ultimately implicates an entire country without ever coming across as preachy or parabolic.

The White Tiger is a furious force to be reckoned with. This book is a must-read.

Because Continuing Ed Writing Workshops Don't Offer Enough Crappy Writing Sharing

HarperCollins is launching, Authonomy.com, a website for lisping assholes. Just kidding.

But not really. The site provides an opportunity for aspiring authors to share their manuscripts with "book lovers."

Never mind that book lovers read books and only aspiring writers read aspiring writers' manuscripts for free, this new "social networking site" promises to provide me with daily reasons to set my own self-generated slush pile on fire and throw myself onto its burning pyre.

As with any ill-conceived publishing project, there is the feint promise of consideration for publication for the most popular uploaded works. And, like all poorly run writing workshops, jerkoffs with no literary background and way too much arrogance are free to comment at will on your work.

May the bloodshed and purple prose flow freely.

Is Porn Going to Save Your Stalled Writing Career?

If you call yourself a writer, and you have yet to be published, you will inevitably hear a lot of advice from well-intentioned folks on What You Should Write to Get Published.

This advice usually runs along the lines of: "You know what you should write? Erotica. Seriously, I heard a radio show/friend/stranger talking about how this man/woman writes about pirates/vampires/dragons and sex and s/he's making six figures a year."

You're most likely to hear this advice after having not written a word in months and not being laid in about as long and of course the person telling you this advice is about as qualified as a carnie to advise on matters literary or otherwise.

And yet, despite all this, you will always have in the back of your mind this sense that that well-intentioned asshole is right.

Well, the asshole is right. Sort of. British author Rupert Smith has received critical praise and popularity for his high-minded fiction, but he's now revealing that he's outsold himself as a gay erotic writer under the nom de plume James Lear.

According to Smith:

"One disgruntled customer on Amazon described a James Lear novel as "smut with pretensions", and I think this is actually quite a good summary of the Lear method. It is unashamedly smut; let's face it, most readers like good sex scenes, whether they're dressed up in literary drag or not. The "pretensions" are the added extras: I try to provide a ripping yarn, some decent character development and a lot of good jokes."

Of course, knowing that good porn sells is not the same as being able to write good porn. I was once complimented by British author D.M. Thomas (author of the smutty White Hotel) for my "talent for writing sex." I've admittedly held this praise near and dear to my heart, along with a comment from a girl who told me I had big eyes (I don't really), and the guy who once admired my "perfect nail beds."

You know why? Because writing about sex is hard (groan). I'm just finishing up Camilla Gibb's Sweetness in the Belly, and last night I actually grimaced while reading a passage in which she describes heterosexual intercourse.

I reached out and grabbed him from behind to pull him in as close, as deep, as could be, me the shell, he the snail, home.

First of all, while a limp penis may resemble a slug, there is nothing sexy about it. Secondly, if your vagina is a shell, you might want to go get that checked out.

As always, people will assume popular writing (i.e., erotic) must be easy to craft. But sex, whether literary or literal, is a delicate business that, no matter how tempting, offers no guarantees.

Sometimes the pay-off is huge and sometimes, well, sometimes, you're better off watching TV.

Books, Google Maps, Twitter

If anyone can explain to me what this means and if I should care, I'd love to hear from you.

Ibi Kaslik Takes Centre Stage

Last night was the Toronto launch of Ibi Kaslik's new novel, The Angel Riots, hosted by Pages' This is Not a Reading Series.

The event began with an ill-matched interview between Eye Weekly's Sarah Liss and Kaslik. Liss' cool man, cool vibe did not connect with Kaslik's critical considerations of the creative process.

I mean, I wasn't expecting Liss to get all Mike Wallace on Kaslik, but Liss definitely wasted an opportunity. Kaslik is one of Toronto's most honest and intelligent writers and her thoughts on the craft are always thought-provoking, if not provocative.

After the one-on-one, Kaslik pulled out a guitar and put on a show of spoken word, melody and beats. All eyes in the standing-room-only crowd were fixed on Kaslik, although I admittedly had one eye surveying the room to see if any familiar faces could be spotted.

Much of Penguin's PR machine has focused on the 'social scene' that inspired Kaslik's rock novel and I wondered if any scenesters would make an appearance that extended beyond the page. There were a number of hipster exes in attendance (in fact Apostle of Hustle performed after Kaslik) but none of the charts' current darlings were to be seen.

Of course, who needs showy pop stars when you've got a lit lion taking centre stage?

As Kaslik advised Andrew Whiteman when he was plugging in her guitar, "Less effect is better." In Kaslik's case, it's all about keeping it real.

Not a Bedtime Story

Heather O'Neill's Lullabies for Little Criminals is a book that I somehow ended up ignoring for a year even though every reader I know had recommended it to me at some point or another.

I am likely preaching to the choir, but if you haven't read this novel yet, you need to go out and buy it right now.

Lullabies is the story of 12-year old Baby, a young Montrealer who is being raised by her twenty-something junkie dad. Baby is tender and brave and fascinated by the antics of the characters in her hood. But as she shifts unwillingly into adolescence, her relationship with her father is redefined and she is confronted by ever-increasing violence.

O'Neill's descriptions are some of the most original and inspiring perspectives on the everyday. She also so wholly and completely inhabits the character Baby that it is only a matter of pages before I was completely enthralled by this special child's universe.

This story is not for the faint of heart, as the plot takes dark and depressing dips, but the reward is the company of one of contemporary literature's most charming and compelling characters.

So True

Love and Consequences, the memoir of a girl growing up with gangs in South LA, was written by Margaret B. Jones and published by Penguin last week to good reviews.

Yesterday it was revealed that Ms. Jones is not an Native American-Caucasian who was raised by an African American foster mother. In fact, Ms. Jones is Ms. Seltzer, a 33-year old creative writing student who attended a private school in Valley.

Ms. Seltzer's outing is good timing in the sense that it follows on the heels of Misha Deonseca's confession that her childhood Holocaust memoir, Misha: A Memoir of the Holocaust Years, was made up. Hey, Seltzer might have lied about black gang members but at least she didn't try to capitalize on the Holocaust!

Ms. Seltzer's outing is also bad timing in the sense that the American media is already obsessed with a certain white women supposedly spreading false narratives about a black man (cough, Hillary, cough Muslim rumours). Do we need further fodder for the mass media's barely concealed contempt for us white girls?

For years readers have been enamoured with true tales of hardship and overcoming. The bloggers at Jezebel have put together a great summary of the cultural phenomenon.

Over at the LA Times, Tim Rutten has chosen to consider the recent flush of fake memoirs and blames not the under-funded publishing industry but rather the narcissistic tendencies of American culture that promotes an ever-increasing appetite for stories of victimhood.

In fact, if you flip through the channels these days, all you'll find is victims; the bread and butter of successful franchises like Law and Order and CSI is the endless variations of abuse that can be affected against a human. Perhaps our cultural obsession with forensics is not about science or the gross-out factor of a cadaver's ribs being peeled open but rather our growing unease borne from our fear that the only authentic experience we will ever know is the one that will kill us.

What Your Spines Should Reveal About You

Apparently bookshelves are not supposed to reveal what you've read, but rather what the person you would like to be would/has read.

When hubby and I lost our libraries to a fire, there was a serious moment of gulp, holy shit. As two academically-minded types who in moments of low self-esteem could always count on the fact that we were book people, what did it mean to no longer own any books?

The first time I visited my future-husband's bedroom, I didn't check out the thread count on his sheets or the pictures on the bedside table. I went straight to his bookshelves. A summary glance picked out Foucault, Anais Niin and a book called "The Jewish Book of Why."

My conclusion?

Please god let this man be funnier than all signs indicate.

Of course, once I'd moved into that bedroom, I learned that 1) My guy had learned way more with his philosophy minor than I had; 2) He had a great sense of humour; and 3) He actually hadn't finished reading most of the books on his shelves.

When I added my fiction-heavy collection to his mix, our libraries balanced one another out and wedding bells soon followed. Well seven-alarm fire, then wedding bells.

When we finally settled into a new place with nary a bookshelf between us, our home seemed strangely empty (that also might have had something to do with the fact that our furniture consisted of two lawn chairs). Of course, it was only a matter of weeks before a pile was teetering beside my side of the bed; but the sight of books in our home has never brought us the same sense of ease and assurance as it once did.

I think what I realized when we lost all our hard- and soft covers of self-worth was that our books actually only reflect a time in our lives. And they take up a lot of space. And brief time and big space = nostalgia.

It turned out our books were nothing more than a 16 year-old's dried flowers collection. Beloved, cherished and expired.

Did I go out and buy some of the books I lost? If I wanted to read them again, yes. But we have a new rule in house: If the book cost less than $50, we get rid of it after we've read it.

And while my husband has taken to buying $1000 dodo books online so that his new collection can grow slowly but grandly, I continue to buy my humble little novels and short story collections and give them away.

Perhaps it's what we're willing to let go of that reveals who we really are.

Kanye Smart Like That

Kanye has a book of Kanye-isms coming out and he's published a few of the pages on his blog!

Wisdoms from the inevitable bestseller Thank You and You're Welcome include "Be Leery of the Free Gift Bag" and "Getting Use to Getting Used." So true.

The book looks like a CD liner and reads like an annoying email forward. Like the kind my dad insists on sending that offer quotables from the likes of Mae West and Ghandi adorned with winking emoticons.

Why do I have a feeling this book is going to end up republished in calendar form?

Writers Also Get B.O!

I am not sure why an article on authors with tattoos annoys me.

Is it because I don't have tattoos or because I don't have a sweet ass book deal?

Maybe it's because the underlying assumption that writers having tattoos is novel (hehe) just continues to perpetuate this wholly outdated mythology of writers being this breed separate and beyond the barely literate masses.

Or perhaps it makes me sad because it is such an innocent and tentative nudging at the mind/body disconnect inherent in written and visual arts. The work, removed from the self, reduced to type on the page, circulates independently from one imagination to the next, with little regard for the flesh from which it came.

Oh god, am I equating books to orphans?! This is seriously the worst period I've had in years.

Late Nights on Air Will Keep You Up

Thanks to cramps and hormonal despair, I spent the weekend in bed alternating between listless staring into space and polishing off Elizabeth Hay's Giller award-winning novel Late Nights on Air.

I was surprised at how the novel's setting and characters entrenched themselves in my imagination. It's a serious book, reflective and ambling like a bearded academic who wears socks with his sandals.

I should not have liked this book, what with its nostalgic Canadiana (it is set in a Yellowknife CBC radio station in 1975, its characters are compelled by native causes and stirred by tales of early Arctic voyages) and yet I found myself yearning to return to its pages to discover the fate of its characters.

Hay deftly manages a rather large cast of characters, although I did occasionally find myself having to turn back pages to remind myself whose tract I was following. And while a canoe voyage reads more like a footnote than the climax, within that voyage are descriptions of northern land that I am glad to have absorbed.

After a week with this book I feel haunted not only by its striking images of the harshness and beauty of Yellowknife but occupied by its characters. They are a sad and complicated lot and Hay is able to succinctly relate their complexities without resorting to cliches.

Late Nights on Air is an affecting read for those willing to be absorbed its tales.

Stand Like Two Trees Apart, But Together, Except When a Hotter Tree is Watching and Then Definitely Apart

According to this New Yorker piece, Shakespeare is considered the best-selling poet of all time. Which sort of blows, because I once read that Ethan Hawke was the best-selling poet of all time and I have often cited this fact when trying to underscore my argument for the death of American intellect.

However, my poet-enemy number three (EH is first, Jewel is second) is Kahlil Gibran, author of The Prophet, the most over-quoted sentimental pseudo-spiritualist script ever published.

If you have only been to one wedding in your life, chances are you got to watch the weepy single BFF of the bride earnestly read from its yellowed pages while an entire reception hall of heads nodded drunkenly along.

I also blame Gibran for encouraging generations of women to date dipshits with drugs habits and no jobs, thanks to his brilliant quote: "To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to."

Yeah, I dated a lot of guys with big aspirations. They bummed my smokes, drank my booze and didn't give me back my change when I sent them in to buy condoms.

So, thanks to Joan Acocella's essay, it is with measured delight, and not a lot of surprise, I find out the Propheter was an egotistical a-hole who led women on so that they'd foot his bills. Oh, and he dreamt that he ate watercress with Jesus.

Which is almost as good as the guy I dated who looked like Jesus...

Abstinence Teacher Will Convert You

I have a fast fun read for all of you during these bitterly cold and snowy days.

Tom Perrotta's The Abstinence Teacher is one of those books where you catch yourself thinking of the characters as if they were people you actually knew.

Perrotta is the author of Little Children (another highly readable novel which is much better than the movie) and an American writer who has earned a reputation for tackling the hypocrisy and internal conflicts of suburban dwellers.

In The Abstinence Teacher we follow the collision course of Ruth Ramsey, a liberal sex-ed teacher who is forced to teach abstinence to her students, and Tom Mason, a born-again recovered addict who coaches Ruth's daughter's soccer team. As Tom becomes increasingly less sure of his faith and his fellowship, Ruth's own strict adherence to her liberal principles leaves her feeling disconnected from her daughters. Their mutual alienation quietly bridges the two, as the schism between their political camps widens.

The novel is quick, wry and humane. A perfect excuse not to leave bed next weekend.

Even Dead Men are Winners

The recently deceased Norman Mailer has been given the dubious distinction of being the 2007 Bad Sex in Fiction Award winner for his book The Castle in the Forest.

The winning passage describes fictionalized sex between Klara Hitler and her husband Alois at the time Adolph is conceived. 'Nuff said.

And the Winner Is...Sigh. Come On Up, Ondaatje

Yaaaaawwwwwwn.
Michael Ondaatje's Divisadero has earned him his fifth Governor General's Literary Award.

For those of you who have not read the book, it is named after a street in San Francisco that has nothing to do with any of the three plotlines that are very loosely strung together in what may be Ondaatje's least accomplished novel.

Of course Ondaatje has more talent than most writers in this country but did he really need another dust collector?

The jurors Austin Clarke, Eden Robinson and Rudy Wiebe had this to say about the book:

Lyricism and whimsy are necessary ingredients of brilliant narrative language, and Michael Ondaatje achieves this magnificently in Divisadero. He establishes, in excellent measure, his mastery of poetic seduction, while mindful to include tenderness, compassion and grace. Grace, after all, is the ultimate gift which Ondaatje offers us in Divisadero.

Is lyricism and whimsy really necessary for brilliant narrative language? Really?

Golden Compass Points Straight to Hell

Two more Catholic School Boards in Ontario have pulled Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass from their school libraries' shelves.

What this means is that every child in Peterborough will be lining up to see the film (which premieres tonight).

Congratulations, Catholic censors. Just what kids needed: another excuse not to read.