Top authors pick the season’s best
Fiction, poetry, biography make the cut
Recently Postmedia asked the English language nominees for the Governor General’s Literary Awards to tell us their book recommendations for the Christmas season. The books were to have been published in 2012. Most of them followed the rules. We’d like to thank Diane Hargrave, of Diane Hargrave Public Relations, for helping to coordinate this effort and for all the writers and their publicists who helped make it happen. Here are the responses in no particular order:
Carrie Snyder, whose book The Juliet Stories (House of Anansi Press) was nominated for best in English fiction, had two books to recommend: Mad Hope, by Heather Birrell (Coach House Books), and Sleeping Funny, by Miranda Hill (Doubleday Canada): Two very different story collections that moved and impressed me this year. Birrell’s effortless, nuanced realism is heart-rending, while Hill’s inventive and attentive voice casts a magic spell.
Robert Hough, nominated for his novel Dr. Brinkley’s Tower (House of Anansi Press): I put a lot of novels down. If it’s genre fiction, the writing often (though certainly not always) clangs on the ear: all the characters sound the same, and the writing inside the quotation marks sounds the same as the writing outside the quotation marks. Yet when it comes to literary fiction, I’m often (though certainly not always) frustrated by the lack of story design: if you take a full page to describe a guy crossing a snowy field, something pretty eventful better happen at the end of that field.
So I’m always on the lookout for books that combine the writing of literary fiction and the movement of story you get in genre fiction. A model for all literary authors is City of Thieves by David Benioff (Viking). It has that wonderfully complete sense of place and character coupled with a nice, wry sense of wit, though it’s married to a plot line that could fuel a bestselling thriller. During the siege of Leningrad, two thieves are apprehended. A general makes them an offer: instead of shooting them on the spot, he gives them four days to find 10 eggs for his daughter’s wedding cake. If they fail they die. If they succeed they go free. This, in a city where there’s been no food for three years. Miss it at your peril.
David McGimpsey, who was nominated for poetry for his collection Li’l Bastard (Coach House Press) recommends No Regrets by Ace Frehley (VH1 Books): Kiss’s lead guitarist and “Spaceman” had a difficult and often painful road after leaving the mega-group, but he tells his story (and the story of the profound divisions of power in the group) with an unself-pitying demeanour and without the rock bio’s more standardly raucous celebrations of denial.
Noah Richler, nominated for his book of nonfiction What We Talk About When We talk About War (Goose Lane Editions): Not for everyone, the most memorable book of my reading year is without a doubt Lynn Crosbie’s Life is About Losing Everything (The House of Anansi). You don’t always know where you are with Crosbie but, no matter, there is no question that she is one of the most original writers working in North America, not just Canada, today. She is a woman whose acerbic genius and illuminating grip on the zeitgeist reminds me of the American writer and critic Lynne Tillman, for unlike so many, Crosbie’s writing is never undone or rendered banal by her profound understanding of popular culture and the delightful references she makes. A terrific stylist, there is no one else in Canada who writes quite as she does — who can force a reader, as she did me, to frequently have to put her novel down because I was laughing so hard though also painfully, because her protagonist is the one being so awfully skewered. To laugh at Crosbie’s pages feels so often like complicity in a cruel act made permissible only because the author is both the perpetrator and the object of her relentless, uncompromising observation. A bonus, a portrait of an only recently bygone Toronto comes through. Were she American, there would be no doubting the singular place at the table Lynn Crosbie occupies.
Tamas Dobozy, nominated for his collection of short stories Siege 13 (Thomas Allen): The Changeling by Kenzaburo Oe (Grove Press) came out in 2011. It is such an incredible book it easily outlasts most other books by at least 12 months, if not 12 years. Oe has long fascinated me by merging the commonplace with the fantastical, the non-fictional with the fictional, in ways that put the current crop of reality-TV fictions to shame. This novel deals with the suicide of the narrator’s (Kogito’s) brother-in-law, a famous filmmaker who left behind numerous cassette tapes through which he engages in dialogue with Kogito “from the other side.” As the two interlocutors go back and forth, stop-starting the tape recorder on which the cassettes are playing, we are treated to a meditation on the power of art to affect political change, the ambiguous nature of honesty in human friendships, and over 50 years of postwar Japanese history. There is also an absolutely unforgettable scene that offers a blow-by-blow description of how to make turtle soup — from the moment the live turtle arrives in your mailbox. For anyone interested in mindful reading, this is my favourite book of the last year.
Ross King, whose book Leonardo and the Last Supper (Bond Street Books) won the non-fiction award: How better to spend the winter holidays than with Lawren Harris, the man who was arguably Canada’s best painter of snow? The biography by James King (Inward Journey: The Life of Lawren Harris, Thomas Allen), was, for me, the most eagerly awaited book of the year. King (no relation, I hasten to add) does not disappoint. He reveals Harris to be the most enigmatic, spiritual, tortured, talented and versatile member of the Group of Seven. But we see how this fussily abstemious (and ultimately sexually abstinent) painter was also the Group’s most scandalous member, causing an uproar in the polite society of 1930s Toronto when he left his wife for another woman. The full story of his life is long overdue — and makes for a fascinating read.
James Pollock’s book of poetry is Sailing To Babylon (Able Muse Press): To anyone on your list who cares about poetry, I urge you to give Lazy Bastardism: Essays & Reviews on Contemporary Poetry (Gaspereau Press) by the poet-critic Carmine Starnino. It’s a fierce, honest, brilliant book, and an enormous pleasure.
Vincent Lam’s nominated novel is The Headmaster’s Wager (Doubleday Canada): I wholeheartedly, and in fact passionately recommend The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe (Alfred A. Knopf Canada). This wonderful memoir introduces us to Schwalbe and his family, in particular to his remarkable mother, and to their conversations about books during her cancer illness. It is a treasure on many levels. We encounter one of the best things that books can offer — a conduit of shared ideas, and a touchstone between loved ones. The books that mother and son read are signposts on a difficult and important journey, and they are part of the life of words and imagination that even a circle of two can inhabit.
Karen Hines’s nominated play is Pilot Episode (Coach House Books): Monoceros by Suzette Mayr (Coach House Books) would be to a Christmas stocking as unicorn to a manger: unusual, perhaps, but how fantastic. Intri- cate, devastating and beautifully original, Monoceros describes the lives of the many people affected by the suicide of a gay teenager and dances the line between humour and despair with style in a deeply compelling story of terrible inhumanity and beautiful humans.
Julie Bruck won a GG for her book of poetry Monkey Ranch (Brick Books): Nathan Englander’s work What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank (Knopf) may wink at Raymond Carver, Isaac Babel, and others, but these funny, sad, and tender tales are unmistakably his own. Among several standouts is the title story, in which two Jewish American couples play a kind of parlour game, predicting who among their friends and family would risk hiding them if a second Holocaust. In The Reader, a writer whose career is tanking, drives across the continent, from one bookstore reading to the next, with his only audience member in hot pursuit — an old man who refuses to let “Author” call it a night. For that, readers can be grateful.
Rachel Hartman was nominated for the children’s book Serphina (Doubleday Canada): True confession: I read mostly fantasy and science fiction. A book set in the real world has to be really special to keep my attention, and 20th century historical fiction is an even harder sell. It is a tremendous surprise, therefore, and a testament to this astonishing beast of a book, that my favourite read of the year is Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (Hyperion). Set in Second World War England and France, it’s got the requisite pilots, spies, and Nazis. I loved it for its vivid characters, its moving depiction of female friendship, its themes of truth and courage, and a plot twist so wonderful I’m almost scared to breathe lest I spoil it. Bring a hanky; this one’s a weeper and a keeper.
Susin Nielsen won the GG for her children’s book The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen (Tundra Books): One of my favourite reads this year was Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter (Harper). Someone coined the phrase “seri- ously funny” to describe certain books (my own included), and this book is a perfect example. Laugh out loud funny at times, yet deeply moving; I had to stop to shed tears more than once. The author’s compassion for his (deeply flawed) characters is clear. Moving between 1960s Italy, present-day Los Angeles and elsewhere, the book is a perfectly crafted jewel. Plus Richard Burton makes an appearance — what’s not to love about that?
Lisa Pasold was nominated for her book of poetry Any Bright Horse (Frontenac House). She recommends Chaser by Erin Knight (Brick Books): In this elegant collection ... Erin Knight examines our survival despite/because of physical and metaphorical illness. The idea of consumption pulses through these poems — both “the fashion to suffer from the lungs” and our persistent economic devouring. Beautiful, disturbing, smart.
Deborah Kerbel was nominated for her children’s book Under The Moon (Dancing Cat Books): The Fault in our Stars by John Green (Penguin Young Readers Group). I adore a book that demands the full range of my emotions, no holds barred. This love story about two teenage cancer patients will haunt you, charm you, and ultimately, shatter you. John Green aims high and achieves brilliance here.
Cathy Ostlere, who was nominated with Dennis Garnhum for the play Lost, A Memoir (Scirocco Drama) picked a book for the entire family: The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate (Harper). The One and Only Ivan will remind adults why they loved to read as children. This wondrous story is about Ivan, a silverback living in a cage in a mall. “Gorillas are not complainers. We’re dreamers, poets, philosophers, nap takers.” Beautifully illustrated.
Catherine Banks won a GG for her script It Is Solved By Walking (Playwrights Canada Press): The poems in Monkey Ranch (Julie Bruck) are spare and true and fashioned from a deep wonder of relationships. Bruck clearly, slowly taps out the heartbeat of every exposed moment. I read a poem and when my breath restarts I read another.
Wade Davis was nominated for his work of non-fiction Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest (Alfred A. Knopf Canada): T. E. Lawrence famously lost the original 250,000-word manuscript of his account of the Arab Revolt at Reading Station while changing trains at Christmas 1919. In a fever pitch he rewrote the entire Seven Pillars of Wisdom, from memory. Deeply conflicted by his public image as the hero of a war that had crushed the very notion of heroism, he began the first chapter: “Some of the evil of my tale may have been inherent in our circumstances.” He went on to describe how his men lay naked shamelessly beneath the innumerable silences of stars. If he were to be a war hero, British society would have to deal with the truth of his desires and compulsions.
Trina Davies was nominated for her script The Romeo Initiative (Playwrights Canada Press): Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain (Crown). Quiet is a well-researched, accessible and enlightening book for introverts, extroverts and the rest of us who fall somewhere in-between. Cain provides insight into the Extrovert Ideal that has dominated North American culture, and explores how to value and access the talents of introverts.
Carol Bishop-Gwyn was nominated for her biography The Pursuit of Perfection: A Life of Celia Franca (Cormorant Books): Having lived in the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, I love Russian history. Robert K. Massie’s 2012 tome, Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman (Random House) is a compelling story of a brilliant woman who attempted to adapt the principles of Enlightenment to the feudal Russian Empire. A companion book is Eva Stachniak’s intelligent and thoroughly researched work of historical fiction, The Winter Palace which makes the reader an interloper witnessing the arrival of a naive German princess brought to the St. Petersburg court to marry Empress Elizabeth’s imbecile nephew, Peter, and who rises to take the throne herself as Catherine the Great. Best of all, Stachniak has a sequel coming out next year.