Oh my. This is a very sweet sentiment. Thank you to Ian McGillis of the Montreal Gazette. Book Prize shortlists however are akin to the likelihood of nabbing a seat on the Space Shuttle, hence I have\/had\/will always have zero expectations.<\/p>\n
Also, Book Prize culture usually insists on single conversations about single books. I am more concerned with the continuum and Malarky being in conversation with other books (as she is within her text) and\/or art forms for that matter. The poets are reading her, I hope some day maybe Malarky will be taught and new understandings and interrogations can emerge.<\/p>\n
I commend Mr McGillis for his column though because I have felt similiarly impassioned about the lack of people reading Helen Potrebenko’s novel Taxi! I think his column could be the heartiest defence I receive in this lifetime!<\/p>\n
Now, though, for my big beef: Where on earth is Anakana Schofield\u2019s Malarky<\/em><\/a>? The reception this years-in-gestation debut novel got last spring, both word-of-mouth and in the media<\/a>, seemed to mark a rare case of a small-press literary novel getting widespread attention purely on the basis of its merits. There was no particular \u201chook\u201d to this Ireland-set story of a (maybe) mad housewife other than its being so plainly, inarguably good; on a sentence-by-sentence level, and in its flawlessly sustained voice, it grabbed me as few novels have in recent years. Yes, I know, these things are subjective, but I\u2019m frankly baffled by its exclusion. If it doesn\u2019t make the GG<\/a> list I\u2019ll start to wonder if there\u2019s something in the water, either mine or everyone else\u2019s.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n