The Winner of Newfoundland and Labrador Reads 2012 is...

Come, Thou Tortoise by Jessica Grant defended by Chad Pelley



This past month, five opinionated, successful artists graced the (web)pages of Book Fridge to participate in the first ever Newfoundland and Labrador Reads competition. Inspired by CBC's Canada Reads, they each chose a book they thought each Newfoundlander and Labradorian should read, and the discussion that followed showcased a fine portion of the large, brilliant writership we have in the province. Check out the entire discussion below.

The five books were This All Happened by Michael Winter (Darcy Fitzpatrick), The Wreckage by Michael Crummey (Jamie Fitzpatrick), February by Lisa Moore (Ruth Lawrence), Hold Fast by Kevin Major (Joel Thomas Hynes), and Come, Thou Tortoise by Jessica Grant (Chad Pelley). After four weeks of debating, cursing, loving, and defending, Grant's novel took the title.

Here's what Chad had to say about the win: "Of course the tortoise won the race. It's just how the fable goes, right? Jessica wrote a gem and I put a lot of thought into my answers. The other four books were fantastic hares, stallions and stalwarts, as were the arguments they were propped up on. Honestly, I write because Winter's book stirred me into it. The other four writers are icons and influences beyond what you can imagine, I mean that: it's not about "best and better" here, it's about the fact that Jessica's book is simply and admirably untouchable in a way that's a pleasure to read. Picture fireworks: some burst tomato-red and others Christmas-green and some do a crackling machine gun noise you weren't expecting. Every book has merit in the same way every firework packs its own punch, but Jessica Grant's Come, Thou Tortoise is the whole show, start to finish. It's every colour, pop, and bang."

Thank you to Darcy, Jamie, Joel, Ruth, and Chad for participating, and making Book Fridge's first Newfoundland and Labrador Reads a success.

Buy Come, Thou Tortoise

Check out CBC's Canada Reads

Posted on Thursday, February 2, 2012

No Reader Is an Island: Book Fridge Hosts Newfoundland and Labrador Reads

PART ONE

Inspired by CBC's Canada Reads, that annual literary romp in the bookshelf, Book Fridge introduces Newfoundland and Labrador Reads with a crew of opinionated, intelligent artists who have no problem defending their chosen literary dish. While some rely on wit and wordplay, others keep it simple and let the book speak for itself.

The way it`s going to work: the panelists have to answer six questions. Every few days I`ll post their responses which will be followed by a Twitter or Facebook question that readers can discuss. At the end of the discussion on January 28, the panelists will vote on the book they think should take the first ever Newfoundland and Labrador Reads.  They can`t vote for their own but must rate the other books from 1-4 (1 being their first choice). There will be a rating system and the book that gets the most points wins.     

Without further rambling, I’d like to introduce our illustrious dais and the damn good books they are defending.

DARCY FITZPATRICK was born in 1979. He writes, makes films, works in television, reads books, runs Signal: The St. John's Blog and scours the internet because he loves stories. See also: coffee.

Darcy will defend This All Happened by Michael Winter.  



Why should This All Happened be the book Newfoundland and Labrador reads?

Darcy: Every book on this list is a book I've either loved reading or have wanted to read since its publication--before the Internet swallowed me whole and became the primary source of reading material. So if you're someone like me, who's tendency to read novels is few and far between, or if for any other reason it just so happened that you could only read one book from this list this year, This All Happened, by Michael Winter, is your book. And it really is your book. Winter has a way of inviting you in effortlessly with his prose. Never mind the fact that in This All Happened he encapsulates St. John's so authentically, he puts Republic of Doyle to shame. Never mind that his chronicling of a single year, from one New Year's eve to the next, makes this the perfect book to start reading at this very moment. Such features only begin to hint at the reasons why you, Newfoundland and Labrador, should read this book.

Just like we have our own, distinct way of talking to one another, in This All Happened, Winter has his own way of writing that sets him apart from the rest of Canada and the literary world. Dialogue flows naturally through his descriptions of person, place and situation so much so that it doesn't even make use of the usual punctuation. His prose, like a conversation between his heart and the reader, skips across time like a stone skimming water, creating beautiful impressions at each point of contact that resonate with you long after you've read them.

Still not convinced? Ask anyone you know who's read This All Happened - no, wait, don't even ask them - just bring up the title of the book in their company. They will, without hesitation, tell you that you have to read it. Just like I'm telling you now. Just like you'll tell the next person after you've read it, too. 

JAMIE FITZPATRICK lives in St. John's. You Could Believe in Nothing (Vagrant Press) is his first novel. He’s also host and producer of The Performance Hour on CBC Radio and an online hockey columnist for the About.com network.

Jamie will defend The Wreckage by Michael Crummey



Why should The Wreckage be the book Newfoundland and Labrador reads?

Jamie: The story begins in 1940, and a guy travelling outport Newfoundland with a film projector, screening Hollywood movies. It's a telling detail: the greater world is asserting itself, prying open communities that have been largely unchanged for generations. The main characters, Wish and Sadie, have a brief romance before being separated and thrown out into that world. The Wreckage takes us from Little Fogo Island to St. John's, Canada, and the U.S., with a lengthy stop at a Japanese prison camp during World War Two. From 1940, it follows its characters through the rest of the 20th Century. They abandon their rural roots, but can never leave them behind. That's a quintessential Newfoundland story. And it's all handled stylishly and masterfully by the writer. A great read.

JOEL THOMAS HYNES is the author of the novels Down to the Dirt and Right Away Monday, and the acclaimed stageplays The Devil You Don’t Know (w/S.White), Say Nothing Saw Wood and Broken Accidents. This past year Hynes wrote and directed his first film Clipper Gold. Running the Goat Books and Broadsides recently released the chapbook God Help Thee: A Manifesto, while Pedlar Press released Hynes’s first non-fiction collection Straight Razor Days. Hynes has been the recipient of several NL Arts and Letters Awards, The NL Artist of the Year Award, the Lawrence Jackson Creative Writing Award, The Cuffer Prize, and numerous black eyes.

Joel will defend Hold Fast by Kevin Major

Why should Hold Fast be the book Newfoundland and Labrador reads?

Joel: Hold Fast is a NL classic, no contest. Adventurous, unaffected, passionate, character driven storytelling at its absolute finest. A quick, momentous read accessible to people who dont make a habit of reading, an energizing, affirming discovery for younger readers, a nostalgic throwback for more seasoned readers, Hold Fast’s appeal remains as widespread as the accolades heaped upon it when it was first released in 1978-- it won half a dozen major awards including the Books in Canada First Novel Award and the Governor General’s Award (before it was even called the Governor General’s Award). Unlike too many of NL’s great works of fiction (Tomorrow Will Be Sunday, No Cage for Conquerors) Hold Fast is not only still in print, but continues to work its way onto the shelves of new readers every day, both on and off the Island. There’s something to that, thirty odd years later. 

RUTH LAWRENCE's work as an actor, writer and filmmaker has taken her to Ireland, France, the US, and across Canada. Her short films-BARK and Sweet Pickle- have screened across Canada and the US.  As co-Artistic Director of White Rooster Theatre, she produced and performed in the Canadian tour of MonaRita, a comedy that earned rave reviews and was named Outstanding Ensemble of Fringe Toronto 2011 by NOW Magazine. Ruth won the 2011 Joan Orenstein Best Actress Award for Clipper Gold at the Atlantic Film Festival and the 2011 RBC Michelle Jackson Award for Emerging Filmmaker to produce her next short film, Two Square Feet, to be shot in January 2012.

Ruth will defend February by Lisa Moore.


Photo by Doug Allen

Why should February be the book Newfoundland and Labrador reads?

Ruth: If you were over the age of twelve in 1982, you probably remember the storm that happened on February 14 that year.  Whether or not you had a family connection, your life changed drastically the next day.

There are several major events that have shaped the history of Newfoundland and Labrador, many involve loss of life.  Beginning with the extermination of the Beothuk, we have been profoundly impacted by events that have taken precious lives from our small population. The battle at Beaumont Hamel, the sealing disaster of 1914, on up to the sinking of the Ocean Ranger in 1982, these events have led to seminal changes in our outlook and attitudes. Certainly, our relationship to oil and its place in our future became more complex.

February by Lisa Moore takes the Ocean Ranger disaster personally. As it should be, as it is.  It's so easy to become jaded by a massive disaster; we forget to look at a person within the tragedy.  Lisa's engaging and wrenching book explores the breadth of the ripples left by that rig sinking. Through a dressmaker, we gain some understanding of that loss. We experience the relentlessness of grief.

Just as the opening chords in Ron Hynes' Atlantic Blue raises goosebumps, so for me does Helen's struggle to bring light into that dark place of mourning. In some way, we've all been touched by deep, lasting pain and, like Helen, have had to find a way to LIVE through it, past it. With that in mind, why shouldn't everyone from Newfoundland and Labrador read it?

CHAD PELLEY's debut novel, Away from Everywhere, was a Coles bestseller, won or was shortlisted for 4 awards, and a film adaptation is in the works. His short fiction has won awards, been anthologized, and published in journals and all that. His second novel, Every Little Thing, is currently being shopped around. He also runs Salty Ink.com.

Chad will defend Come, Thou Tortoise by Jessica Grant



Why should Come, Thou Tortoise be the book Newfoundland and Labrador reads?

Chad: Because Jessica’s book is a provincial treasure, so it should be forced on our readers at some point in their lives, like math and religion and power bills. You don’t have to love it like I did, but we should all know about it, like we do our other provincial treasures – labradorite, icebergs, the Northern Lights – because, like those things, this novel is a shiny rarity. And it’s all ours to boast about to the world. You should, as a local reader, want to know all about this wonder-woman wordsmith who dropped the country’s jaw 2009 and 2010, and who won every provincial award possible for this book: the Newfoundland & Labrador Book Award for Fiction, The Winterset Award for Excellence in Newfoundland Writing, and the NLAC’s NL Artist of the Year Award. No one else has done that clean sweep with one novel. No one but her. More importantly, there is no one like her.

Here’s a snapshot of the Flowers Family in his novel: When her father died, Audrey purposefully left the L out of her father’s obit, so it read Water Flowers, not Walter Flowers. Her father used to refer to the family unit as “The Bouquet,” (because their last name was Flowers), and “Uncle Thoby” has one arm longer than the other, for some reason, so he is obviously the one to change light bulbs or scrape ice from windshields. Grant’s outwardly off-kilter novel works because it is balanced with a sadness not milked into melodrama like most writers would do. Her diction crisper than celery, and she's more witty than the ocean is wet. That combo created a wildly imaginative story populated by outrageously interesting characters. What more can an author strive for, than being like no one else? When I looked at my bookcase to choose a book to defend, Come, Thou Tortoise stood out like a tall tree in a field of grass.

Is she my favourite writer? I don’t know, because I love authors for different reasons. But she is the first writer to have left me at a loss for words on why I love her work. And for that reason I consider her the freshest, most readably original voice in the country. Michael Winter, a CanLit icon known for his attention to detail, endorsed this novel with a plea, “Please —I beg you dear reader — read Jessica Grant.” As a reader, that should intrigue you. So try new things. Live a little. Parasail, sky dive, read Jessica Grant. Before the movie comes out, which is being adapted by the able Jordan Canning. Don’t be the person who didn’t read the book before they watched the movie, or your artsy friends will judge you accordingly.

The critics have sounded off with all the fervour of firecrackers trapped in a can, and there’s nothing left it can do to impress you. It’s jumped through the hoops, and it patiently awaits you. Buy it, read it, now. If only because it has the funniest passages I've ever read, and busts down the walls of what can be done with the novel form.

Comment privately by emailing kerri@bookfridge.com

Join the conversation, answer questions and post discussions on Twitter & Facebook.

Posted on Friday, January 6, 2012

PART TWO

Our next round of answers is posted for the first ever Newfoundland and Labrador Reads. These fine panelists, with fighting books in hand, have made some evocative and poignant arguments about why their book should be the one to take the title.

Will it be This All Happened, the book that Darcy Fitzpatrick says is "a blast of fresh oxygen that penetrated deep", or will The Wreckage, Jamie Fitzpatrick's choice, a book that allowed him a "small window on [his] parents and their generation" take the title? Hynes makes the argument that all we need is a great story and that in Hold Fast "you're not gonna turn a page and suddenly wonder what the fuck is going on, who's talking now, what year it is." Lawrence says February is the book we all should read because it "cracks open the sternum and exposes the terrifying reality of a heart. . . in shreds."  And Chad Pelley, defending Jessica Grant's Come, Thou Tortoise, was "amazed at the utter originality of prose, character, and craft." 

Four rounds of questions remain at which point we will vote to see which book will get it. I encourage you, dear reader, to ask yourself which books (or answers) you think are pulling ahead of the rest. Find Book Fridge on Facebook or Twitter to comment or discuss. 

Click on head shots and titles below to learn more about the panelists and to buy books. 

This week the five panelists were asked: How has this book impacted you personally?

DARCY FITZPATRICK



I first read This All Happened almost ten years ago to the day. I was a twenty-know-nothing, recent BFA graduate living in my parents' basement with no idea how I was going to make my way in this world. All I knew was that I wanted it to be in the arts and that I had to try.

Being from Newfoundland always felt like a handicap in that regard. I resented studying Fine Arts in Corner Brook, and living in St. John's felt more like a consequence than a choice. It felt so insular here, like there was no way to do anything beyond the confines of the island. I was convinced this was a problem; that I was in the wrong place and that it was always the wrong time.

It was a shitty attitude, but I just didn't know any better. Reading This All Happened changed my perspective completely.

The book shines a spotlight on the city of St. John's, shedding light on a place I'd been living for most of my life but had never fully appreciated. Written in a style that's all its own, reading This All Happened was like a blast of fresh oxygen that penetrated deep into my lungs. It invigorated me and inspired me and trounced all over my shitty little attitude.

I was in the right place all along. And it's always been the right time. That was ten years ago, and the fact remains as true, if not more so, today. If you ever find yourself calling that into question, it's best you pick up This All Happened and get ready to take a deep breath.

JAMIE FITZPATRICK



It never occurred to me until you asked that question, but I think the book might have allowed me a small window on my parents and their generation. I grew up in Gander in the 1970s. My parents and their friends had all grown up in the Newfoundland of the 1920s and 1930s. They would tell stories about heating the house with a woodstove and living in communities where nobody owned a car. Just a few decades later they were living the modern middle-class life, raising families in bungalows, vacationing in Florida, holding jobs with pensions. Bernice Morgan once said that people of that generation, who lived through the 20th century, witnessed a pace of change and modernization never seen before or since, and I think she's right. The Wreckage is a story of that generation.

JOEL THOMAS HYNES



I first read Hold Fast at age twelve. Up to that point I'd never read anything that was set in Newfoundland, voiced in my own small town lingo - and here comes along a story about a young Newfoundlander dealing with very real and traumatizing issues of loss, cultural upheaval, emotional alienation, who ultimately unearths the inner strength to rally against the injustices around him and work his way towards a sustainable and credible self-identity. I think at that age, it's safe to say I was pretty much starved for that story. Maybe it's the unselfconscious dialect, the urgency of the story, the no-frills portrayal of small town NL life, but I've probably read the book twenty times since that first reading and it remains one of about a dozen works of fiction I continuously return to. It's allowed me to believe that there're stories from our own back yards that are not only worth telling, but celebrating - individual, personal stories that come from the heart. Hold Fast explores and captures the NL psyche with an unpretentious, modest ease that lets the reader actually settle in and read. There's no deciphering text here, you're not gonna turn a page and suddenly wonder what the fuck is going on, who's talking now, what year it is. It's just straight up storytelling. Yes it's been traditionally classified as a young adult novel, but there's a reason it was denied a place on the school curriculum and as I mentioned, I reread it this past year and it holds up alongside the best books I read. Back to the question at hand, Hold Fast is the book that gave me permission to pursue the writing life, for whatever that's worth.

RUTH LAWRENCE 



I'm from a large family and, as these things sometimes go, death was a normal part of my life since I was a small child- specifically the death of a little sister, grandparents, uncles, aunts, young friends, my young father. Not only did I have a close personal relationship with heartbreak but I saw clearly how it affected those dearest to me. February, written from that place of grief, chilled me. Losing a spouse is a particular anguish that I hope to avoid for many, many years but this book cracks open the sternum and exposes the terrifying reality of a heart, and a woman, in shreds. 

CHAD PELLEY



From where my jaw dropped so much, I had to get facial reconstructive surgery, which was costly. Kidding. I guess the answer is it has helped me grow as a writer. We’re an odd pairing, me and Come, Thou Tortoise. I write about relationship pessimism and fatal flaws and half my characters die, and my approach to writing has been to emotionally engage a reader with crushing scenes and universal conflicts and constant tragedy. Whereas this book is more fun than a circus. But you mix the right things sometimes – coffee and chocolate, scotch and ice, the right book and the right reader – and the end result is rejuvenating. I didn’t know you could have a blast and still be human and thematic and resonate with readers. Grant’s was the first book to considerably move me and make me laugh all in one go. It challenged me as a reader to let my guard down and step into this odd, sensuous world she’d crafted. By the third page I was amazed at the utter originality of prose, character, and craft, and how there’s this whole new and radical way of using language and engaging a reader that no one had shown me before. I didn’t know sheer pleasure-to-read-ed-ness could hold my interest as much as the weighty sorrow of, say, David Adams Richards’ Mercy Among the Children. So it has broadened my horizons as a reader too. To be honest, the backcover description of Come, Thou Tortoise scared me away, initially. Luckily she co-launched with Lisa Moore, so, I was forced to hear a passage from the book. And my jaw dropped, and I looked around the room like, is everybody else hearing woman’s way with words? There’s wordsmithery: where Author X arrange words very well, and there’s wordGoddery: where Jessica takes a divine command over words. It was fun to see, from a writing standpoint.

Discuss how your novel fits in the culture/history of Newfoundland and Labrador.

DARCY FITZPATRICK

It's impossible to ignore the role that the city of St. John's plays in This All Happened as a character in the book. Save for the odd excursion out of town, almost every day in the book's year-long chronology is punctuated in some way by a St. John's landmark or location that, if not familiar to you before the reading will be intimately so afterward.

The book is like a time capsule for Newfoundland and Labrador's capital city. A time capsule filled with little nostalgia bombs that will set off with almost every turn of the page. That said, I think readers familiar with the city will be struck by how much seems to have gone unchanged in the ten plus years since the book was written.

While the prose is in a style that is all his own, Winter still manages to capture the townieness of the St. John's vernacular. And the heart of the city, the beloved downtown of St. John's, sings.

JAMIE FITZPATRICK

Do I lose points for admitting this is the question that interests me least?  Making claims for a book's representation of Newfoundland and Labrador reflects the bias of the reader more than anything else. If it rings true to one Newfoundlander, you can be sure it rings false to another. I will say that The Wreckage is a great story about Newfoundland, featuring fascinating Newfoundland characters. Its larger themes - displacement, modernization, emigration - reflect an important part of the Newfoundland experience in the 20th century. But framing it as a "Newfoundland" book is much too limiting.

JOEL THOMAS HYNES

How the Christ should I know where or how it fits in? I just read it a few times and liked it because it struck a chord in me somewhere. It's not some contrived bleeding hearts lament to the outports and it’s not some mincing urban jizz-fest with no goddamn heartbeat. It sits on a different shelf. I don’t know how or why it's hung around as long as it has. I can just repeat that it's a good easy read. I guess I could speculate that Hold Fast's longevity can be attributed to its relevance to our oral storytelling tradition, how because the narrative voice comes off so natural that you feel like the story is happening to someone you know, some young buck who's out there right now on the road in the middle of winter trying to make his way back to a home and a way of life that no longer exists, how the raging innocence of one dislocated ("fictional") lad from the bay speaks more truly to the collective naiveté of the majority of NLers who refuse to accept that what we once were is a myth, that what might have been is long lost to us and on us and that where we're headed is a far cry from rubber boots and chocolate bars. I could go on like that but I don’t want to get myself in a spin tonight because I tend to equate the word culture with another C word and then I have to battle the urge to smash things. Hold Fast though, some book.

RUTH LAWRENCE

This book is important to the cultural history of our province. It comes from a female writer who is at the centre of a literary community that is flourishing. I wish I could draw a circle on this page because an illustration would serve much better than my feeble attempt to describe it!

When it comes to female fiction writers in Newfoundland literature, probably the earliest that most people remember is Margaret Duley (though there were a few more before and during her time).  Now thankfully, almost every student in the province knows the work of Bernice Morgan and her monumental achievement with Random Passage and Waiting for Time. 

Lisa Moore through her books - Open, Alligator and now February - has not only entered that circle but her effect will ripple out for years to come. Just as Duley did for Brown, Brown did for Morgan, Porter, and Clark.  From there, that group inspired Moore, Winter, McGrath and others and they in turn encouraged and/or inspired Grant, Tilley, Butler Hallett, Story and happily many, many more.  Moore is positioned in just about the middle wave of this ever expanding sphere and her own circle of inspiration continues to spawn great new works from its writers.

CHAD PELLEY

This is not a novel that fits in with the quaint image of Newfoundlanders as hardy cod-catching souls. It is instead a lively portrayal of the modern-day St. John’s I know: a place populated with vibrant, intelligent people with their heads in the clouds and their hearts on their sleeves. The amazing research going on at MUN is alluded to in the book, for example, and the sheer volume of unique people who populate St. John’s. The novel is vaguely set here, with “Seagull Hill” as Signal Hill and “Wednesday Pond” as Mundy Pond.

In terms of artistic culture, it certainly sits on the tail end of the evolution of Newfoundland fiction. Jessica Grant was the last writer to join the legendary “Burning Rock Fiction Collective” whose writers, like Michael Winter, Lisa Moore, Ramona Dearing, and Libby Creelman, have certainly played a huge role in grabbing the national spotlight on Canadian writers and pointing it at the fresh, sensuous, evocative diction Newfoundland fiction has become known for. Jessica, as its newest member, and the latest sensation out of the province, has played a role in helping our literature evolve and diversify. I love the dark fiction we’re known for: Kennneth J. Harvey, Joel Thomas Hynes, Percy Janes. But I love the lightness in the new stuff too: Jessica Grant, Pasha Malla, Libby Creelman’s The Darren Effect.

The question: In the 2009 Canada Reads debate, panelist Anne-Marie Withenshaw said that we celebrate authors, filmmakers, and songwriters because their work "resonates beyond our cultural borders."  Sarah Slean said it's the universal appeal that makes a book great. How does your selection resonate beyond the cultural borders of Newfoundland and Labrador to appeal to a wider audience be it national or international?

 DARCY FITZPATRICK on This All Happened



At first blush, This All Happens appears to be an insiders-only book. A love letter to a tiny, out-of-the-way city that few have visited or even heard of (OK, before Doyle, anyway). But the way in which Winter captures our beloved St. John's transcends the need to know the place. To wit, it is his depiction of the city that invites you in and makes you feel as though it's where you belong.

Then you've got the romantic entanglement, the struggle to make it as an artist, and the philosophical nuggets that reveal themselves with such ease. Winter’s story could have been set anywhere else, and the universality of it would remain intensely apparent. His coup de grace is the way in which he weaves that universality into a place foreign to most, though which by the last turn of the page will feel more like home than wherever you may happen to be while reading it.

 JAMIE FITZPATRICK on The Wreckage



A story that can't transcend its immediate time and place has failed a fundamental test. But The Wreckage passes that test brilliantly.

At the heart of most great novels you'll find great characters. No matter how fascinating the era or setting, how compelling the plot, or how dazzling the writer's style, if I don't care about the people, I'm not going to care about the book.

That's the true basis for my defence of The Wreckage. From troubled Wish to reckless Sadie, from the American officer Johnny to the Japanese soldier Nishino, the story teems with people who come alive in your imagination, people you struggle with and puzzle over, who stay with you for the duration of the book and beyond.

I've already mentioned some of the novel's overriding themes: the tumultuous advance of the 20th Century, the casualties left in its wake, people uprooted and seeking grounding in the new, urban, modern world. It's the characters who bring those themes to life, making The Wreckage a rich and complex story, a real page-turner that can draw in any reader, regardless of that reader's familiarity with Newfoundland and Labrador. 

 JOEL THOMAS HYNES on Hold Fast



The Grapes of Wrath, How Late is Was, How Late?, Money, Ask the Dust, House of Hate, The Catcher in the Rye, The Wars, The Dharma Bums -- what do all of these books have in common? Well, for one, neither of them are narrated by a dirty fuckin turtle. But they all weave a tale of a character's immensely emotional, spiritual and physical journey from one point of being to another. Setting is just that, setting. Setting should be plausible, but ultimately redundant. If a book or an author gets slotted as "regional", then more likely someone got a little heavy-handed with their geography or locale, someone got a little too attached to Mom's homemade buns and lost sight of what makes a book a great one -- a kick ass story told with an honest voice. Newfoundland has nothing to do with Hold Fast's lasting presence on bookshelves all across North America, but rather it's that readers connect with the honest emotional journey of a young man's struggle for truth, his warranted outrage towards the cruelty of fate and the deceptive workings of society, and his willingness to change in the name of personal growth. Where on the planet do people not, however privately, want for personal truth and growth? Where do people not, however covertly, not wish to overthrow that which binds them to a certain lot in life? Don't get me wrong, Hold Fast does possess a certain undeniable NL flavour, but much moreso its strength lies in its authentic, unfeigned portrayal of the human condition, and it's this quality that enables any good story to resonate with readers far and wide and usually allows for a long and enduring shelf life.

 RUTH LAWRENCE on February



If I can use an example from the theatre: whether you are experiencing the story of the moral faults of Hedda Gabler as written by Ibsen in Norway in the late 19th Century or the extraordinary life of the ordinary outport nurse Myra Bennett as written by Chafe in the 21st Century, it will be the way the story is told that will determine its appeal to an international audience. February is about a solitary woman reconciling herself with an immense tragedy.  The intimate story of Helen’s mourning is well told and engaging.  Because it is set in Newfoundland doesn’t matter.  Perhaps that it’s written by one of many great storytellers born of the place does matter.

 CHAD PELLEY on Come, Thou Tortoise

North America is old, and other international literary hotspots –  England, Ireland, France – are even older. That means every story has been told. We’ve heard it all now. But we haven’t heard it the way Jessica serves it up. Her language, and the imagination of her characters, is unprecedented. It’s keeping literature fresh. She’s won over the country and the novel’s been published in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, etc, too, so there’s clearly a universal appeal.

On a grander scale, books like this one are helping modern literature diversify. She put many things previously kept separate – “literary fiction” and not-so-serious narration, serious situations and wacky characters, humour and mystery – in the same blender. Readers are drinking it up. That’s a game-changer, and hopefully, an eye opener for publishers. We don’t all yearn for another novel set against the backdrop of a war, or dense metaphoric passages to feign admiration for. There’s nothing wrong with those kinds of books, but I’d like CanLit to be known for its diversity, and boundary-pushing books like this help that cause. I know there are more writers as different as Jessica Grant out they're going unpublished, because a lot of publishers have a flawed idea of what their readers want (it's a danger of basing decisions on past book sales: just because a book sold doesn't mean the reader loved it). Thanks to the wild success of books like Come, Thou Tortoise, I’d like to think publishers will feel comfortable diversifying their lists now.

Comment privately by emailing kerri@bookfridge.com

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Posted on Thursday, January 19, 2012

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PART FIVE

When reading novels, we might remember scenes or places, but it’s a good character that really makes us connect to those scenes and want to be in those places. The novels we keep coming back to, the classics and soon-to-be classics, all have that in common. So what makes a character so great? Is it “bloody honesty,” that they’re made up of “faults and limitations as much as their virtues,” or is it a character’s conviction “to be who he is” or how she faces tragedy? Maybe her “off-kilter” perceptions are more attractive than we’d like to admit.

This week the panelists were asked: what is it that makes your character so fantastic?

DARCY FITZPATRICK on This All Happened



Oh the temptation, seeing a friend's journal or diary left out and no one else around. If you've ever found yourself in this situation and caved into your guilty desire to pry into the secret life of someone close to you, no doubt you found yourself mildly disappointed as you turned page after woefully self-unaware page.

Not so with the one-year chronicle of Gabriel English's life in This All Happened. He's just so bloody honest. Almost unrealistically so. I think that's a large part of what's so appealing about his character. Would that we were all so in touch with our thoughts and feelings, able to condense them down to sublimely philosophical and acutely accurate sentences, as though our heart of hearts had its very own Twitter account.

What brings this super power of his back down to earth and allows the reader to really relate to Gabe is the fact that, much like engaging in the aforementioned social media platform du jour, it doesn't seem to get him very far in life. Certainly not in his love life, which varies from vague to painfully pitiful. And as for his financial success, or lack thereof, it may well reach its apex in the story when Gabe manages to work out a settlement deal on a defaulted student loan.

Gabriel is working on a novel at the start of the book, and by the end we don't find it lining the windows of every book store in the country. Winters would never be so crassly saccharin as to allow such a momentarily satisfying measure of his protagonist's success to offend his readers' sensibilities.

Gabe's not exactly winning, but he's trying.

The effort never ends for Gabriel English, but then neither does his perspicacity or his resolution to be inspired by it all. And dammit if that's not inspiring.

JAMIE FITZPATRICK on The Wreckage



Like most of us, Wish and Sadie are unexceptional people defined by their faults and limitations as much as their virtues. Capsized by events - some of their own making, some beyond their control - they push through the years as best they can, and their best isn't always good enough. It will all bog down in melodrama or banality if not for the skills of a terrific writer at the top of his game. Great fictional characters are individuals, particular and precise. But they're more than that, because there's so much in them that rings absolutely true. The Wreckage has that addictive quality I only find in great novels, the way they keep you up all night reading, greedy for more, the story clearing and clouding your head at the same time. Great buzz.

JOEL THOMAS HYNES on Hold Fast



Michael, 14, parents killed by a drunk driver, his whole existence turned upside down. Very involved in small town NL lifestyle -- rabbits, fishing, cutting wood, freedom to roam. Throughout the book Michael is ensnared in that desperate grey zone between childhood and young adulthood, and probably would have experienced this at a much more manageable pace had it not been for the sudden tragedy he suffers. Michael is a very honest, willing, upright, if a little innocent, young man who simply cannot stomach bullshit in any form, and it's these character traits in turn that make Hold Fast the ultimate townie-versus-bayman story. As he's uprooted from his small town lifestyle and thrust into the seeming soulless squalor of "big city" life (big city in this case being the fictional town of St. Alberts, which if you pay close attention to the geography in the book can only mean a larger scale version of Corner Brook), he's in for quite a culture shock. Ridiculed and patronized for his small town colloquialisms and mannerisms, pigeonholed by his accent, those qualities that a young buck from the bay might take for granted or even feel proud of are suddenly used against him to make his life a bit of extra hell. But at the same time Michael possesses a "street smart", fend-for-yourself personality that offers him an advantage that even he is unaware of. His rural upbringing makes him older than his years in many ways, and he's feared because of it. But at the same time, given his new surroundings, Michael feels all too well the sting of the sudden pointlessness of his once valuable skill set -- the proper way to sharpen a blade, gut a fish, use a chainsaw, fix an engine, navigate the woods, build a fire -- skills that once made him an equal among men twice his age and made him a valuable member of his household, are now cause for much dissent and divvy up a feeling in Michael almost akin to shame. Maybe on a grander scale Hold Fast can be said to be a closer-to-home version of the many social obstacles out-migrating NLers experience when they hit the mainland, unhinged from everything they've ever known and loved. But what gives Michael the edge is his unfaltering loyalty to his roots and his bloodline, so even though he might second guess at times, even though he might make half-hearted attempts to tow the line at different points in the story, he never strays far from who he is at his core, and eventually takes drastic measures to ascertain and maintain his right to be who he is. There's a lesson in there for a lot of us.

RUTH LAWRENCE on February



You'd have to read it, here's a couple of short passages:

On how they didn't say goodbye, middle pg 9, the three paragraphs that follow. "They chopped wood or they shovelled."

On the beginnings of labour, pg 37-38. "I can't," she said.

On the dog, pg 114-120 "Is this what a life is?"

On the night it happened, pg 157 "Here's the funny thing."

On what he said, pg 290-293 "Tell Helen; tell Helen."

Actually, these lines above, all from Helen or her imagination, tell us a lot about her

CHAD PELLEY on Come, Thou Tortoise



Right, Audrey Flowers. I’ve been going on and on about Jessica’s writing till now, but that’s led to a good set up for this question. Basically, you filter Jessica Grant's wit and wordsmithery through her main character, Audrey Flowers, and you end up with the most endearing and strikingly original character to ever grace a Canadian novel. Just Google the book and read the comments in virtually any article on Come, Thou Tortoise: people were mesmerized by this character. I’ve really never seen readers so taken by character. A story, yes, a book, yes, but never a character. Throughout 2010, readers everywhere – on Facebook, in emails – were quoting Audrey’s signature sentences “I would not say no to a [X]” or “Rule Number one about [X]” like Audrey was a movie character out of a blockbuster comedy. She is, and thinks, and acts like no other character has, and that made her far more fascinating to read than other household-name characters, like Romeo and Juliet (so what they fell in love, who hasn’t?) or Holden Caulfield (who reminded me of myself and 1000 people like me, instead of flooring me with his uniqueness of thought and action), etc.

Her perception of the world and reaction to it is delightfully offkilter, and she describes the world in a consistently bright way, and she’ll even make up her own language to do it. She describes Sylvester Stallone as "bullety.” No one has ever used that adjective before, “bullety,” but it's perfect, right? It's no wonder Michael Winter, a CanLit icon known for his own attention to detail, endorsed this novel with a plea, "Please -- I beg you dear reader -- read Jessica Grant.”

DARCY FITZPATRICK on This All Happened

Every single day for a year, meaningfully encapsulated in poignant vignettes within all too familiar surroundings. It's hard not to read a bit of yourself into this book, it's got that kind of pull-you-in. Allow yourself the pleasure. Give in.

JAMIE FITZPATRICK on The Wreckage

A modest story that somehow encompasses everything and feels like a human history of modern Newfoundland. Doesn't pander to our myths. Doesn't flaunt its authenticity. Rich and expansive while remaining plain and simple. Seemingly effortless. What more do you want?

JOEL THOMAS HYNES on Hold Fast

It's a very economical book with bounding appeal for readers (and non-readers) of all ages.

RUTH LAWRENCE on February

Because it's a good book.

CHAD PELLEY on Come, Thou Tortoise

Winter’s book made me start writing fiction. Crummey’s taught me more than anyone. Major deserves Joel’s praise, and Moore is CanLit’s finest barebones writer. But Jessica Grant can’t be replicated, and to be so readably “one of a kind” is the apex of literary praise.

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So what happens next? The panelists and I are going to score the arguments and the title that gets the highest score wins.

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Posted on Sunday, January 29, 2012