I was asleep.<\/p>\n
Even though it was 8.30 I was asleep.<\/p>\n
I was asleep because in the middle of the night I awoke to, what I understood was, an attempted robbery of a sewer pipe from the repair taking place outside my apartment building. Since I’ve been anticipating the ground opening and getting a confirmed peek at precisely how our sewer system looks (I’d notions of a giant Dickensian\/Victorian type series of tunnels. Alas, no. Closer to IKEA than Dickens) I had a certain investment in the pipes not being robbed. Leapt from the bed, barefooted it to the balcony, ready to bellow at the robber. I could hear a noisy, ceramic dragging sound. My defence of the lack of an attempted robbery on the sewer pipe at 4am explains why I was fast asleep when apparently it seems the rest of literary Canada was wide awake.<\/p>\n
A text arrived from a friend that read<\/p>\n
YES!<\/p>\n
What?<\/p>\n
Longlist.<\/p>\n
What longlist?<\/p>\n
Giller.<\/p>\n
There followed a great deal of donging type notifications on my phone and before I could really comprehend anything my teenage son sent a series of frantic texts about his forgotten school \u00a0timetable on the kitchen table and urged me to take a picture of it. Take a picture and text it to me. I could not figure out the camera but took a picture. More texts. Where’s the picture?\u00a0There was some technical interference as though Pluto was lowering a giraffe between our phone signals and this took some time before I could figure out the 83 notification messages.<\/p>\n
The gist of the story is<\/p>\n
“Scotiabank Giller Prize jury delivers surprising longlist”<\/p>\n
The reason my phone was hopping is because by some strange stroke of a miracle, Martin John is on it. Summarized very well here<\/a> by Steven Beattie.<\/p>\n