Happy 10th: Douglas Glover on Adderson, Barnes, Blaise, Flood, Helwig, Jernigan, Rooke, Smith and ... well ... Biblioasis

Below in the first of a series of appreciations that have begun to come in from readers as part of Biblioasis's 10th anniversary highlighting the important writers and books from Biblioasis's past.  More will follow, at 2-3 per week, over the next several months.

Biblioasis is a life boat, rescuing passengers from the sinking (always) ship of a culture steering headlong towards the tsunami of our murky future (the new). Some of the passengers rescued mean a lot to me as a writer, person and thinker. John Metcalf's hilarious early fiction, anything by the astonishing Leon Rooke, David Helwig (poetry, fiction, and that amazing Chekhov translation), Clark Blaise -- to tell the truth, not much of the new stands up to these giants. Of the newer variety, Caroline Adderson and Cynthia Flood will be read long after the deluge. I deeply admire the elegance and wit of Russell Smith and, of course, there is the often overlooked Mike Barnes, a Canadian original, a world original. And the holy poetry of Amanda Jernigan. These are my companions in the night. --Douglas Glover

Further appreciations can be sent to Dan Wells at dwells@biblioasis.com, and will be published on Thirsty and elsewhere in due course.

In the Field ... literally?

Yesterday Team Biblioasis showed up in force on the streets (and, yes, in the fields) of Eden Mills, Ontario. With record turnouts, surprise performances, and patented Leon Rooke perorations, this year's celebration was positively, well, splendiferous.

The poets flocked to Dionne Brand and Lorna Crozier--we broke ground with Amanda Jernigan, who was called up by Leon Rooke to read from her newly-minted collection--and of course we celebrated the publication of Claire Tacon's In the Field, winner of the Metcalf-Rooke award. The lunchtime reading culminated with an impromptu chorus, led by Mr. Rooke himself, of Claire, Amanda, and Alison Pick each reading simultaneously from their own books ... while the festival founder accompanied them with rowdy song.

Photo Credit Tony Saxon of the Guelph Mercury. (Also, there may be a video.)

The Globe 100

Though it's not officially out until tomorrow, if you're a compulsive snoop and head over to the Globe & Mail Books Pages, you can see that they are publishing their annual Globe 100 list tomorrow. Biblioasis has two inclusions in the top 100 for 2009. Terry Griggs's fabulous farcical slacker-cozy of a literary novel makes the cut of the Canadian novels, as it well should, sitting alongside titles by Annabel Lyon, Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood and company. Sally Cooper enthuses:

Chockablock with winks and digs at the literary set, Thought You Were Dead is a gleeful Russian doll of a novel. Reading it, one trips along, revelling in its wordplay, its wit, its puns and allusions, and its jokes. Then there are the characters: the inventors, writers, realtors and reputation-management specialists who people the antic “sleepy town” of Farclas, Ont. The story is equal parts comic murder mystery, hero’s journey and layered intellectual puzzle, and it satisfies on every level.


Perhaps a bit more surprisingly, Kahn & Engelmann has made the cut as well, this time in the Best Foreign Fiction Category, alongside titles by Zoe Heller, A. S. Byatt, Aleksander Hemon, William Trevor, Lorrie Moore, Nicholson Baker and several others. Very good company indeed. (We have, incidentally, received some even potentially better news about Kahn & Engelmann this eve, though I shall not share it quite yet, for fear of jinxing things. Stay tuned, and I will say more when I can.)

Of Kahn & Engelmann Chris Scott writes: A fascinating family saga, Kahn & Engelmann chronicles five generations of Jewish life. Beginning in 1880 near Lake Balaton, Hungary, the narrative moves episodically from turn-of-the-century Vienna through the 20th century’s convulsions, culminating in the Holocaust, the foundation of Israel and the battles for the survival of the Jewish state.

Other Biblioasis alumni made the cut for books with other presses. Leon Rooke was listed for his collection of short fiction The Last Shot, as was Ray Robertson, for David, both published by Thomas Allen. And though it may be a bit much to claim Annabel Lyon as an alumni, we did publish a chapbook of hers back in 2005, a few copies of which are left. Congratulations to all.

Biblioasis Event Calendar

More to follow shortly regarding events, including a Cynthia Flood Toronto appearance, but I thought I should get this up for now.

Biblioasis 2009 Event Listings

May 5^th, 7PM: Terry Griggs, Thought You Were Dead, Quickening: St. Luke’s Parish Hall, Burlington, Ontario (with Sandra Sabatini and Kim Echlin)

May 9^th-10^th: Stephen Henighan, A Report on the Afterlife of Culture, Pacific Festival of the Book, #110-2750 Quadra St, Victoria BC

May 11^th, 7: 30 PM: Stephen Hengihan, A Report on the Afterlife of Culture, Oakridge Library, 1–650 West 41st Street, Vancouver, B.C

May 12^th, 7:30 pm: Stephen Henighan, A Report on the Afterlife of Culture, Central Library, 350 West Georgia Street, Victoria, B.C.

May 13^th, 7:30 pm: Terry Griggs, Thought You Were Dead, Quickening: Landon Branch Library, 167 Wortley Rd, London, Ontario.

May 14^th, 7-9 pm, Cynthia Flood, The English Stories, Bistro Bar at the Sylvia hotel, 1154 Gilford St, Vancouver, BC.

May 21^st, 12 pm: Terry Griggs, Thought You Were Dead, Quickening: Callan Books, 15 York St., Stratford, Ontario (SIGNING)

May 23^rd, TBA: Terry Griggs, Thought You Were Dead, Quickening, The Manx Pub Plann 99 Reading Series, 370 Elgin St, Ottawa, Ontario

May 26^th, Hans Eichner, Kahn & Engelmann (read by Kari Grimstad), Harbourfront Reading Series, Toronto.

June 1^st, TBA: Terry Griggs, Thought You Were Dead, Quickening, McNally-Robinson, Toronto (with Vicki Delaney)

June 6^th, TBA, Cynthia Flood, The English Stories, The Manx Pub Plann 99 Reading Series, 370 Elgin St, Ottawa, Ontario

June 8^th, 7:30 pm: Terry Griggs, Thought You Were Dead/Quickening & Cynthia Flood, The English Stories, Wordsworth Books, 100 King st., South Waterloo, Ontario

June 9^th, 7:30 pm: Terry Griggs, Thought You Were Dead/Quickening & Cynthia Flood, The English Stories, Hans Eichner, Kahn & Engelmann (read by Kari Grimstad), The Bookshelf, 41 Quebec St, Guelph, Ontario

June 11^th, 7 pm: Cynthia Flood, The English Stories, TBA, Windsor, Ontario

July 5th, TBA, Terry Griggs, Thought You Were Dead/Quickening, Bayfield.

June 15^th, TBA: Cynthia Flood, The English Stories, Langara College, Nanaimo, BC

July 24-26, TBA: Terry Griggs, Thought You Were Dead/Quickening, The Leacock Festival, Orillia, Ontario

September 20^th, All Day: Terry Griggs (Thought You Were Dead/Quickening), Grant Buday (Dragonflies), Hans Eichner (Kahn & Engelmann, read by Kari Grimstad) and Leon Rooke (Hitting the Charts), at The Eden Mills Writers Festival.

September 20^th-27^th, TBA: Terry Griggs, Thought You Were Dead/Quickening, at Winnipeg’s Thin Air Writers’ Festival

October 30-Nov.2^nd, TBA: Terry Griggs, Thought You Were Dead, Quickening, at Bookfest Windsor

November TBA: Terry Griggs, Thought You Were Dead/ Quickening, Trent University, Peterborough

Leon Rooke's and Tony Calzetta's How God Talks in His Sleep

First glimpses of the fabulous Artist Book How God Talks in His Sleep, a collection of fabulous fictions by Leon Rooke and equally as fabulous artwork by Tony Calzetta, including the above pop up. Can't wait to see it. Looks like there will be a sister production called Peculiar Practices as well.

For more information, please go here.

A review of Rooke's Hitting the Charts from the Danforth Review

Better late than never: a good review of Rooke from the Danforth.

And, if you've not seen him, he'll be reading on Friday in Toronto at Type Books, and Sunday in Ottawa as part of the International writer's fest. Go if you can: you won't be disappointed.


Hitting the Charts
by Leon Rooke
Biblioasis, 2006

Read the TDR interview with Leon Rooke

Reviewed by Michael Murphy

If Walter Benjamin is right, and the art of storytelling is dead, then Leon Rooke’s Hitting the Charts is surely an anomaly. While most books are meant to be read in private, this collection of short stories begs to be read aloud, in front of a live audience. From "The Deacon’s Tale" to "Biographical Notes," the theatrical quality of Rooke’s stories, combined with his merciless attention to form, presents the reader with a corrective to plot-driven, stale prose. For anyone who’s had the pleasure of hearing Rooke perform, the reading experience is only slightly less intense.

Hitting the Charts spans across almost three decades of Rooke’s career. Yet, the stories feel as fresh and inspiring as any current writing in Canadian fiction. Rooke’s sentences seem to come from the mouths of caffeinated children, unwilling to stop for breath, stretching across entire paragraphs and pages. The effect can leave a reader bewildered. But Rooke’s humorous manipulation of language never fails to invigorate, enchant, and, most importantly, entertain.

In "Sixteen-year-old Susan March Confesses to the Innocent Murder of all the Devious Strangers who would Drag Her Down" (one of many brilliantly-titled stories, second only to "Winter is Lovely, isn’t Summer Hell"), a sixteen-year-old narrator recounts a tale of frustrated, unrequited love with a fitting lack of periods and commas. "Mr Reeves," she imagines herself saying, "I know it’s crazy and absurd and out of the question even but I declare myself I yearn I ache I love you Mr Reeves for god’s sake don’t let me keep sitting here too fragile in this instance even to remove my eyes from your face O tell me what I should do how I might give myself help me Mr Reeves because this has never happened to me with those others I shall show you in our lake for I am my father’s virgin." Susan March’s verbose narrative seems to take place entirely within her teenage mind, one too frenetic for line breaks or verbal restrictions. "O! O! O! to catch my breath!" she cries, mimicking the breathlessness of her weary reader. As wearying as Susan March’s narrative might be, if the story were told any other way the young girl’s teenaged, scatterbrained urgency would be lost. Many of Rooke’s better stories demonstrate a similar reliance upon form, including the last one in the collection, "Biographical Notes." Told through brief biographical statements, "Biographical Notes" is about a controversial filmmaker and the different people he has met and influenced throughout his life. Here, as elsewhere, Rooke takes a good story and makes it better by telling it in a new and energizing way, with a definite focus on the telling.

Although I am calling Rooke’s works stories, John Metcalf insists in the foreword to Hitting the Charts that Rooke’s stories be thought of as performances. He writes that the "most fruitful way to approach Leon is to think of him as a jazz musician in full flight of improvisation … Sometimes the story takes off; sometimes, it peters out" (9). Indeed, there are few stories (or performances, improvisations) in this collection that peter out. The rare exceptions to this rule are the stories that seem to sacrifice content too readily for the sake of form. For example, "Hanging Out With the Magi" and "The Problem Shop" both begin strongly, but end without purpose. The former tells a confusing story about a family that lives with ghosts, and ends with the reception of a baby in a box, and a man in a tree. Although the reader wishes to make sense of these events, the conclusion fails to pull them together, and the story loses impact as a result. "The Problem Shop" suffers from a similar lack of cohesiveness. The ex-con protagonist seems to want a longer story than he gets, and when his problems are solved by heading out to sea on an ancient schooner, the reader cannot help but wonder if heading out to sea, into an open environment, is not simply Rooke’s way of telling us he couldn’t think up a better ending.

While some of Rooke’s less satisfactory pieces leave a little to be desired in the way of content, it helps to remember that these stories take on entirely new shapes and directions when read aloud. On the page, "Gypsy Art" is a condensed, hard-to-follow car accident of words, chronicling the misadventures of the wandering Fazzini. But if you’ve had the pleasure of hearing Rooke read the same story aloud, the story’s wandering becomes Fazzini’s wandering, and you begin to get a sense of what it means to "hit the road."

Benjamin may be right — storytelling may be a lost art form. But Rooke presents a pretty strong counter-argument. There’s a history to each word he pronounces, each sentence he constructs. At times, his stories are tender and engaging. At others, bawdy and irreverent. Mostly, though, Rooke just knows how to tell a good story well. With him, it’s the telling that matters.

Michael Murphy has contributed to filling Station, The Windsor Review, and All Rights Reserved. He teaches writing in London (the Canadian version) and is a compulsive used book shopper.

Leon Rooke & Kathleen Winter read October 12th at TYPE Books in Toronto

Leon Rooke and Kathleen Winter take over TYPE books, located at 883 Queen St. W., at 7 pm, October 12th. This will be more than a reading: it'll be a performance. Leon's one of the best performers I've ever seen, and easily one of the best writers and storytellers in the country. If you've not seen him before, you're in for a treat. I saw Kathleen read for the first time when we launched boYs last month at Eden Mills, and she's extremely capable herself. Mark it on your calendar, and spread the word: as far as readings go, this one's as good as it gets.

Order of Canada

A few weeks ago Leon Rooke received word that he will be getting the Order of Canada. He'll receive it in a ceremony this fall. Congratulations! I can't think of a more deserving gent. Leon is one of Canada's best writers, a mentor to younger writers, a man who has given generously of his talent and time for decades. I'm happy to see that he's getting some acknowledgment for all that he's done.

Best Canadian Stories

I've just learned today that the first story in Kathleen Winter's short fiction collection boYs, 'You can keep one thing', has been selected for inclusion in an upcoming volume of Best Canadian Stories. Congratulations. The lead story in this fall's collection, it's a tale of culture shock, of a family that moves from England to Newfoundland, told in the voice of the young and naively perceptive heroine Maggie Carter.

This is not the first Biblioasis author to make the Best Canadian cut. Leon Rooke's novella Balduchi's Who's Who -- which was the first Biblioasis short fiction chapbook, and in my opinion the best thing he's ever written -- was selected by Douglas Glover for the current (2006) anthology. Patricia Young's story 'Hapless Girl' -- as yet unpublished, but hopefully destined for her second Biblioasis short fiction collection -- will appear in this year's anthology.

Speaking of Patricia Young, she has been selected as the 2007-2008 writer-in-residence at the University of New Brunswick. Another of her stories, 'Pool Man,' will be appearing in the next issue of the Fiddlehead.

Relit Awards

Two Biblioasis titles have made the Relit Longlist: Leon Rooke's Hitting the Charts: Selected Stories, in the story category, and David Helwig's Saltsea in the Novel. Disappointed not to see Patricia Young, Mike Barnes, and David Hickey there, as there's no doubt that each is better than many that have made the cut, but t' is the way of these things.

Speaking of those three, we'll be doing a new book by all of them in the next year or so: Patricia Youngs' first poetry collection in nearly a decade, a brilliant and very moving memoir on art, memory and madness called The Lily Pond by Mike Barnes, and David Hickey's wonderful first children's book.

Last year, both of our titles by Goran Simic made the Relit longlist, and his From Sarajevo, With Sorrow made the shortlist for poetry (losing out to Leon Rooke's first poetry collection, Hot Poppies.) For those of you who have not read From Sarajevo, With Sorrow, you should order yourself a copy. It's powerful stuff.

And while I'm speaking of '08 (& beyond), we have another Simic collection in the works, a selection of his best pre-war poems, which will be made available (with a few exceptions) for the first time in english. In Canada (& elsewhere in the english speaking world), Goran is known solely as a poet of war and immigration. But he had a varied and successful career as a writer and poet before the war, and we are hoping to broaden the understanding, appreciation and audience of Simic with this new book.