The Emperor of Paris by CS Richardson is a series of short, interconnected love stories set before and after World War I in Paris. The most prominent storyline is of Emile Notre-Dame, thinnest baker in Paris and his wife Immacolata, who have a son Octavio. Both father and son cannot read but are amazing storytellers and Boulangerie Notre-Dame becomes rather infamous among its regular patrons who come for the buttery croissants and baguettes but also for the stories.
The bakery occupied the ground floor of a narrow flatiron building known throughout the neighbourhood as the cake-slice. As far back as anyone could remember the letters above its windows, in their carved wooden flourishes, had spelled out:
BOULA GERIE NOTRE-DAME
the N having long since vanished.
The story of the N’s disappearance is a regular request from the bakery’s patrons, the most fantastical version being about thieves who spread across France stealing Ns and the most favourite being that of Napolean stealing the N himself.
The love of books is another thread through the story. Despite not being able to read, Octavio is a regular buyer from a book stall near the Louvre. For both Octavio and the bookstall owner, books have a special meaning, and lead to friendships and relationships.
CS Richardson has crafted a very fine story indeed. His cast of characters each contribute to the overarching story while having their own backstories as well. Emile, Immacolata, and Octavio run the bakery as I mentioned. Then there’s the fashion designers Pascal Normand and his wife Celeste, who hide their daughter Isabeau from view because of a facial scar from an unfortunate childhood accident. And we have three generations of the Fournier family who own the bookstall. On top of that, there’s a blind watchmaker, a starving portrait artist and Madame Lafrouche whose husband Alphonse gifts Emile The Arabian Nights which becomes the first book in Octavio’s collection and eventually makes it into the hands of Isabeau.
I was first introduced to CS Richardson from my publishing ties. Richardson is an award-winning cover designer for Random House and his first novel The End of the Alphabet was my favourite book in 2008. The Emperor of Paris is a strong contender for 2013.
Here are a few highlights from the chat with Annabel Lyon on The Sweet Girl
On how The Golden Mean and The Sweet Girl work together
I was really drawn to Aristotle first and foremost, his intellect, and then I was stuck with the fact that he happened to be an ancient Greek - it was the philosophy that drew me first, the history second. But after I finished writing The Golden Mean, I knew my project was only half-finished. That was such a male book, but I wanted to look at the female world also.
Tips on writing dialogue
always, always, always read it aloud. That’s my first instruction to students. If it doesn’t sound natural aloud, it’s not going to read like natural dialogue. I also encourage students to make the dialogue do the work, and not rely on what are known as dialogue tags (she shouted menacingly, that kind of thing). Those are like stage directions, and for me they dilute the power of the line itself. And finally, in historical fiction, make sure your characters still sound like real people. I don’t think “Zounds, my liege, thou hast verily captured it” is nearly as good as “You got it,” even if you’re working with ancient characters.
In response to my question about routine in writing (whether for fiction, or in my case business writing)
Thanks for your question about routine, Monique. I’m not a big believer in the Romantic image of the writer—alone, suffering, pirate blouse in a garret somewhere, waiting for the muse. It’s a job, and I treat it like a job: dress professionally, go to the office, do your work. You wouldn’t procrastinate relentlessly if you were a lawyer or doctor or drywaller or barrista, and you shouldn’t let yourself do that as a writer, either. I like to compare creative writing to journalism, partly because my dad was a journalist, but partly also because there’s a huge overlap between the skill sets. A good non-fiction sentence and a good fiction sentence have a lot in common. A good opening to a short story and a good lede in a news story are playing on a lot of the same principles. And, similarly, I believe strongly that good creative writing can be taught, just as journalism can be taught. Inspiration, no, but craft, yes.
On factual references in the novel, in particular midwifery and stillbirths being buried with puppies
The puppies: yes, this was something I learned about on my trip to Greece. I was fortunate to travel with a university class from Carleton and U Winnipeg (I made friends with some academics, who let me tag along), and one of the things we got to do was learn about the work of Maria Liston, who teaches at Waterloo and also works at the American School in Athens. I joke that she could be the star of CSI: Ancient Athens, because her work focuses on things like bone remains. She can look at a bone and tell you what it is, how the person died, etc. She told us about her research into the remains of babies found in wells with puppies, and concluded that these were drops midwives used for babies who hadn’t survived. The puppies were one of those touches that was so bittersweet: awful, and yet you could imagine someone grieving the baby’s death and (in their belief system) wanting to send something cuddly with them, to keep them company. You can’t invent this stuff! And of course, as a fiction writer, you can’t pass it up either. I got her permission to use this.
On why I included The Sweet Girl in my Shoebox Project for Shelters package
Related to Golden Mean as a male world and The Sweet Girl as a female world, I’m participating in The Shoebox Project this year (final dropoff day is Monday!), where you put together a shoebox of gifts that are delivered to women in shelters. I felt that Pythias’ story was a good survival story, or at least showed how you need to keep your wits about you even when the world seems against you. So it’s included in my shoebox. http://www.shoeboxproject.com/
If you’re looking for a great gift this season for a reader then I highly recommend The Golden Mean and The Sweet Girl. A combo pack or singles.
The Red House is the latest novel by Mark Haddon, author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and A Spot of Bother. The novels are getting more and more experimental and deeper into the psyche of the characters. In some ways A Spot of Bother and The Red House remind me of Martin Amis novels in that we get a low-class to middle-class view of the British and the protagonists are losers in some way, and continue to be losers even at the end of the novel.
In The Red House we have a brother and sister, Richard and Angela, who’ve drifted apart but are reunited after the death of their mother. Richard, who is younger and more successful—a doctor, albeit with a lawsuit pending—has invited his sister and her unemployed husband and three children on holiday. Richard also has his new wife Louisa and her teenage daughter Melissa in tow. Louisa seems to be the least developed character. She’s initially presented as the trophy wife who is amenable to everything and everyone. She has a small triumph in confronting Richard midway through the book but otherwise isn’t as developed as her daughter, who is beautiful outside but not inside, Alex the athletic son, Daisy the Christian, Benjy the little kid, Angela the self-proclaimed underachiever who is losing a grip on reality or Dominic the weak father. But then again, the novel really isn’t about anyone.
The crazy thing about this book is that the perspective shifts, almost at every paragraph, from one character to the next. This is a bit of a challenge in the beginning because on top of the shifting perspective, some of the characters are reading books so you get their interior monologue as they read.
Overall, the book was enjoyable but not my favourite Haddon novel, which still remains Curious Incident. Regardless, if you’re a Haddon fan, then give this one a go. Like Spot of Bother, it’s not an uplifting ending but it’s not depressing either.
Although the paperback was published in 2005, Sweetness in the Belly never made it to my reading list until last week. Camilla Gibb has written a brilliant book. I know you know. It was on all sorts of lists and everyone raved about it, which is probably why it took me so long to get around to it. But really, one word review: awesome.
Sweetness in the Belly is set in Harar, Ethiopia and London, England. The story is told through flashbacks to Ethiopia in the 70s and England in the 80s and 90s. Lilly is our protagonist and she is a white Muslim growing up in the class hierarchy system of an Ethiopian town where devout women pray, raise children and fight for survival against contaminated water, the jinn and other evil spirits, and husbands or lovers who leave them with children to raise and limited means to do so.
Lilly’s British, hippy parents raise her (sort of) as they travelled around African. But their unhappy end left Lilly in the care of a great Muslim teacher. On her journey to a shrine in Harar, many things happen that part her from her male travel companion and leave her in the care of Nouria, who’s less than thrilled to have another mouth to feed.
Lilly, the orphaned foreigner who knows the Qu’ran, learns the culture of Hararis and so does the reader along with her. Eventually caught up in the war, poverty and famine, Lilly escapes to live in London. It’s an exile, not a homecoming as she has left loved ones and must watch horrible events unfold from afar. But it’s actually through her exile that readers learn more of Ethiopia and of what it may be like for refugees.
On Islam:
This is what happens in the West. Muslims from Pakistan pray alongside Muslims from Nigeria and Ethiopia and Malaysia and Iran, and because the only thing they share in common is the holy book, that becomes the sole basis of the new community: not culture, not tradition, not place. The book is the only thing that offers consensus, so traditions are discarded as if they are filthy third-world clothes. ‘We were ignorant before,’ people say, as if it is only in the West that they have learned the true way of Islam.
In traveling through Indonesia, Turkey, Jordan and Egypt, I’ve experienced firsthand the moderation and cultural interpretations in a way that mean these sections of the text to really resonate with me. In Indonesia, I had a friend who when explaining praying said, “it is good to pray, it is better to pray with others, it is best to pray in the mosque.”
Everything was shades of grey that made perfect sense to me.
Later in the text, Lilly says “My religion is full of colour and possibility and choice; it’s a moderate interpretation ... one that allows you to use whatever means allow you to feel closer to God, be it saints, prayer beads, or qat, one that allows you to have the occasional drink, work alongside men, go without a veil when you choose, sit alone with an unrelated man in a room, even hold his hand ...”
It’s an interpretation where jihad is one’s personal struggle to be a good Muslim, not a fight against those who are not Muslim.
Sweetness in the Belly is one of those books that although set in a particular time and place, is really quite timeless.
Published in 2006 as part of the Myths series, Atwood provides a contemporary take on one of the most enduring stories of all time, Homer’s The Odyssey. In Homer’s tale, Penelope is the ever constant, faithful wife who dutifully tends to her husband’s empire without compromise to his finances or her fidelity despite hearing tale after tale from passing travellers recounting Odysseus’ great triumphs and tribulations in the war against Troy and his own yearnings for love in the arms of beautiful goddesses. I mean, really, did she just stand by for 20 years spinning a bit of yarn?
In Atwood’s version, Penelope is more than just the long-suffering wife of the hero. She is a very clever woman who makes 1 fatal mistake that costs her the lives of 12 obedient maids.
I love Atwood’s academic and philosophical answers to the elements of The Odyssey that went unquestioned in my literature classes. The Penelopiad begins with two questions: what led to the hanging of the maids, and what was Penelope really up to? I did wonder.
I also love the contemporary twist of the maids presenting evidence through song and dance, as if they were on Glee, the video trial, and Penelope checking out the contemporary world via spiritual mediums and commenting on the similarities or differences to her time.
Penelope may have been as clever as Helen was beautiful, but Margaret Atwood stands in a class of her own at the top of the clever charts.
Ami McKay’s second novel is sure to be a bestseller just like the first.
I am Moth, a girl from the lowest part of Chrystie Street, born to a slum-house mystic and the man who broke her heart.
So begins The Virgin Cure, a story about a street girl named Moth who is lured by the street savvy Mae into Miss Everett’s brothel for girls. Set in the 1800s in New York, girls as young as 12 are preyed upon by those wishing to make a buck or to pay a large sum to be a girl’s first. Sadly there are many gentlemen willing to sleep with young girls and, more depressing, there are many who believe virgins will cure syphillus.
Moth is 12, and like many girls from poor families, is sold. Money changes hands and she goes first to Mrs. Wentworth as a ladies maid. But Mrs. Wentworth likes to beat pretty girls so Moth runs away only to find that her mother is no longer living in their apartment. With no where to go, she’s left to her own devices until she is “saved” by Miss Everett, who trains young girls in the art of seduction and then sells their first trick for a lovely sum to well-to-do gentlemen including the Chief of Dectectives, bankers, and politicians. Thankfully Mr. Dink (no pun apparently intended) and Dr. Sadie (a lady physician dedicated to serving the needs of women and children) provide Moth a means to live beyond the street or the whorehouse. The question is whether she’ll take these offers.
The Virgin Cure is a novel about friendship and betrayal, and it’s a ficitionalized account of McKay’s great, great- grandmother who was a lady physician in NYC during this time.
If God was a petulant 18-year-old then his name would be Bob and he would have won rule over Earth in a botched job application process. Bob would have been the only applicant, put forward by his mother who sat on the committee. Well, he wouldn’t have been the only applicant. Mr B would have also applied but the committee would find him very sensible and boring. In this version of Earth’s beginning, a decision by committee—which always works, right?—would have seen Bob and Mr B become the co-rulers of Earth.
In six days, Bob created the heavens and the earth, the beasts in the field and the creatures of the sea (well Mr. B did the whales), and 25 million other species, including lots of pretty girls for Bob to chase.
And Bob said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
Only it wasn’t very good light. Bob created fireworks, sparklers and neon tubes that circled the globe like weird tangled rainbows. He dabbled with bugs that blinked and abstract creatures whose heads lit up and cast long overlapping shadows. There were mile-high candles and mountains of fairy lights. For an hours or so, Earth was lit by enormous crystal chandeliers.
Bob thought his creations were very cool.
They were very cool but they didn’t work.
So Bob tried for an ambient glow (which proved toxic) ... And finally, when he curled up in the corner of the nothingness, tired as a child by the harebrainedness of his efforts, Mr B took the opportunity to sort things out.
Congratulations Bob. Six days. No wonder the world is a mess.
Bob is careless, self-obsessed, and rather bored. He spends a lot of time sleeping and sulking, which leaves Mr B to sort out famine, war and floods. On top of that, many of the disasters are directly related to Bob having a bit of a mood as he lusts after mortals. In this century, the apple of his eye is Lucy, a nice zookeeper who has a Renaissance look and is a charming virgin, much to her own chagrin.
Bob could appear to her as a swan, or bull, but he’s thinking this time he’ll just show up and do what mortals do, take her for dinner.
For Earth’s sake, it better work out. And if it doesn’t, I recommend building that ark.
There Is No Dog is a hilarious read. I enjoyed it immensely.
Following on the heels of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, and other Quirk Classics, comes The Meowmorphosis.
In Franz Kafka’s original version, Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman, wakes up in his bed to find himself transformed into a large insect. In Coleridge Cook’s version, Samsa is a giant cat.
The Quirk Classics typically follow the plot summary to fairly closely, but introduce the absurd twist introduced in the title.
Gregor wakes up as a giant cat. He looks around his room, which appears normal, and decides to go back to sleep to forget about what has happened. He attempts to roll over, only to discover that he cannot due to his new body. He gets distracted and plays kitten-like with some dust particles and reflects on the dreary life he’s led as a traveling salesman. He turns to the clock and sees that he has overslept and missed his train to work.
Gregor’s mother knocks on the door, and suspects that he may be ill, since he never misses the train. The family is dependent on Gergor’s income so they are keen for him to open the door, which is locked as usual. The situation is more intense when Gregor’s manager comes to the family’s home to inquire of Gregor’s whereabouts and to let him know that the office is not satisfied with his work of late.
Gregor, with his large yet kitten-like paws, does manage to unlock the door. Horrified by Gregor’s appearance, the office manager runs from the apartment and Gregor’s father aggressively shoos Gregor back into his room.
Gregor wakes and sees that someone has put milk and bread in his room. It’s his sister who has taken to caring for him. She also changes his litter.
As Gregor grows, he begins scratching the furniture and climbing on things, which leads his sister to remove the furniture. As these transformations have been taking place, Gregor’s aged father has gotten a job and the family has taken in boarders. One evening as the boarders are listening to the sister play violin, Gregor creeps out of his bedroom (the door has been left ajar) and unwittingly startles the boarders. He subsequently runs away from the family home. In Kafka’s original, Gregor dies. In Cook’s version, he suffers a judgement day of sorts.
Lots of good writing exists in Canada, but there are a couple of authors who stand out for me and Miriam Toews is one of them. Maybe I recognize the Prairie sense of humour, or maybe she’s just really good.
Irma Voth is the quirky protagonist of this novel. She’s 19, married, Mennonite and living in Mexico. The problem is that she married a narco Mexican named Jorge who wants her to leave Campo 6.5, and whether he’s a narco or not, her father disapproves of Mexicans, anyone who leaves the campo, and everything his daughters do or want to do.
If my dad’s assessment was accurate this place was teeming with narcos, and not just the garden-variety narcos but narcosatanics in search of sensations (like Jorge, allegedly), bored with drinking blood from skulls and poised to bolt for bigger thrills while the rest of us were in it for the long haul, working hard and honestly for very little money, the way God meant for us to be. But I didn’t believe it. I think my uncle got a job selling cars in Canada and Wilf wanted to study the violin and my aunt thought it would be cool to get a prm. But who knows. Maybe they’re a family of drug lords now, throwing bodies out of helicopters and bowling with the heads of double-crossers. That would be my father’s theory.
The reclusively of Irma’s Mennonite community makes for some misunderstandings and confusion when a film crew moves in to make a documentary of the community. Irma, already ostracized from her family, is swept up in the madness of the film and hired as a translator for the lead German actress. Her innocence and curiosity is a virtue and a pesky annoyance to those more worldly. What I like about Toews’ writing is that Irma’s ignorance and questioning is more sound than the seemingly insightful musings of the film director, the lead actress, the film crew and Jorge. Irma gets it, even when she doesn’t.
Irma Voth was a fun read. I recommend it for those seeking some light summer reading. Also available as ebook.
Longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, a New York Times bestseller, The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman was certainly on my radar as a book that I missed reading in 2010. The first I heard of it was actually in a holiday round-up by the Guardian, then it appeared in other round-ups and the next thing I knew, Tom Rachman was doing a reading at my local bookstore, Ardea Book & Art.
So Tom, let’s see what you’ve got.
The Imperfectionists is a series of linked stories that together form a novel. The characters are various staff members of an English-language newspaper in Rome. Each character is imperfect in his or her own way, as is the newspaper they run.
The table of contents is pretty clever:
“BUSH SLUMPS TO NEW LOW IN POLLS”
Paris Correspondent—Lloyd Burko
“WORLD’S OLDEST LIAR DIES AT 126”
Obituary Writer—Arthur Gopal
“EUROPEANS ARE LAZY, STUDY SAYS”
Business Reporter—Hardy Benjamin
...
Some of the stories were pretty brilliant. My favourites being the interspersed italicized stories of the paper’s original publisher, Cyrus Ott.
The novel, overall, was memorable, but I felt like Rachman’s writing was trying too hard to be clever. Its jolts of insight are many and often back to back, which at times is like reading a series of Jon Stewart intros.
The NY Times review highlights most of the characters and provides a good sense of the novel. I found it enjoyable, and kind of like a newspaper in that some articles are more intriguing than others.
One of the last books of 2010 that I read was Robert J. Wiersema’s novel Bedtime Story, and I loved it. So much so that I wrote to Robert J. Wiersema (and yes, it’s fun to type Dear Robert J. Wiersema) and asked if he would mind answering a few questions.
Robert and I are friends from my old book publicist days at Raincoast Books so 1) he didn’t mind and 2) it gave us a chance to have a little catch up on the state of retail during the holidays. Here’s our Q&A about Bedtime Story, which is a story within a story about a struggling author and his 11-year-old son who gets sucked into an adventure tale.
Christopher Knox is the struggling author/dad who buys his son David an adventure novel about Davfd. David gets pulled into Davfd’s story. This leaves David in a catatonic state and puts his father on an adventure to figure out how to save him.
SoMisguided: Structurally, did you think about the length of Davfd’s sections or how frequently they occurred in the narrative? I noticed that before David’s first seizure, I was really pulled into that section of the novel. It seemed like there was a period of greater attention on that story. Then after the seizure, I felt more in Chris’ world as he tried to sort out the cause of David’s seizures. The end of the novel was like the confluence of two rivers.
RJW: Well, the confluence thing was definitely deliberate, and I’m thrilled to hear that it worked.
I think the earlier sections of Dafyd’s story were more compelling for two reasons: there’s a lot of set-up to them (a whole world to get to know), and, in contrast, there’s very little actually happening, narrative-wise, in Chris’ story. It’s more exciting to read about a kid being drawn to his destiny than it is to read about a marriage dissolving.
As Chris’ story gets more interesting, and develops more momentum, it draws more attention, and pulls together the stuff from the first section. That was the plan, at least.
(SPOILER ALERT)
SoMisguided: Is there a sequel? When I finished reading, I felt like you didn’t tie up the storyline for Tony Markus. His uncle did send a woman to seduce Chris and get the book. Then Tony is murdered? As a mobbed up uncle, I’d be curious about that and I’d certainly investigate where Chris was. And as Jacqui noted, Chris’ location was discoverable within 2 days. In my wild imagination, Big Tony comes looking to revenge the death of little Tony. Chris and David then use white magic with the help of Nora and Sarah. What do you think? No, eh. Well, why no close for Tony? He’s just a scummy NY editor who no one will miss? Heartless Rob.
RJW: I’m teaching a session at the Ontario Writers Conference in the spring called “Killing Your Darlings,” which is apparently about being merciless to your characters. Rumours of my heartlessness are clearly spreading.
There’s certainly a story that COULD be written about Uncle Tony following up his nephew’s murder — you could write it! I likely won’t.
And no, there are no plans for a sequel. To my mind, the stories of these characters are told, at least as far as they interest me.
That being said, there’s one strand that I think may be picked up in the future. I’m fascinated by Tara Scott, the student who Chris meets who’s reading his book. In the first draft of Bedtime Story, there was a lot more about her (such are the perils of streamlining a book — all that material ended up on the cutting room floor). I think I’ll be seeing more of her.
SoMisguided: Your first novel, Before I Wake, and Bedtime Story both have characters who have seemingly fallen into a coma but who are certainly part of the story. How do you imagine the world? Do you believe in planes of existence? Ghosts? Alternative realities? Or just a good storyline?
RJW: Well, the safe writer in me says “I’ll do anything, imagine anything, for a good story. It doesn’t go beyond that.”
Truth be told, though, I think there’s more to the world than meets the eye. I believe in ghosts, and synchronicity, and destiny. I have no reason not to believe in faeries. Science tells us that there are countless billion parallel universes; why is it so hard to accept that there is another world alongside this, separated from us only by the thinnest of membranes?
Stephen King wrote, in one of The Dark Tower novels, “There are other worlds than this.” When it comes to how I view the world, that pretty much sums it up.
SoMisguided: What books did you read as a boy? Did you have particular authors or genres you pulled on in this novel? I saw mention of the background story of Bedtime Story in the Globe & Mail and of a long-lost author who you Googled, but other influences?
RJW: When I was a kid, I adored the Madeleine L’Engle books - Wrinkle in Time and Wind in the Door. A Swiftly Tilting Planet came later. I loved the John Bellairs horror novels, starting with The House with a Clock in Its Walls — I think a lot of who I am as a writer came out of those. I liked the series books, especially the Alfred Hitchcock & The Three Investigators books. My first adult books were similar—Ian Fleming’s James Bond books at the high end, the trashy Executioner and Nick Carter series at the low. And of course Stephen King. Of course.
I was twelve when I stole and read The World According to Garp. It changed my life. To my mind, that’s the last book of my childhood, and the first book of my adulthood.
SoMisguided: What’s it like to be a dad and author to an 11-year-old boy? My mom was a cartographer and she’d frequently illustrate a page for me to colour. I didn’t realize colouring books existed as a commercial product until I went to school. I assumed every mom just spit them out. Does Xander get creative throw aways from dad or does he have to wait for the official publications like the rest of us?
RJW: You should probably ask Xander this ... or not.
I’m not sure what he would say.
He pretty much has to wait. And wait longer. I wrote the fantasy scenes of Bedtime Story with him in mind, but he hasn’t read it, as yet. It’s still a little old for him. And the domestic scenes would be ... odd for him, I think.
SoMisguided: Anytime an author has elements in a story that could be biographical, journalists always seem to ask about what plot lines are based on their real life. Are you annoyed by those questions? Perplexed? Amused?
RJW: I was expecting them, with this one. How could I not be?
I’ve learned — from the West Wing! — not to accept the premise of a question that I’m uncomfortable with or unwilling to answer.
In the novel, David is initially dismissive of the book his dad gives him as a birthday present. Have you ever received a birthday present (or given one) that you didn’t appreciate at the time but did later?
RJW: Wait, what?
I think the act of giving is one of the most intimate acts of which a human being is capable. This is especially true of books. When you give a book, it’s an act of giving part of yourself, and the recipient has an obligation to bear that in mind and act in accordance with the significance. (See what I did there? With the premise of the question?)
(SoMisguided: *chuckle*)
SoMisguided: David’s book title is The Four Directions. What four directions does the title allude to — can it be as mundane as NSEW?
RJW: It really IS that mundane.
And now I’m really sorry that it is.
SoMisguided: What’s question has no journalist asked yet about the book, which you think is an oversight?
RJW: I was hoping that I would have the opportunity to talk more about gender. To my mind, Bedtime Story is very much an examination of what it means to be a man, a husband, a father, at a time in which the traditional expectations of those roles have largely been overturned, but replaced only with confusion and uncertainty.
Sadly, no one has asked.
Bedtime Story by Robert J. Wiersema
Published by Random House
Robert J Wiersema’s is also the author of Before I Wake.
Thanks Rob for the interview! Again, I loved the book.
I should always review a book right after I finish it. In the case of Robert J. Wiersema’s Bedtime Story, I wrapped it up in late November on a late, late night of reading. I couldn’t put down Bedtime Story and I recall closing the book and saying “wow.”
Now, why was it so awesome? I should have taken notes, but I didn’t so all we have is my faulty memory and an email I wrote to Rob after finishing the book. Let’s piece it together.
Structurally, there are 3 stories going on. I found this a bit weird at first. The first chapter introduces one boy and his family, the next chapter introduces another boy and his family, then a couple chapters later boy 2 starts reading a novel about another boy. What happened to the first boy? Good question—and one that is ultimately part of the mystery unfolding. Am I’m making it sound more confusing than it is?
Boy 2 is David, who is reading about Boy 3, who is named Davfd.
Boy 2 and 3 are essentially the same boy, living in different times. The book David is reading is a trap, a magical trap for little boys. David, like the boy before him, has a seizure that pulls him into the storybook, leaving his body functional in the real world but without spirit.
As I read Bedtime Story, I wondered about the mastery of storytelling and a storyteller’s ability to pull you into the narrative. I starting thinking about the length of Davfd’s sections and how frequently they occurred in the narrative. I noticed that before David’s seizure, I was really pulled into Davfd’s section of the novel. It seemed like there was a period of greater attention on that story. Like David, I was sucked into the story of Davfd. But then after David’s seizure, I felt more in David’s father’s world as he tried to sort out the cause of David’s seizures.
Robert’s latest novel is like the confluence of two rivers. The storylines run together in the most fascinating way. I still remember it as “wow.”
Thankfully Pickle Me This finished the book around the same time I did and wrote an excellent review.
Bedtime Story by Robert J. Wiersema
Published by Random House
(Robert J Wiersema’s is also the author of Before I Wake.)
When Salman Rushdie published Haroun and the Sea of Stories, I wondered what it would be like to have Salman Rushdie as my father. And I wondered again with Luka and the Fire of Life. I suppose it would be like having a ringleader or parade master as a parent (like the Pied Piper but the nice fairy tale version, not the one where the kids die).
If you’re too pressed to watch the trailer, know this ... at the age of 12 Luka’s brother Haroun crossed the border into the magical world, and such is the case this year for 12-year-old Luka. The adventure begins one fateful day in the land of Alifbay, when Luka curses a circus master and causes mass revolt by the animals. A bear named Dog and a dog named Bear (who dance and sing) become Luka’s loyal companions. And it’s a lucky thing too because shortly after Luka’s father Rashid, the legendary storyteller of Kahani, falls ill and only Luka can save him by entering the magical world and stealing the fire of life. It’s super handy to have a magical dancing bear and singing dog.
Parents (like children) can often be very demanding.
Luka’s exceedingly treacherous task is recorded as a series of video game levels with lives earned and lost. And, it doesn’t feel like a forced metaphor. Rushdie neatly brings this element to the story in a mad-hatter kind of way that really works.
I love quirky, magical books and Luka and the Fire of Life is no exception. Delightful, magical, and, as expected, well written.
Luka and the Fire of Life by Salman Rushdie
published by Knopf Canada
Certainly a weirdly good read. Charles Yu first came to my attention with Thrid Class Superhero, his collection of short stories. Now, he’s on the radar with How to Live Safely in a Science Fiction Universe, his debut novel.
Minor Universe 31 is a vast story-space with interconnected yet separate universes. It’s a time when time travel is something anyone can do, like microwaving food. People have a personal time travel device, which they mostly use to visit moments in the past that they want to relive—usually bad moments that they are hoping to change or from which they hope to gain insights.
The base model TM-31 [TM-31 Recreational Time Travel Device] runs on state-of-the-art chronodiegetical technology: a six-cylinder grammar drive built on a quad-core physic engine, which features an applied temporalinguistics architecture allowing for free-form navigation within a rendered environment, such as, for instance, a story space and, in particular, a science fictional universe.
A box. Get in. Push some buttons. Visit different times. The operating system is called TAMMY (or TIM—depending on what you chose at start up).
Charles Yu, time travel technician, saves people from themselves. Or rather, he fixes their time travel machines that break due to human tampering. But ultimately he ends up trapping himself in a time loop.
If you’re not a fan of science fiction, then this is a good literary spin on that genre. If you are a science fiction fan, I think you’ll enjoy the science and philosophy described in the novel.
1-line summary: This novel is The Big Bang Theory meets a dysfunctional Family Ties, without the laugh track, although there are some funny moments.
Clever. Geeky. Nostalgic. (Can you be nostalgic for the future? In a science fictional universe, I think you can be.)
Ordinary Thunderstorms is a well written book with a horrible, morally short premise. I did not like this book, but I’d still recommend it. How’s that for conflict?
Adam Kindred happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. In shock, he makes a serious of choices that make his situation worse. Throughout the book he continues to make poor decisions and yet the novel ends with no dire consequence to him. This is what I didn’t like.
What happens? (If you don’t like spoilers, stop now.)
Adam Kindred happens to meet Philip Wang in an Italian cafe. Wang forgets a file at his table. Adam decides to call him and personally return the file. He arrives at Wang’s apartment only to find Wang murdered, well, he’s not quite dead. Wang asks Adam to remove the knife stabbed into him, which Adam does. Adam’s finger prints are now on the murder weapon. Adam flees.
Adam continues to flee throughout the book. Wang’s killer continues to track Adam. The police bollocks things up. There’s conspiracy theories and secret agents. It’s all stupid, really. Adam continues to make dumb mistakes. I continued to read.
And as I mentioned, nothing really happens.
I tried not to spoil the details for you. I disliked this book, but if you like random, literary mystery stories, this is well written.
Plain Words, Uncommon Sense A blog on books, writing, tap dancing, technology, and the other amusements of Monique Sherrett (or Monique Trottier in unmarried form).
Monique Sherrett lives in Vancouver, BC, Canada and is a litblogger, among other things. Find out more ...
"So misguided." A comment often uttered in my eclectic salon.
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The story of the N’s disappearance is a regular request from the bakery’s patrons, the most fantastical version being about thieves who spread across France stealing Ns and the most favourite being that of Napolean stealing the N himself. 
