Jerome J. Bourgault's Blog, page 4

A good week!

Finally, a bit of good news to share, a rare commodity during the throes of a pandemic.

After weeks of being out of stock at Amazon, only to reappear at a laughably inflated price, The Perpetual Now is available again and, at last check, increasingly affordable. The price for both hardcover and paperback in Canada isn’t quite where I’d like it yet, but the general trend has been encouraging. It doesn’t yet appear at Indigo, but measures were taken this week to redress that. Stay tuned!

Equally encouraging is the news that readers who’ve ordered the book will finally be receiving theirs in the coming days, and in at least two cases, have already received it.

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Proof positive that my novel ACTUALLY EXISTS  as a physical object!

But wait: there’s more!

A few days ago The Perpetual Now received its first ever review on Amazon, specifically, for the Kindle Edition on Amazon.com (so, from a reader south of the border).

It received 5 STARS!!!!

And just this evening the novel got an unsolicited shout-out from an editor friend who called it “one of the best books I’ve ever had the privilege of working on… and one of the best books I read in the past year, period.”

Yeah, a good week!

If you haven’t yet done so, you can order your copy (e-book, hardcover, or paperback) through Amazon.ca.

Out-of-stock…ness

In a classic case of good news/bad news, within days of my announcing the publication of my book, Amazon was out of stock. I’m told it is a mostly just a matter of still being early in the initial distribution window and that these issues normally take a few weeks to work themselves out. Ditto for its absence on Chapters !ndigo (… there’s a non-fiction book by the same title, but don’t be fooled). Also, I’m sure it’s fair to say that Amazon is feeling the upheaval of COVID like everybody else, and their orders are backed up like a heroin addict after a raclette fondue.

My suggestion: ORDER IT ANYWAY!!!!

Granted you may not receive it within the usual week if Amazon was at peak operating capacity, but you won’t have to pay for it until it ships and you certainly wouldn’t get it any sooner if you wait around until it’s back in stock. Nor will it hurt if Amazon is made aware of the growing demand.

And then, of course, there’s the oh-so-affordable e-book. No waiting required!

So hang in there. You should have a copy of the novel in your hands within the next few weeks or so, and I’ll be sure to let everyone know the moment stocks are replenished. In the meantime you can read about the novel and get some useful background on this very blog. Start at the beginning: it’s not like you don’t have time!

And we’re off!

Today I officially announced the publication of the novel and it’s availability on Amazon.

I could in fact have made the announcement last week, but the initial price for both paperback and hardcover was so outrageous it would have scared everyone away. In the past couple of days, to my immense relief, the price has come down substantially. Now I just have to get the word out.

To that end, I’ve created a Facebook page and the response just over the past few hours has been beyond my wildest expectations! But seeing as it would be a bit much to expect my friends and family to make this a bestseller on their own, I will need to branch out in other ways. In the coming days I’ll make my first foray  into the netherworld of Instagram, an altogether strange and decidedly foreign critter for an old fogey like myself.

Also, I received just about the loveliest and unexpected compliment today, when someone close to me who hadn’t yet seen the cover exclaimed: “Wow! It looks like a real book!” What more could a first-time author hope for?

More to come…

 

 

 

 

 

 

The light between the tunnels

Hello again! (Thought you were rid of me, didn’t-cha?)

Sorry for the delay… again. News comes in dribs and drabs, you wait for enough little things to pile up just to have enough to write about, and before you know it everything has happened… almost.

So where were we?

The last time I checked in (*cough-cough*-months ago), I had signed on with self-publishing agency, and I was about to submit my FINAL final manuscript. In fact, I submitted it that very day, along with the book set-up, namely choosing the book’s trim size, colour options, cover finishing for paperback and hard cover, etc. I’d also just been issued an ISBN.

√ Done.

Yes, the proverbial shit was getting real!

One week after that last entry, I got an email saying the manuscript had been reviewed and was ready for the editing process. I’d asked for a simple copy edit, which means correcting spelling, grammar, punctuation, and syntax, and ensuring that everything remains internally consistent. A content edit, meaning an evaluation of the formatting, style and content of the manuscript, was (given the size of my opus) beyond my budget. There was a quick questionnaire to fill out (√ Done) and they’d get right on it. I figured it would take them at least 3 weeks.

Meanwhile there was another questionnaire for the cover design. That was simple enough, seeing as I’d already created the cover myself. I simply entered “Will provide cover art” and attached the final design (front, back, and spine) and all its constituent parts in case, for some reason, they had to rebuild it. It was sent back to me for final approval on January 30th.

√ Done

In early November, I received what I initially thought was the finished copy edit (the timing was about right) until I looked more closely: it was an editorial evaluation from my editor which (although I’d paid for it) I was completely unprepared for. What if, after all this time, they thought it sucked? What if, after 6 six years, they said “These are the over-wrought ramblings of a self-important amateur! It’s pedantic and derivative. Start over!” I couldn’t handle that. It took me three days to muster the courage just to open the email.

When I read the first paragraph, I almost I wept:

This is a very well-written, compelling and satisfying work of fiction. There is a beauty to the language and the themes of love and friendship, transcendence and coming of age that make this book stand out. The characters are very real and sympathetic, and the pacing is good for the most part, never slowing down too much while lingering just long enough to set the tone and atmosphere that make this story so evocative. The plotting is well executed, with equal time allotted to the two main story elements: the murder mystery and the supernatural/sci-fi thread embodied by Billie. There is a very strong sense of setting and a distinctly Canadian flavour to this work that make it familiar and nostalgic—a pure delight to read as a Canadian who can relate to the peculiarities and nuances of small-town French-Canadian culture. Overall, this book is in very good shape to move forward to the copy-editing stage.

The editor then went on to break down the main aspects of the novel (story, plot, characters, dialogue, grammar). Criticisms were constructive and invariably spot-on. She concluded with this:

This is an exceptionally well-written, well-plotted, poignant story with extremely likeable characters and a great degree of style. The sense of setting and tone is strong and consistent throughout. The emotion is real and keenly felt. The constructive criticism provided speaks to minor issues that are only pointed out as the overall quality of the manuscript is so high. A copy edit will clean up the small technical issues and ensure a professional-calibre product.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to offer some assistance. I look forward to reading this again at the copy-editing stage!

She loved my book, but more importantly she GOT my book! I want this person to be my friend for life!!!!

The final copy edit came in early December (√ Done), followed by a layout questionnaire for the interior. On January 23rd, I received the first interior layout draft. For the most part I loved it, but some of my very basic instructions somehow weren’t getting through, and we ended up going back and forth for 3 weeks. I signed off on February 12. (√ Done)

A month-long work hiatus put everything on hold, then about a week I finally got to the tasks related to distribution, that is figuring out the pricing for hard cover, soft cover, and e-book, and the book’s categorization, deciding on key words, audience, and general category.

√ Done and √ Done!

Now, the very last thing will be marketing, something that tightens my insides just a bit: with the possible exception of multi-tasking, there’s nothing I am worse at than self-promotion. There’s yet another questionnaire, asking me how much time and $$$ I’m willing to invest in the promotion of the book (hmmm… yeah, OK), if I’m willing to travel (are we talking Vancouver or Mississauga?), how comfortable I am with public speaking (Oh! I can do that!!!), organizations in my nice market who will declare my book a must-read (uhhhh….) and stuff about media outlets, blogs, podcasts, YouTube channels, that align with my book (HELP!!!!).

Forget a literary agent: I need a teenager in my corner, someone who knows the ins and outs of social media on the interwebz. Eeeesh…

A phone call with a marketing rep from the agency will follow to discuss strategy, but the book as such is ready to go. Everything related production and distribution is complete, so there’s nothing stopping it from appearing on Indigo or Amazon in the very near future.

So this is almost it, or at least the first half of my journey, the easy part. The second half is terra incognita: pitching, reviews, readings, signings, launches, maybe even an interview or two, and generally a whole lot of talking about writing.

It’s really happening, folks!

Look Ma: I’m an Indie Author!

I’m baaaaaaaaack!

Yes, it’s been a while, but now that I’m back I have news.

I mentioned last time that I’ve been looking increasingly at the idea of self-publishing. There are advantages and disadvantages when compared to conventional publishing, so I had to do a bit of homework.

The advantages with signing on with an established publisher are that they do the brunt of the legwork and they know the ins and outs of the industry. Also they don’t cost anything upfront: because they take a chunk out of your royalties it is in their interest to see that your book sells. Great! Trouble for us newbies is getting one to read your manuscript in the first place. You can send out query after query and wait months before you hear from anyone, if you hear at all.

On the other hand, if you’re like me and know about as much about the publishing business as you do about, say, string theory, when you finally decide on forging your own path, the learning curve looks like K2.

This is where assisted self-publishing comes in. There are a number of companies that do this; I signed on with a company called Tellwell. You pay upfront for a package: the extent of the services depends on how much you can afford. The package I agreed to includes editing, design, marketing, distribution, even a web site, as well as a very limited print run (essentially for personal use). Most importantly, the self-published author retains the rights to full royalties and editorial freedom. Ideal for control freaks like yours truly.

Plus, the turn-around time is a matter of a few months, versus many months or even years with a conventional publisher.

Of course I still had a manuscript that was, shall we say, cumbersome. Back when I first started this blog and said (unequivocally, or so I thought) that the manuscript was finally done, I had a work that approached 160,000 words; that’s 644 pages, double-spaced. “Done”? HA! Sounds funny now. Just the editing costs alone for a work that size would have been through the roof. I had to bring it down to something more manageable before entertaining any thoughts of submitting. A word count was agreed upon with Tellwell and I went back to the cutting room: 30,000 words, 87 pages, and god knows how many reviews later, I have a final manuscript.

So now I have my very own project manager at Tellwell who’s asking me to decide on things like trim size, interior colour options, cover finishing, and other things like hardcover options (if I want a dust jacket, f’rinstance). My book also has an ISBN: this shit just got real.

All that’s left is to submit the manuscript. It goes out this week!!!

 

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Cover Art

Now don’t get too excited there, kiddies, but I thought I’d share my cover design concept with you. This doesn’t mean anything is imminent (I’m still tearing my hair out at how I’m going to shorten the damn thing) but I thought I’d have some fun. Nor is this a futile exercise. As I’m likely going to proceed via the assisted self-publishing route, I’ll have a lot more say on the cover design than if I were to go with a traditional publisher (which sits just fine with a control freak like me). And as I happen to be a trained graphic designer who’s done this kind of thing before (namely for theatre and film), this ain’t my first rodeo.

So my question to you, dear reader, is this: if you were browsing through the new releases at your favourite book store, would this design entice you enough to pull it off the shelf and read the dust jacket?

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Might add a couple of things: New York Times Bestseller across the top,

Scotiabank Giller Prize Winner stamped on the side, stuff like that…

Dream sequence

There are three dream sequences in The Perpetual Now. There were four, but in a difficult decision made in the interest of economy, I deleted one in favour of a much whittled-down version. This particular passage came into being when a couple of beta readers expressed their interest in knowing more about my narrator Justin’s thoughts and feelings regarding his missing mother. It was a vital insight into the narrator’s mind whose absence was admittedly conspicuous.

There were reasons, of course, why I didn’t include this initially. It poses a problem for Justin. He was only two when his mom disappeared. What he knows of her is almost entirely informed by still photos and video clips taken by his dad and his mom’s family, along with anecdotes he received second-hand. Even his earliest memories, fuzzy images in the deepest reaches of his psyche, could easily be derived, borrowed, or outright manufactured. Justin is a smart kid and he knows this.

He’s also heard all the stories of his mom in which she’s depicted as the perfect mother, the perfect wife, the perfect daughter, sibling, friend, colleague, etc. In Justin’s own words, my mom was a quasi-divine figure who had the benefit of having left behind tangible evidence of her existence. She was better than Jesus. Obviously, what feelings he has of her would be a tad skewed.

Still, it would be nice to know what’s going on that bright complex mind of his, even if Justin, notorious introvert that he is, has trouble expressing or even accessing it. Upon consultation with a child psychologist, the solution came forth in the form of a dream.

*****

The dream always started the same. I was moving through a distorted version of Garrison Park, one without trees or play structures. Only the lake was the same, over to my left. There were a few familiar things like tables (oddly, small round kitchen tables rather than picnic tables), undersized and overflowing waste baskets here and there, and a few statues of military leaders I’d never heard of from long ago wars. I was dimly aware of a few other people around, and dogs that weren’t quite dogs were running about fetching things I couldn’t quite see. And there, just a short distance ahead of me, was my mom.

She looked exactly the way she always did in all the photos and videos I’d seen: beautiful, smiling, full of love and mischief. She was calling to me to join her and I could almost hear her voice, but a wind coming off the lake was drowning it out. I tried to run to her, just so I could hear her voice, but for some reason my feet struggled to gain ground, as if my laces were tied together.

Meanwhile, mom was pointing at the lake, toward something she wanted me to see, but when I turned there was nothing: just waves and the far shore. I kept running toward her, and as I approached I could see she’d become a giant living statue, like one of those long-departed generals but immense, like something from Antiquity, the Colossus of Rhodes, or better yet, the Argonath in Middle Earth. But she was still my mom, and she was more beautiful than ever, and her smile was brighter than a thousand lighthouses, and her form was that of a goddess.

In some versions of the dream she held a huge book, not unlike the Statue of Liberty but in this case it was a real book, lavishly illustrated with enormous pages that turned in the wind; other times it was a scrapbook or a family photo album. All I wanted to do was to climb up, up into the warmth and safety of my mother’s arms, and look into the untold wonders of the book she held, this book she so wanted to share with me.

I started to notice other people, other kids, my classmates, who were standing at my mom’s feet, gazing up in mute astonishment, and I was so proud that this Wonder of the World was my own mom, and that she was so immense and beautiful and full of love for me, just me, a love that was huge beyond understanding, and that in a moment she was going to gather me up in her arms and…

And that’s when I noticed what she wanted me to see, out on the lake. It was a vast fog bank, obliterating everything, moving rapidly toward the shore. I had time to wonder what a fog bank like that was doing on such a small lake, it didn’t make sense, we didn’t live by the ocean, but before I knew it, the fog had enveloped the park, engulfing everything, and I could no longer see my mom, even though I knew she could only be a few feet away.

I wandered around in the fog, suddenly alone. I could hear voices of people nearby, just out of sight in the mist, some I recognized, and some of them were laughing. Not a pleasant laugh either, but a laugh that was mocking and cruel. I called out, called out to my mom, but there was only silence, and laughter moving further away.

At last the fog began to break, and I could see a huge shape looming just ahead, and people standing below it, gazing upward. I rushed over, only to find that it was someone else’s mom, in some dreams it was Tommy Chartrand’s mom, and Tommy was there with her. As I ran around the park looking for my mom in the dissipating mist, there were other figures, almost as huge but none nearly as beautiful as my mom, and kids standing around them. But my mom was nowhere to be found, and despite my frantic terrified search, asking everyone where she was, I never saw her again.

The dream ended as darkness descended, and I was alone, listening to the voices of other people, some kids and some grown ups, saying how sad it all was, how terribly, terribly sad.

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Dark justice in a small town

The Perpetual Now has its share of dark places.

If you’ve read the early entries of this blog, you already know that what was initially conceived as a bit of a fairy tale evolved into something far more complex, even sinister in parts. The fictional setting of Ferguston, Ontario, was created as a stage where bad things happen pretty routinely. It’s a place with a dark history; as I say in the book, a place “where nice things get trashed and broken things stay broken”, where people wear their resentment and prejudice and paranoia on their bodies like so much coal dust from the steam era.

This passage, which has been deleted from the manuscript, provides a bit of background on just one aspect of Ferguston’s dark history. The characters in the scene are the narrator (Justin Lambert) and the Lamberts’ elderly neighbour, Mr. Lovato.

*****

I didn’t have the heart to leave Lovato alone quite yet. I stood in troubled silence next to him for a few minutes, trying to revisit the few conversations we’d had, when I remembered a loose end.

“You said a while back that I would have to get used to seeing more of David Raymond unless he suddenly had an accident, and that that had happened before. What did you mean?”

I couldn’t read Lovato’s expression behind his dark glasses, but I was imagining him mentally poring through the index cards of his memory to dredge up that exchange. I wasn’t optimistic, but Lovato surprised me.

“Oh yeah,” he said. “That kind of thing happens from time to time around here. Ferguston has a funny way of… how would you say it… enforcing its own kind of justice. I mean, for the most part the worst of the worst end up being their own undoing (old Luc Raymond is a prime example, dumb bastard), but in some cases people who need killing somehow just get dealt with, whether the law has anything to say about it or not.”

“So… accidentally but not really?”

“That’s a fair way of putting it. Not all crimes get reported around here, you see, and not all that get reported get solved officially (or even investigated), even if everyone knows who done it.”

“You know about stuff like that?”

“Oh yeah. Most old-timers do. I was born here, remember. You get to recognize them after a while. There have been more mysterious disappearances, strange deaths, and unexplained accidents in and around this town than you can shake a stick at. Some cases, like your mom’s fr’instance, are honest-to-God tragedies, no doubt about it. Others, well… let’s just say that no one was gonna lose too much sleep in finding out what happened.”

I was shocked, on so many levels. First, this was the first I’d ever heard of Ferguston’s history of small-town justice, and it seemed completely out of sync with how I thought the world was supposed to work: where law-abiding citizens stood back and let the Authorities handle matters of law and order, crime and punishment. People might not always like it, some might complain, some might even write editorials, but no one interfered. Second, that my mom’s disappearance — which my mind insisted was the result of the actions of a unique and singularly depraved individual, a solitary but brutal blip on the otherwise relatively peaceful history of my hometown — was in fact part of a much larger and terrible pattern and thus somehow not so special. Lastly, that Lovato once again had no problem speaking so casually about such awful things to a 12-year-old kid.

My eyes must have spoken volumes, because Lovato paused for a moment. He removed his dark glasses and looked at me thoughtfully. He then wandered off to his front porch and lowered himself into one of two rickety chairs next to the front door, waving me over to the other one. “Have a seat, Lambert.”

I did as I was told. The chair’s bare wooden arms were dusty, and its upholstered seat and back were covered in cat hair. It probably hadn’t been used by a human in years.

“Look, I’m not going to talk to you like a little kid,” he began. “It’s not my style, and you’re the last person I’d do that with. You’re what people call an old soul, a bit of a throwback. You know what that means? You’re not like the rest of the kids around here; hell, for one thing you read! You’ve always been a precocious lad (I know I’m not the first person to tell you that) but somehow this summer has made you seem… I dunno, old and wise beyond your years. Funny. Anyway, I’m telling you all this because I figure you’re old enough and mature enough know the truth. Believe me, I wouldn’t try this with any other kid.

“Now, I don’t mean to belittle or minimize anyone’s loss,” he continued. “But your mom and my Alice are just parts of a bigger, disturbing picture in this town. I suppose if there’s an upside to all this it’s that by ‘n by most people who prey on the most vulnerable folks in Ferguston somehow get their comeuppance, and it’s not usually left up to fate either. Mark my words: the guilty will get their’s, though I’m surprised that some (namely David Raymond) haven’t done the deed themselves already. It’s certainly not for lack of trying.”

Lovato was tapping the arms of his glasses absently against his teeth, lost in thought. He seemed to forget about me for a second, and I thought for that moment that I’d been dismissed when suddenly he resumed.

“I think I told you about J.P. Guertin, the local fisherman and wilderness guide.”

I nodded.

“He’s another about my age. We went to boarding school together: St. Andrew’s Academy for boys, a Catholic boarding school not far from here. Grades 7 to 13. Some of the Raymond boys went there too, though I suppose only Steven ever finished. The place shut down ages ago, officially because enrolment was dropping, but everyone knew it was on account of the terrible abuse that was going on up there.

“I was one of the lucky ones, but there were plenty of young guys who got… singled out by some of the fathers. J.P. Guertin was one of them. The priests would take them aside and tell them in private that they were specially chosen because God had bestowed their souls with a rare beauty and that He had great plans for them, or some such garbage. The youngest kids even believed them, for a while. Every so often one of them would be summoned to the priests’ dorm late in the evening. You wouldn’t see them until sometime the next day, but by then you knew. Their eyes told the story. They wouldn’t speak, wouldn’t even look at you, sometimes for days. It was like their spirits had been hollowed out with a screwdriver. Dead inside. Awful. The only other time I’ve ever seen a look like that was when I served in Korea. Anyway, I can’t say for certain how far they got with Gerts: he never spoke about it and I never asked. But he became a pretty hefty lad by the ninth or tenth grade and soon learned how to fend for himself. I guess the fathers thought it best to leave him alone after a while. But he had two younger brothers and they weren’t so lucky.”

Like his previous narrative about white supremacists, this was another subject my dad and uncle managed to avoid talking about. I had only the vaguest notion of the abuse Lovato was referring to; in my 12-year-old imagination it was something horrifically violent but not quite in the way I understood violence from movies and TV. There was an element missing, something just beyond my grasp that my instinct told me was obscurely sexual but that I was a year or two away from understanding.

I was too shy and confused to ask Lovato for clarification, so instead I went in another direction.

“What happened… in the end?”

“To his brothers? They had the misfortune of catching the eye of one priest in particular, Father Normand. He was obsessed with them, sick fucker. God knows what he did to those poor boys, day after day, year after year. Both ended up broken people. The older one, Claude, survived St. Andrews long enough to drink himself blind when he was 20. He died shortly after that. Young Alexandre killed himself the day before his 16th birthday.”

“Jesus!”

“Jesus???” Lovato hissed. “Yeah well, He, unfortunately, was M.I.A. Father Normand was eventually relocated but the damage was done. Plus there were plenty of other priests willing to carry the torch in his absence.” He smacked his mouth a bit, as if he’d tasted something nasty. “I’d say Gerts was never the same again, but it’s always hard to say with him. He’s not what you’d call effusive; a bit like you Lamberts. And here I always thought the French were a demonstrative bunch. Anyhow, what I can say is that he must’ve kept that hurt and bitterness alive, nourished it over the years. So that some 40 years later, when Gerts is in his mid-fifties and is well established and has put his life in a good place working with Doug Ingram, who should come along but one (now former) Father Normand. What the hell he was thinking showing up this way after all he’d done I’ll never understand. Maybe he figured that, being in his mid 70s by then, no one would remember or recognize him; maybe there’s truth to the old adage that the criminal always returns to the scene of the crime; hell, maybe he was just passing through.

“So, one fine day ex-father Normand suddenly shows up in Ferguston and, wouldn’t you know, he runs right into J.P. Guertin. Of course Gerts recognizes him right away but instead of unzipping the old man’s guts with a filleting knife he welcomes him back with open arms, hugs all around, even buys him a drink at the White Rooster, which is now called the Pit, by the way, and if you think it’s rough nowadays you should’ve seen it back in its glory. Talk about putting the “hole” in “watering hole”. Anyway, they talk for hours, Gerts gets him caught up on everything he’s missed in the past four decades, who’s doing what, who’s still around, who’s moved on. Never plays his hand, never gives Normand a clue of what he’s thinking, what he’s planning. By now the sun is low in the sky and Gerts convinces the old man, who by now is pretty trashed, to come and visit his place of business, see how well he’s done for himself. The old priest loves that: local boy done good. And one of his very own at that. He’s so proud. Gerts has no trouble then persuading him to come out on the water with him: he knows every good fishing spot on the lake and there’s no better time than dusk. Just for a few hours. Sure, we’ll bring a few beers, why not?

“Well, you can guess the rest. Sure enough, Gerts came back a couple of hours later… alone. Told the cops that Normand was shit-faced and fell overboard while Gerts was driving the boat. Fluke accident, but not unheard of. No one ever found the body, not that there was much of a search. And that was it. Death was ruled an accident, no further investigation was necessary, move along folks, nothing to see here. Within less than a week it was old news; I don’t think it even made the Clarion. Of course it didn’t take long before we’d all figured it out. Within days everyone knew, I’m guessing even the cops, but no one spoke of it again. That’s just how things work around here.”

Lovato was quiet for a while. His story was over, and he looked physically drained from the effort. Then, without a word, he wrestled himself out of his chair, put his sunglasses back on, and shuffled back to his front yard. I watched him, feeling helpless and small and, once again, utterly out of my depth. As tired as I suddenly was, I didn’t want to go back home or hang around Lovato any longer. I heaved up my bike from the sidewalk (it felt like it weighed 100 kilos) and threw a final glance at Mr. Lovato, who stood unmoving amidst his lifeless decorative hoard, staring at nothing. I launched myself down the street in the direction of Garrison Park, keeping to the coolness of the shade beneath the elms.

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