Susan Glickman's Blog
April 4, 2018
New Novel -The Discovery of Flight
Here's a synopsis of the book:
Sixteen-year-old Libby has cerebral palsy and is only able to communicate with assistive technology — she can control her computer by moving her eyes.
In this way, slowly and methodically, she writes a fantasy novel called The Discovery of Flight as a present for her sister Sophie’s thirteenth birthday. It
is the story of a hawk named Aya who is telepathically linked to a human girl who resembles Sophie. Interwoven with Libby’s novel is Sophie’s diary, which
chronicles the siblings’ everyday life and maps the progress of Libby’s illness. Though Libby describes a fictional world and Sophie the real one, their stories
start to overlap and gradually come together as a testament to the powers of love and imagination.
And here is some advance praise the book has received:
“The two voices – one sardonic, the other tender – blend seamlessly in this heartbreaking story that will appeal to fans of both realism and fantasy.”
-Kit Pearson, author of A Day of Signs and Wonders.
"A beautiful sibling duet. This uniquely structured novel is funny, frank, and utterly transporting.”
-Kyo Maclear, author of Birds, Art, Life.
“Moving, imaginative, ultimately heroic and highly readable."
-Robert Priest, author of the Spell Crossed trilogy and The Wolf is Back.
Sixteen-year-old Libby has cerebral palsy and is only able to communicate with assistive technology — she can control her computer by moving her eyes.
In this way, slowly and methodically, she writes a fantasy novel called The Discovery of Flight as a present for her sister Sophie’s thirteenth birthday. It
is the story of a hawk named Aya who is telepathically linked to a human girl who resembles Sophie. Interwoven with Libby’s novel is Sophie’s diary, which
chronicles the siblings’ everyday life and maps the progress of Libby’s illness. Though Libby describes a fictional world and Sophie the real one, their stories
start to overlap and gradually come together as a testament to the powers of love and imagination.
And here is some advance praise the book has received:
“The two voices – one sardonic, the other tender – blend seamlessly in this heartbreaking story that will appeal to fans of both realism and fantasy.”
-Kit Pearson, author of A Day of Signs and Wonders.
"A beautiful sibling duet. This uniquely structured novel is funny, frank, and utterly transporting.”
-Kyo Maclear, author of Birds, Art, Life.
“Moving, imaginative, ultimately heroic and highly readable."
-Robert Priest, author of the Spell Crossed trilogy and The Wolf is Back.
May 4, 2016
Old Interview with one of Natalie Caple's Students about The Tale-Teller
I just did one with her current class about my latest novel, Safe as Houses, which prompted me to look up this old one about an earlier book. Natalee teaches Canlit at Brock University and is a huge booster of contemporary work, getting her class to read and review stuff that has come out that year! I assume that the student who asked these thoughtful questions won't mind my sharing our correspondence with the world.
What intrigued you about Esther Brandeau when you first encountered her story? How did that impression lead you to write her story?
Well, having grown up in the 50s when gender roles were quite strict, I have always loved stories about girls who disguised themselves in order to do things forbidden to them. In addition, I used to be an English professor specializing in Renaissance drama, and one of my favourite plays to teach was Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, which subscribes to that tradition. SO when I discovered an incident like that in Canadian history I was delighted! I read about it many years before I felt brave enough to write about it.
How did growing up in Montreal influence your novel? Did learning the history of Ester’s experience in Quebec affect your opinion your home province positively or negatively, why?
Growing up an anglophone Jew in Montreal definitely contributed to my fascination with Esther Brandeau. Her visit – and my conviction, after researching the events around it, that hidden Jews were already living here – vindicated my sense of being entitled to claim equal rights as a Quebecer as against the rhetoric of separatists who saw everyone but French Catholics as outsiders.
What I learned about my home province that affected my opinion positively was how much better life in La Nouvelle France was for poor folks than life back in Europe. To my surprise, this was also a revelation for a lot of my francophone readers after the book was translated. They were used to reading books about the terrible hardships faced by habitants, so were very pleased to discover that things here were, for the most part, an improvement over what they’d left behind!
My favourite paragraph that outlines Esther’s story, as well as highlights societal critics is, “But life was unfair; if Esther knew anything, she knew that. One of her earliest revelations had been the profound injustice of society, blaming or rewarding people for things over which they had absolutely no control or for which they could take no credit. In her own head she had continually asked questions she could not speak aloud, such as why men were considered superior to women. Now she found herself wondering why the Marquis de La Boische was held to be better than others because of his title” (122). Do you make these social and political critiques based on your own beliefs, or are they solely based on the times Esther lived in?
I’ve always felt that way. I think that most children do, but they get trained by society to accept the injustices they perceive around them as just the way things have to be. I conceived of Esther as someone who retained that childish purity of outlook because she was an outsider.
Esther is seen as a powerful figure in the novel. People look at Esther in wonder for her fascinating stories, which gives her power even though at times she feels powerless. Was this your intent for Esther’s stories, or what enticed you to write Esther as such a fascinating character with a vivid imagination?
I couldn’t imagine another reason they would have kept her there for a year. She had to have SOME kind of hold over people, and that was the only one that made sense. As I wrote in my “afterword”, I didn’t believe the story she told about having travelled in disguise as a boy for five years, but I admired it as a wonderful piece of storytelling, so the impetus came from her actual words.
You mention in the Acknowledgements that Lasry and McKay also wrote novels about Esther (211). What intrigued you to revolve Esther’s character around telling mythical stories versus Lasry’s and McKay’s renditions of life in the 18th century? Do you see any ties between the three novels of Esther?
I didn’t read their books until I’d finished mine; in fact, I started mine long before I even knew about theirs! Then I was afraid to read them. But when I finally did, I was relieved to find how little, in fact, we had in common. For example, both of the other writers believed Esther’s story about having travelled as a boy for five years prior to arriving in Quebec and spent a long time narrating those adventures. In addition, both made her a very beautiful girl, with lovers and admirers, to heighten the romance. I wasn’t interested in writing that kind of tale. (Lasry also made her religious, which was inconsistent with running away dressed as a boy.)
How has your past experiences growing up in Montreal, your year in Athens, your post-secondary education beginning at Tufts University, Oxford University, and your doctorial dissertation at Toronto University influence your writing? Are there any specific experiences you’ve had that influenced your writing specifically in The Tale-Teller?
I basically ran away from home under the guise of getting an education, and spent many years trying to find my way into alien cultures as a young woman who wasn’t taken very seriously, who was seen as “exotic” and an outsider. Also, I experienced quite a bit of anti-Semitism in Europe – actually, I experienced some even at the University of Toronto as a doctoral student and later, as a professor in the Catholic setting of St Michael’s College. We are all influenced by everything in our lives; these experiences doubtless contributed to my book.
In a CBC interview, you said you have “written on a variety of surfaces” and that you were currently writing on a white door (CBC, 2012). Your statement, “like the door I write on, my window leads nowhere but into my imagination, awes me. So I have a row of totems across the window ledge to inspire me” (CBC, 2012). This inspires me because the objects that surround you while writing symbolically allow you to open your mind and imagine. Do you currently write at this same haven, and is there anything about your writing spaces that helps inspire you to write? Does writing in different spaces have an effect on your writing?
I was trying to be clever for the interview but honestly, where I write doesn’t have a huge influence on what I write, except if I am looking around me for useful images and descriptions! I can write anywhere: on a napkin at McDonald’s, on a laptop on the train, on inside cover of someone else’s novel at a museum.
As a winner of the Martin and Beatrice Prize in Fiction of the Canadian Jewish Book Awards, the Raymond Klibansky Prize and the Gabrielle Roy Prize, how have all of your accomplishments effected your life as a writer?
I wish I could say they’ve made me rich and famous but alas, no. Writing is just as hard as it ever was, and pays just as badly. Every time I write a new book I feel like I’m starting from scratch, trying to find a publisher who likes the weird things I write. I haven’t been lucky in having a mentor or even an agent on my side helping me with the business side of stuff, at which I, frankly, suck.
You mention in various interviews that you do not get stuck when writing because you move onto another writing project. Is it difficult to shift between various works, or be fully invested in a work if you have many others also underway?
Not for me. I like having more than one project on the go so that I can follow the creative energy in the most efficient direction. But I’ve always been like that – I never could decide, when I was younger, between dance and drama, or painting and drawing.
Your description in The Tale-Teller uses beautiful, lyrical language. How do you go about writing such detailed scenes and stories without it seeming artificial or forced?
The legacy of having been a dancer: I rewrite everything 5,000,000 times until it gives the illusion of being effortless.
When you write, do you plan ahead or write freely to find structure? Has your writing process changed throughout your experience? Do your writing strategies differ between works?
Each book requires a different strategy. My first novel had an excruciatingly detailed outline that I worked on for months and months – it was in sonata form. Because I was terrified of writing a novel and needed the security of a rigid armature before starting. The Tale-Teller’s outline was a series of incidents, eventually matched to a series of stories, which is also the way The Discovery of Flight – a YA novel still looking for a publisher – was written. The novel that is coming out this spring, Safe as Houses, had a chronology and series of character sketches, but even though it was a mystery, I didn’t know very much about it until I was more than halfway through. So I guess I’m loosening up as I go on. But maybe the next thing I write will be completely different. Who knows.
How do you manage voice in your works? Do you have any practices you do to ‘get to know’ your characters in order to create voice?
I used to be an actor and have worked a lot in theatre (my doctorate was on Shakespeare’s dramaturgy) so I “hear” dialogue very clearly. Voice is also really important for poetry, which I’ve written my whole life, and always edit out loud.
Also I’m a huge eavesdropper and lover of accents and idioms.
Your website biography mentions you love for semi-colons, is there a specific reason for this?
I see poetry as a score for solo voice, and punctuation as musical notation. The line-break is a sixteenth-note rest; the comma an eighth-note rest; the semi-colon a quarter-note rest; the period a half-note rest; the stanza break a whole note rest. I will never give up a single punctuation mark; we need more, not fewer!
Why did you decide to include quotes in French and English at the beginning of each chapter? Does it allow the reader to draw a deeper connection to Esther and her life?
That is not French; it is Ladino, a mixture of Spanish and Hebrew spoken by Sephardic Jews. The quotations are from the traditional proverbs of Esther’s people, and relate to the events of the chapter; their presence is also a clue to her hidden identity.
What is it about writing that entices you to write such detailed, intricate stories? Do you prefer to write fiction or non-fiction?
I don’t really write non-fiction anymore, not since I stopped being an English professor. So I guess that answers your second question! As for your first, I am just really really curious and love learning things, so I do a lot of research in order to make the worlds I create feel real.
What intrigued you about Esther Brandeau when you first encountered her story? How did that impression lead you to write her story?
Well, having grown up in the 50s when gender roles were quite strict, I have always loved stories about girls who disguised themselves in order to do things forbidden to them. In addition, I used to be an English professor specializing in Renaissance drama, and one of my favourite plays to teach was Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, which subscribes to that tradition. SO when I discovered an incident like that in Canadian history I was delighted! I read about it many years before I felt brave enough to write about it.
How did growing up in Montreal influence your novel? Did learning the history of Ester’s experience in Quebec affect your opinion your home province positively or negatively, why?
Growing up an anglophone Jew in Montreal definitely contributed to my fascination with Esther Brandeau. Her visit – and my conviction, after researching the events around it, that hidden Jews were already living here – vindicated my sense of being entitled to claim equal rights as a Quebecer as against the rhetoric of separatists who saw everyone but French Catholics as outsiders.
What I learned about my home province that affected my opinion positively was how much better life in La Nouvelle France was for poor folks than life back in Europe. To my surprise, this was also a revelation for a lot of my francophone readers after the book was translated. They were used to reading books about the terrible hardships faced by habitants, so were very pleased to discover that things here were, for the most part, an improvement over what they’d left behind!
My favourite paragraph that outlines Esther’s story, as well as highlights societal critics is, “But life was unfair; if Esther knew anything, she knew that. One of her earliest revelations had been the profound injustice of society, blaming or rewarding people for things over which they had absolutely no control or for which they could take no credit. In her own head she had continually asked questions she could not speak aloud, such as why men were considered superior to women. Now she found herself wondering why the Marquis de La Boische was held to be better than others because of his title” (122). Do you make these social and political critiques based on your own beliefs, or are they solely based on the times Esther lived in?
I’ve always felt that way. I think that most children do, but they get trained by society to accept the injustices they perceive around them as just the way things have to be. I conceived of Esther as someone who retained that childish purity of outlook because she was an outsider.
Esther is seen as a powerful figure in the novel. People look at Esther in wonder for her fascinating stories, which gives her power even though at times she feels powerless. Was this your intent for Esther’s stories, or what enticed you to write Esther as such a fascinating character with a vivid imagination?
I couldn’t imagine another reason they would have kept her there for a year. She had to have SOME kind of hold over people, and that was the only one that made sense. As I wrote in my “afterword”, I didn’t believe the story she told about having travelled in disguise as a boy for five years, but I admired it as a wonderful piece of storytelling, so the impetus came from her actual words.
You mention in the Acknowledgements that Lasry and McKay also wrote novels about Esther (211). What intrigued you to revolve Esther’s character around telling mythical stories versus Lasry’s and McKay’s renditions of life in the 18th century? Do you see any ties between the three novels of Esther?
I didn’t read their books until I’d finished mine; in fact, I started mine long before I even knew about theirs! Then I was afraid to read them. But when I finally did, I was relieved to find how little, in fact, we had in common. For example, both of the other writers believed Esther’s story about having travelled as a boy for five years prior to arriving in Quebec and spent a long time narrating those adventures. In addition, both made her a very beautiful girl, with lovers and admirers, to heighten the romance. I wasn’t interested in writing that kind of tale. (Lasry also made her religious, which was inconsistent with running away dressed as a boy.)
How has your past experiences growing up in Montreal, your year in Athens, your post-secondary education beginning at Tufts University, Oxford University, and your doctorial dissertation at Toronto University influence your writing? Are there any specific experiences you’ve had that influenced your writing specifically in The Tale-Teller?
I basically ran away from home under the guise of getting an education, and spent many years trying to find my way into alien cultures as a young woman who wasn’t taken very seriously, who was seen as “exotic” and an outsider. Also, I experienced quite a bit of anti-Semitism in Europe – actually, I experienced some even at the University of Toronto as a doctoral student and later, as a professor in the Catholic setting of St Michael’s College. We are all influenced by everything in our lives; these experiences doubtless contributed to my book.
In a CBC interview, you said you have “written on a variety of surfaces” and that you were currently writing on a white door (CBC, 2012). Your statement, “like the door I write on, my window leads nowhere but into my imagination, awes me. So I have a row of totems across the window ledge to inspire me” (CBC, 2012). This inspires me because the objects that surround you while writing symbolically allow you to open your mind and imagine. Do you currently write at this same haven, and is there anything about your writing spaces that helps inspire you to write? Does writing in different spaces have an effect on your writing?
I was trying to be clever for the interview but honestly, where I write doesn’t have a huge influence on what I write, except if I am looking around me for useful images and descriptions! I can write anywhere: on a napkin at McDonald’s, on a laptop on the train, on inside cover of someone else’s novel at a museum.
As a winner of the Martin and Beatrice Prize in Fiction of the Canadian Jewish Book Awards, the Raymond Klibansky Prize and the Gabrielle Roy Prize, how have all of your accomplishments effected your life as a writer?
I wish I could say they’ve made me rich and famous but alas, no. Writing is just as hard as it ever was, and pays just as badly. Every time I write a new book I feel like I’m starting from scratch, trying to find a publisher who likes the weird things I write. I haven’t been lucky in having a mentor or even an agent on my side helping me with the business side of stuff, at which I, frankly, suck.
You mention in various interviews that you do not get stuck when writing because you move onto another writing project. Is it difficult to shift between various works, or be fully invested in a work if you have many others also underway?
Not for me. I like having more than one project on the go so that I can follow the creative energy in the most efficient direction. But I’ve always been like that – I never could decide, when I was younger, between dance and drama, or painting and drawing.
Your description in The Tale-Teller uses beautiful, lyrical language. How do you go about writing such detailed scenes and stories without it seeming artificial or forced?
The legacy of having been a dancer: I rewrite everything 5,000,000 times until it gives the illusion of being effortless.
When you write, do you plan ahead or write freely to find structure? Has your writing process changed throughout your experience? Do your writing strategies differ between works?
Each book requires a different strategy. My first novel had an excruciatingly detailed outline that I worked on for months and months – it was in sonata form. Because I was terrified of writing a novel and needed the security of a rigid armature before starting. The Tale-Teller’s outline was a series of incidents, eventually matched to a series of stories, which is also the way The Discovery of Flight – a YA novel still looking for a publisher – was written. The novel that is coming out this spring, Safe as Houses, had a chronology and series of character sketches, but even though it was a mystery, I didn’t know very much about it until I was more than halfway through. So I guess I’m loosening up as I go on. But maybe the next thing I write will be completely different. Who knows.
How do you manage voice in your works? Do you have any practices you do to ‘get to know’ your characters in order to create voice?
I used to be an actor and have worked a lot in theatre (my doctorate was on Shakespeare’s dramaturgy) so I “hear” dialogue very clearly. Voice is also really important for poetry, which I’ve written my whole life, and always edit out loud.
Also I’m a huge eavesdropper and lover of accents and idioms.
Your website biography mentions you love for semi-colons, is there a specific reason for this?
I see poetry as a score for solo voice, and punctuation as musical notation. The line-break is a sixteenth-note rest; the comma an eighth-note rest; the semi-colon a quarter-note rest; the period a half-note rest; the stanza break a whole note rest. I will never give up a single punctuation mark; we need more, not fewer!
Why did you decide to include quotes in French and English at the beginning of each chapter? Does it allow the reader to draw a deeper connection to Esther and her life?
That is not French; it is Ladino, a mixture of Spanish and Hebrew spoken by Sephardic Jews. The quotations are from the traditional proverbs of Esther’s people, and relate to the events of the chapter; their presence is also a clue to her hidden identity.
What is it about writing that entices you to write such detailed, intricate stories? Do you prefer to write fiction or non-fiction?
I don’t really write non-fiction anymore, not since I stopped being an English professor. So I guess that answers your second question! As for your first, I am just really really curious and love learning things, so I do a lot of research in order to make the worlds I create feel real.
December 28, 2015
The Next Big Thing
THE NEXT BIG THING
This questionnaire was going around the web a few years ago -- I just found it when I was cleaning up stuff on my computer and decided to update and post it. Thanks to Lillian Nattel for tagging me.
What is the working title of your book?
"The Discovery of Flight"
Where did the idea for the book come from?
When I was in university I volunteered at a home for multiply-handicapped children and there was a girl there who was completely frozen, unable to move or speak, with the most beautiful and intelligent eyes I’d ever seen. I desperately wished I could help her communicate what she was thinking even if there was no way to free her from her disabilities. Now we have assistive technology, which is awesome, but it didn’t exist then. So in my book she’s writing a fantasy YA novel in which she takes the form of a telepathic hawk!
What genre does your book fall under?
I kind of fail at genre (see my essay from the June 2015 "Quill and Quire", posted above). A lot of my poems are essays, for example, and my most recent novel, "Safe as Houses", which is nominally a murder mystery, has a murder in it but isn't very conventional otherwise. It has a fractured narrative from two points of view in two different time-lines just like the book I’m writing now.
Some people thought the novel I published before that one, "The Tale-Teller', should have been YA because the protagonist was 19; I thought the one I’m writing now was YA but because it includes a younger sister who is 12, who narrates the realistic part of the story through her diary, apparently it has to be Middle Grade.”
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
It’s not only premature to think about something like that, it’s bad luck. A British film producer wanted to make a movie of my first novel, "The Violin Lover", and had an ideal cast in mind, but couldn’t get the funding for the project. I’ve learned from that disappointment, believe me, and don’t count my eggs before they’re scrambled.
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
There’s more than one way to come of age.
How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
I worked on it off and on for about ten years, worried that I didn't have the right to speak for someone in my protagonist's situation. Finaly I followed her sister's voice and that showed me the way. I’m always teaching and editing and doing other stuff at the same time -- right now I’m in art school -- so it’s really hard to figure out how long things take. And then there are the multiple revisions. I am a fast writer but then do tons of revisions.
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
I have no idea.
Who or what inspired you to write this book?
This story is inspired by the girl I worked with in university (see question one). I wish I could remember her name, because even though I met her long ago I’ve never stopped thinking about her. But the experience of feeling shut in and misunderstood, of not being able to share one’s internal world, is one I think everybody shares, and the notion that everyone has a rich secret fantasy life is something that interests me greatly.
What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
It has dragons in it. And pineapples. And birdwatching. And quite a few jokes. So that even though it may sound like a grim topic it’s a funny book. Or at least funny in parts.
This questionnaire was going around the web a few years ago -- I just found it when I was cleaning up stuff on my computer and decided to update and post it. Thanks to Lillian Nattel for tagging me.
What is the working title of your book?
"The Discovery of Flight"
Where did the idea for the book come from?
When I was in university I volunteered at a home for multiply-handicapped children and there was a girl there who was completely frozen, unable to move or speak, with the most beautiful and intelligent eyes I’d ever seen. I desperately wished I could help her communicate what she was thinking even if there was no way to free her from her disabilities. Now we have assistive technology, which is awesome, but it didn’t exist then. So in my book she’s writing a fantasy YA novel in which she takes the form of a telepathic hawk!
What genre does your book fall under?
I kind of fail at genre (see my essay from the June 2015 "Quill and Quire", posted above). A lot of my poems are essays, for example, and my most recent novel, "Safe as Houses", which is nominally a murder mystery, has a murder in it but isn't very conventional otherwise. It has a fractured narrative from two points of view in two different time-lines just like the book I’m writing now.
Some people thought the novel I published before that one, "The Tale-Teller', should have been YA because the protagonist was 19; I thought the one I’m writing now was YA but because it includes a younger sister who is 12, who narrates the realistic part of the story through her diary, apparently it has to be Middle Grade.”
Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
It’s not only premature to think about something like that, it’s bad luck. A British film producer wanted to make a movie of my first novel, "The Violin Lover", and had an ideal cast in mind, but couldn’t get the funding for the project. I’ve learned from that disappointment, believe me, and don’t count my eggs before they’re scrambled.
What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
There’s more than one way to come of age.
How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
I worked on it off and on for about ten years, worried that I didn't have the right to speak for someone in my protagonist's situation. Finaly I followed her sister's voice and that showed me the way. I’m always teaching and editing and doing other stuff at the same time -- right now I’m in art school -- so it’s really hard to figure out how long things take. And then there are the multiple revisions. I am a fast writer but then do tons of revisions.
What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
I have no idea.
Who or what inspired you to write this book?
This story is inspired by the girl I worked with in university (see question one). I wish I could remember her name, because even though I met her long ago I’ve never stopped thinking about her. But the experience of feeling shut in and misunderstood, of not being able to share one’s internal world, is one I think everybody shares, and the notion that everyone has a rich secret fantasy life is something that interests me greatly.
What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
It has dragons in it. And pineapples. And birdwatching. And quite a few jokes. So that even though it may sound like a grim topic it’s a funny book. Or at least funny in parts.
December 10, 2015
Last Word from Quill and Quire
In Shakespeare’s first folio, The Merchant of Venice is listed as a comedy and Cymbeline as a tragedy; today we would either reverse these classifications or slot the plays into post-Renaissance categories invented to accommodate Shakespeare’s heterogeneity, calling Merchant a “problem play” and Cymbeline a “romance.” We’d also classify Troilus and Cressida, Measure for Measure, and All’s Well That Ends Well as problem plays, while the “romance” category would vacuum up two other nominal comedies, The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest.
John Heminge and Henry Condell, the editors of the first folio, were Shakespeare’s close friends, fellow actors, and co-investors in the company for which he wrote his plays, so one might assume they knew which genre his plays belonged to. But we dissent, because our understanding of genre has changed since Shakespeare’s day. The plays, of course, remain what they always were – structures of words to be performed by bodies moving across a stage or enacted in the privacy of the reader’s imagination. We could substitute the word “cauliflower” for comedy and “taxidermy” for tragedy if we liked; this would have no effect upon our experience of the works themselves.
I appeal to the example of Shakespeare because 1) everyone knows his plays and 2) no one worries too much about what genre they fit into. This is not to say that the concept of genre isn’t useful; since Aristotle first divided poetry into epic, lyric, and dramatic, students of literature have found genre a very helpful way to talk about the structure of works and the transmission of traditions. But I’m not convinced that thinking within such tight aesthetic categories is equally useful for writers themselves, whose job, after all, is to represent life. And life is never just tragedy, comedy, history, or romance; it’s all of those, all at once. Thus: the smell of grapefruit and burnt toast + horrifying news on the radio about atrocities around the world + your kid making a profound observation before farting loudly + your husband kissing the back of your neck in that way that still makes you tingle = breakfast.
Still, I have to admit that not writing within easily recognized genres has complicated my life. My first novel, The Violin Lover, was composed in sonata form for three voices – violin, piano, and cello – but I suppressed that fact, as well as cutting out many intermezzi on topics like the difference between the operatic voice and the speaking voice or the invention of the public concert, because publishing folk insisted the musical stuff was beside the point. What I was writing was “literary fiction,” they declared, especially given that I was already known as a poet. If we had to pick a subgenre, well, this book was set in the past, so clearly I was writing an “historical novel.” And that was that.
When asked the genre of my second novel, The Tale-Teller, I described it as “feminist picaresque” – after all, its realistic framework of life in 18th-century Quebec was constantly being interrupted by heroic tales of feral children, pirates, and escapes from harems. I was informed by agents and editors who admired the writing but disliked generic miscegenation that my book ought to be either historical fiction or fantasy, and I wasn’t permitted to write both at the same time. I stuck to my guns and found a publisher (Cormorant Books) that got what I was doing. But still, the French translation by Boreal has done better than the original; reviewers in Canada’s other official language celebrated the work for exactly those qualities – philosophical engagement and linguistic playfulness – overlooked by English reviewers who insisted on reading it as historical fiction.
One of the reasons I decided to write a “murder mystery” set in present-day Toronto was my frustration with this whole issue. I wanted to see if deliberately writing within a genre would change the way I wrote. I can’t say that it has, except for having to be fanatic about plot details that might engage a clue-hunting reader. For better or worse, Safe as Houses is no less “literary” than my other novels and went through just as many drafts. It consists of two different narratives from two different points of view covering two different time periods; readers who pay attention to both will unravel the mystery a lot quicker than the protagonist does. Does this mean it isn’t really a mystery after all? It includes dead bodies, a variety of crimes, and both professional and amateur detectives, so what else could we call it?
Read the book and decide for yourself. Whatever genre you decide on is fine with me. After all, we called Pluto a planet for 75 years, and now we don’t, but it remains a celestial body of rock and ice with five moons that takes 248 years to complete a single, highly eccentric orbit around the sun. The important descriptions of anything are always more detailed and specific than what genre it belongs to
John Heminge and Henry Condell, the editors of the first folio, were Shakespeare’s close friends, fellow actors, and co-investors in the company for which he wrote his plays, so one might assume they knew which genre his plays belonged to. But we dissent, because our understanding of genre has changed since Shakespeare’s day. The plays, of course, remain what they always were – structures of words to be performed by bodies moving across a stage or enacted in the privacy of the reader’s imagination. We could substitute the word “cauliflower” for comedy and “taxidermy” for tragedy if we liked; this would have no effect upon our experience of the works themselves.
I appeal to the example of Shakespeare because 1) everyone knows his plays and 2) no one worries too much about what genre they fit into. This is not to say that the concept of genre isn’t useful; since Aristotle first divided poetry into epic, lyric, and dramatic, students of literature have found genre a very helpful way to talk about the structure of works and the transmission of traditions. But I’m not convinced that thinking within such tight aesthetic categories is equally useful for writers themselves, whose job, after all, is to represent life. And life is never just tragedy, comedy, history, or romance; it’s all of those, all at once. Thus: the smell of grapefruit and burnt toast + horrifying news on the radio about atrocities around the world + your kid making a profound observation before farting loudly + your husband kissing the back of your neck in that way that still makes you tingle = breakfast.
Still, I have to admit that not writing within easily recognized genres has complicated my life. My first novel, The Violin Lover, was composed in sonata form for three voices – violin, piano, and cello – but I suppressed that fact, as well as cutting out many intermezzi on topics like the difference between the operatic voice and the speaking voice or the invention of the public concert, because publishing folk insisted the musical stuff was beside the point. What I was writing was “literary fiction,” they declared, especially given that I was already known as a poet. If we had to pick a subgenre, well, this book was set in the past, so clearly I was writing an “historical novel.” And that was that.
When asked the genre of my second novel, The Tale-Teller, I described it as “feminist picaresque” – after all, its realistic framework of life in 18th-century Quebec was constantly being interrupted by heroic tales of feral children, pirates, and escapes from harems. I was informed by agents and editors who admired the writing but disliked generic miscegenation that my book ought to be either historical fiction or fantasy, and I wasn’t permitted to write both at the same time. I stuck to my guns and found a publisher (Cormorant Books) that got what I was doing. But still, the French translation by Boreal has done better than the original; reviewers in Canada’s other official language celebrated the work for exactly those qualities – philosophical engagement and linguistic playfulness – overlooked by English reviewers who insisted on reading it as historical fiction.
One of the reasons I decided to write a “murder mystery” set in present-day Toronto was my frustration with this whole issue. I wanted to see if deliberately writing within a genre would change the way I wrote. I can’t say that it has, except for having to be fanatic about plot details that might engage a clue-hunting reader. For better or worse, Safe as Houses is no less “literary” than my other novels and went through just as many drafts. It consists of two different narratives from two different points of view covering two different time periods; readers who pay attention to both will unravel the mystery a lot quicker than the protagonist does. Does this mean it isn’t really a mystery after all? It includes dead bodies, a variety of crimes, and both professional and amateur detectives, so what else could we call it?
Read the book and decide for yourself. Whatever genre you decide on is fine with me. After all, we called Pluto a planet for 75 years, and now we don’t, but it remains a celestial body of rock and ice with five moons that takes 248 years to complete a single, highly eccentric orbit around the sun. The important descriptions of anything are always more detailed and specific than what genre it belongs to
