The Excerpt

Native Trees and Festus

(Words and images by Elizabeth Mitchell.)

Last year when designer, illustrator, and author Leanne Shapton walked into Stephen Fowler’s The Monkey’s Paw—the idiosyncratic second-hand bookshop on Dundas West full of rare finds and curiosities—she came across a government issued field guide entitled The Native Trees of Canada. Being the creative sort, Shapton was inspired to create a series of paintings in response to it. On Saturday a celebration of the publication of her very own The Native Trees of Canada (Drawn & Quarterly) took place at—where else—The Monkey’s Paw. To double the fun Shapton, co-founder of J & L Books, had author/artist/illustrator Jason Logan (of If We Ever Break Up, This is My Book fame) on hand for the release of his new book, Festus, a graphic take on the iconic Old West prospector (J & L Books). Both authors were in fine form, with outfits chosen to reflect their books’ aesthetics, as many came out to wish them well.

Author Jason Logan signs for the fans.

Author and publisher Leanne Shapton mingles.

The local literati toast two of their own.

William Gibson and John Mitchell: Worlds of Past and Future

(Words and pictures by Brendan Adam Zwelling; John Mitchell, left, William Gibson, right.)

This week at the Harborfront Centre’s International Festival of Authors two major writers with new novels were featured under the live reading spotlight before a full house at the Fleck Dance Theatre. William Gibson, icon of thinking-man’s sci-fi, was there with Zero History, the third title in a contemporary series about the often-scary new frontiers of culture, consumerism, and technology. David Mitchell, four of whose five books have been either long or short-listed for the Man-Booker Prize, arrived with The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, set in a 18th-century western commercial enclave in Japan near the end of the country’s isolationist era.

Gibson was first to read, selecting a zeitgeist-checking passage which he unfurled at a gentle pace reminiscent of Garrison Keillor (if Lake Wobegon were an anxious metropolis), sketching out a tense meeting between an agent of the surveillance state and one of its bewildered targets like a baseball commentator’s dramatization of an interrogation transcript. Mitchell followed, but not from his book; instead he brought to the podium an unfinished short story which he introduced as “science fiction but with a streak of folk tale and social realism—you have to think of Gordon Lightfoot guesting with Rush singing a song by The Smiths.” Occasionally pausing to make spontaneous corrections to his manuscript, Mitchell reeled off a sardonically bleak portrait of a Mad Maxian Britain in 2033 having been reshaped by some kind of limited Third World War. Read with actorly passion and a trace of performance art, it was like a chanced-upon late night radio play.

The discussion afterwards, facilitated by the Space Channel’s Mark Askwith, was wide-ranging. Among the themes were the selection of settings (Gibson: “There are no taggers in Plato’s Republic”), upcoming works (Mitchell: “I’m researching the Apollo project—here’s a nice little techno fact: it’s now impossible to buy a mobile phone that has less computing power than the entire Apollo project”) and current fascinations (Gibson: “I’ve happened upon extraordinarily odd scenes where someone’s up at three in the morning in Vancouver playing Grand Theft Auto [online] with a bunch of Australians”).

Acknowledging the freedom of writing from the speculative end of the chronological spectrum, Gibson described his technique as “a kind of sleight-of-hand in what you present to the reader, what you don’t present and the parameters you allow the reader to project within.” It’s a matter of establishing boundaries—various things you can work with as you attempt to make a place for the reader to have an experience that won’t be jarred by having something out of place.” Mitchell added that those boundaries are basically preset by history in his case, but therein have their own narrative challenges where he finds himself needing to account for endless details both large and small, from what money was worth to how people fastened their clothes. “When you make it up, it’s hard to be wrong,” he pointed out.

The effect of technology, particularly Google, on their careers stood out. “When I wrote Neuromancer,” Gibson recalled, “I used all sorts of what I thought were delightfully obscure references that nobody would ever get, except possibly some crazed grad student in the basement of a university library in the distant year 2010. But now all texts are Google-able.” Every book has essentially become a collection of hyperlinks, in his view. And he finds himself in the surreal position of encountering a functioning Twitter account for the fictional Gabriel Hounds designer clothing line from Zero History.

Mitchell’s experience with writing historical fiction has only been enhanced by the search engine. “Fifteen years ago it would’ve taken me Lord knows how many weeks and boxes of chocolate presented to librarians to discover if shaving cream had been invented in 1779, and if it was, could a lower-middle class clerk have afforded it,” he said. “Whereas now it takes me literally five minutes or so, and I usually get distracted on the way anyhow.”

For ticket information and a full IFoA schedule go here.

IFoA Friday

The final weekend of the International Festival of Authors is upon us. Tonight in the Brigantine Room (235 Queens Quay West, 8 p.m.), CBC Radio Garvia Bailey hosts a group reading with Dinaw Mengestu, Ali Smith, Jane Urquhart, and Kathleen Winter, while over at the Fleck Dance Theatre (207 Queens Quay West, 8 p.m.) Lynda Barry, Nadine Bismuth, Dany Laferrière, and Yann Martel read from their latest works (hosted by yours truly). At the Studio Theatre (235 Queens Quay West, 8 p.m.) Ken Finkleman, Sophie Hannah, Alexander MacLeod, and Priscila Uppal read from their latest books, with Mark Medley hosting, and the Lakeside Terrace (235 Queens Quay West, 8 p.m.) is the site of an evening of literary non-fiction. Ian Brown, the 2010 winner of the Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction, will join fellow non-fiction authors Charles Foran, Charlotte Gray, and Meaghan Strimas, with Larry Gaudet hosting.

Book Thugs Are Your Friend: The Fall BookThug Launch

The good folks at BookThug, one of Canada’s most daring and fun publishers, are descending on Kensington Market tonight to launch new books by Victor Coleman, Michael Boughn, Kate Eichhorn, Mark Truscott, Stephen Cain, Meredith Quartermain, Steven Zultanski, with musical guest Bry Webb of the Constantines upping the Wow factor. The free event, which also functions as a launch for the second issue of The Coming Envelope, kicks off at 7:30 p.m at The Supermarket (268 Augusta Avenue).

Managing Editor Jenny Sampirisi was kind enough to provide us with a list of the Top 5 reasons to attend tonight’s event. Enjoy.

Top 5 reasons to attend the BookThug Book Launch

5) You need a last minute Halloween costume. Go as a BookThug! T-shirts and bookbags will be on sale all night long and when people ask what you are, you can punch them in the gut and steal books off their shelves. (Legal aside: BookThug is a non-violent press).

4) You like the Constantines, or you like free music, or you like an eclectic night: Bry Webb of the Constantines will open the evening with song. See him play for free, and stay for the line up of poets who you might call “word musicians”—or not.

3) You like titles with innuendo: The Coming Envelope Issue #2 will be quietly introduced from across the border as a now foreign species to the Canadian environ since it’s creator moved to Chicago. This also means you’ll be exposed to…yes…Americans.

2) You’re a object fetishist: Maybe not the kind that would wed the Eiffel Tower, but one that might pet a very beautiful book object. This season of BookThug books are particularly gorgeous, each one designed by Jay MillAr in collaboration with the authors and artists.

1) Because you’re a Thug: or you can be! Meet all the authors, get your books signed, have a pint ,and ask them “what the hell were you thinking when you became a poet?” A BookThug is a unique creature with a head full of  new ideas about art and culture. Enter the conversation!

Thursday’s IFoA

Tonight’s Jonathan Franzen et al reading in the Fleck Dance Theatre has been sold out for weeks so let’s all just move on. There are lots of other fine writers who will no doubt be in fine form tonight at the IFoA, where all of the events will be hosted and/or moderated by staffers and contributers from the Walrus. At the Lakeside Terrace (235 Queens Quay West, 8 p.m.), Jared Bland moderates a round table panel with Patricia Engel, Adam Gopnik, and Andrea Levy, who will discuss the rite of passage for both their characters in their works and themselves. Camilla Gibb, Anchee Min, Matthew Tierney, and Russell Wangersky all read from their latest books in the Studio Theatre (235 Queens Quay West, 8 p.m.), with Shelley Ambrose hosting. And in the Brigantine Room (235 Queens Quay West, 8 p.m.), Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall, Elena Forbes, Len Gasparini, and Thomas Perry participate in a group NOIR reading, with Stacey May Fowles hosting. The event includes a door prize of a library worth $500 donated by Raincoast Books, so hang on to that ticket stub.

For ticket information and a full IFoA schedule go here.