“Malarky is like nothing else, and what everything should be,” Kerry Clare reviews Malarky
When I wrote Malarky I chose a rotating point of view, I wanted that 360 degree circle, in close up, on one woman. I wanted one ordinary woman to matter, so I committed to her in my prose in an unremitting, relentless manner. I called her Our Woman to complete that sense of rotation as I wanted the reader to feel ownership over her or to possess her. To be engaged in her life like you might follow a favourite sports team (to cheer for her, to despair for her) or something you’re passionate about and long to have intimate knowledge of. (I should say that I learn so much about this book from readers, their responses make me aware of things I’d no notion of — the book forms new or unnoticed shadows.)
I never anticipated my novel would be embraced and understood with this same 360 degree wholeness. It is a great privilege to be understood, that’s all I can say about Kerry Clare’s careful and engaged reading of Malarky. Please click on this extract to read the entire review.
Malarky is a journey beyond the limits of love, an equally sad and hilarious portrait of motherhood.
Snaps
During the past 48 hours I have possibly had more photos taken of me than in the previous 41 years. (I grew up in the instamatic era…I still remember flash cubes on cameras)
Yesterday’s photoshoot involved a great deal of weather and building contemplation. I was most fortunate to work with a lovely photographer named David who introduced me to a whole series of streets and areas in Richmond I’d never encountered before. I also learned, how many buildings locally are painted the identical tan colour because we were looking for buildings with solid bright colours. It was a rainy day yesterday, but a great deal of fun was had and I now have a micro-geography (as Tony Judt might say) of odd buildings that are brightly coloured dotted here and there in distant Richmond, along with a whole new appreciation of industrial landscapes and what they offer the eye and the ear.
Today’s photo adventure was more local and the photographer was easily persuaded of the merits of an industrial pipe that I’d admired wandering past in recent days and today got to stand inside. We had a very nice chat walking to and from my suggested spots. I even learnt about broga. (Brotherly yoga aka yoga for blokes)
Visual journeys both. I was lucky to work with such nifty and inspired dudes.
Mighty Malarky review in mighty New Brunswick
Click on the image to enlarge and read this mighty review for Malarky written by Chad Pelley published in the Telegraph Journal Newspaper (New Brunswick) last Saturday. Thank you for reading and reviewing my book New Brunswick!
It was a sunny …
It was a sunny Friday which allowed the cherry blossoms some respite from their chronic bathing latterly. They stick to the bottom of shoes in an unflattering manner and, for that matter, a flattening manner. I sometimes feel a bit disraught at that beautiful canopy being trampled and mushed underfoot.
Yesterday co-incidentally I encountered a Canada goose who initially seemed distraught. He wandered over to my car window and honked at me and then ambled around staring. I worried he/she might be injured so returned on foot to have a chat with him. What a beautiful creature! He was occupying the road unconcerned by the threat of traffic, preening himself. They have such agile necks and if troubled by an itch they do a loop, invert their heads upside down and scratch the back of their neck/heads. Finally he/she lifted his back plummage out, umbrella-ish, in demonstration mode before settling on a patch of grass and continuing to ignore the urban passings. I was very struck by the way this goose occupied public space and was undeterred by the noise or systems.
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There have been some wonderful reviews of Malarky this week that I will post tomorrow once the sun has risen.
Sunny with cherry blossoms
Take your guitars and headaches out into the sunshine, the cherry blossoms are waving….
Honestly this blast of sunshine has awakened the roots of my teeth.
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I was very interested to learn this morning that the word for socks in Quebecois is “bas” as in “va-cherches tes bas?” (this is a mangled likely mis-spelled attempt to say go and get your socks). There’s something very geographic or GPS about the word, which could only prove a problem if people started wearing sock on their heads.
Happy Days: Malarky Vancouver Launch
People’s Co-op Bookshop launch for Malarky April 1, 2012
Thank you to the great crowd of warm people who came out over the three hours and bought every single copy in the shop! It was so wonderful to see you all. Thanks to my son and Cameron Wilson for playing great fiddle music and laments and to Lori W. who made her debut on ukelele singing one my fave songs Miss Otis Regrets so beautifully. Thank you to Grandma Suzu and Toni for the fine food and thanks to Lindsay Brown and Siobhan Airey for these pics. Happy Days!
Flying duck flu lurgi flattens forecaster
Two significant weather events that I am unable to report on beyond the words extensive hailstones and a visit from Monsieur Soleil due to a bout of the lurgis that, well, hands up if you took tylanol into the double digits during the last 24 hours. We’re in this together.
Some kind of mutated flying duck flu with lungs that feel like two heavy sacks of coal. Misery. If you are well do a dance and down a double scotch for me. Your weather forecaster is indisposed.
Reviews
Scott Esposito has written a thoughtful, interrogative review of Malarky on his blog Conversational Reading.
I really appreciate this review because it is, as reviews should be, an engaging piece of writing in its own right. (Of course I might quarrel with his notion on ethos, preferring McGahern’s idea that the particular is the way to the general but that’s for another blog.) I was fascinated by his analysis of the prose and will give thought to his questions. Click on the quote below to read the entire review.
Thanks to Scott Esposito and Marcus Pactor for reading and writing these considerations of my work. Much appreciated.
Reviews
Some thoughtful and interrogative reviews/ blogs have been posted about Malarky.
Marcus Pactor wrote a mid-book review, which is a curious concept that I might join him in writing sometime. I like the continuum that a mid-book review gives to the act of reading. It establishes that it’s ongoing.
Some extracts from Pactor’s blog
“The personal becomes political” is worn, too. Schofield turns it around so that the political becomes personal. We’re very much in the post-9/11 world, but Our Woman’s mostly absorbed by her own life. She’s interested in Afghanistan mostly because that’s where her homosexual son Jimmy took off to. She’s interested in Syria because that’s where her latest lover’s from. When she and her husband watch the news and see riots on the West Bank, she comments: “’Well whether they’re nutters or not,’ I said, ‘they’re lovely looking people. Look at the great faces on those young men, see the elasticity in their skin and the beards make them look wise when they’re all but twenty.’” This personalization is not a reduction. New meanings and understandings of human value are assigned. They have little to do with neocons and their useless counterparts.
Sentence-wise, she’s also excellent. You can hear the Irish voice articulating lovely, inventive metaphors. “One of her fleeting Ballyhaunis Bacon moments has just scraped by her, when the pork of her husband’s action clouts her forcefully out of nowhere and she finds brief comfort in the thought of him, entering the factory to have his flesh separated from his bones for betraying her the way he has.”
Read the entire post here