One Irish man (Dermot Healy) and three Canadian women
(Suzette Mayr, Farzana Doctor and Angie Abdou) made up Saturday’s
Community Centred event. It initially appeared that Healy was the odd one out, but all
four authors contributed to a lively panel discussion on the many definitions
of community.
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Mayr began with a reading from
Monoceros, which is based on a true event; a 17-year-old boy
committed suicide after homophobic bullying at a Calgary school. Using multiple voices,
the novel explores the way a tragedy can affect a broad spectrum of people. We
heard from the boy’s (secretly gay) guidance counsellor, who wonders “What was
the last thing he said to the dead boy?
Good
luck. Or
Perk up.” Mayr spoke
about the importance she placed in documenting contemporary Calgary (which
reminded me of Chimamanda Adichie’s admonition about
the dangers of the single story). We learned that her publisher asked her to disguise Calgary in an
earlier novel,
Venous Hum, in order
to make it more appealing to an American audience. (
Venous Hum is on my top ten list of favourite books, by the way.)
Farzana Doctor’s new book,
Six Metres of Pavement, is also based on a true and tragic story. A
news clip about a man who forgot his child in the back of his car stayed in the
back of Doctor’s mind for a long time, wondering how that man would be able to
carry on with his life afterwards.
Six
Metres of Pavement was discussed earlier this year at the
Lesbian Book Club
that meets at Audreys Books in Edmonton; we had previously discussed her earlier novel,
Stealing Nasreen. Both books feature
intersecting communities in Toronto.
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There's a wonderful cross-section of people in the community Angie Abdou created for
Canterbury Trail. She
said that each of her characters
thinks he or she is the
main character, but really it is the place/geography that carries that role. It was nice to have the opportunity to thank her in person for commenting on
my review of her newest book. The excerpt
she chose was in the voice of Michael, a real estate developer who was
uncharacteristically stoned on mushroom tea. His pregnant wife, Janet, fondly
remembered Michael’s former ski bum self, murmuring, “Long time, no see.”
Abdou's last line was the perfect lead-in to the final reading, Dermot
Healey’s Long Time, No See. Healey
said he incorporated details he encountered in his County Sligo community and
calls himself a “global local.” One of my favourite lines from the book is: “Memory
is a stranger who comes to call less and less.”
1 comment:
Thanks for the writeup. I enjoyed that VIWF event a great deal. The readings were excellent, as was the conversation.
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