Off the Cuff in Canada, with Canadians

Over at Dietrich Kalteis' Off the Cuff, talented crime writers, organizers, and editors from Canada talk about crime writing in that country, their discussion illustrated by a Canadian who lives in this country.

The participants are Jacques Filippi, Sam Wiebe, and John McFetridge, and the illustrator (photographer, really) is your humble blogkeeper, with the noirish shot reproduced above right

Talk turns to Canadian identity in crime fiction, and both Jacques and John (the latter of whose gifts include a flair for naming minor characters) suggest that Canadian crime writers can best get themselves noticed by writing novels that could be set nowhere but Canada. 

But Canada's immensely long border with the United States, and the cultural ties between the two countries, are part of Canada's uniqueness. That may be why a fair amount of Canadian crime fiction, including John's, Dietrich's, and Howard Shrier's, straddles the border and embraces the geographically equivocal position. That, I think, is part of that makes their writing special.

Elsewhere in the discussion, Jacques muses on clichés, and I hope he won't mind if I quote him at length:

"Clichés are usually bad, but hockey, poutine, maple syrup, the Québécois swear words and bad driving; our politeness; our bilingualism (when in fact we are bilinguals in only 2 provinces and part of a third one out of 10), etcetera, are all aspects of who we are. If some of these Canadian attributes end up in your story, should you edit them out to avoid clichés? I don’t think so if it’s not just decorative to your story. I don’t think Louise Penny would have the same success if Three Pines was a village in North Dakota, Wyoming, or any other states for that matter. Penny inserts some of the Québécois clichés in her novels, but they are clichés only to those who know about the Québécois way of life in small villages. To Penny’s readers, the so-called clichés are Québécois and Canadian ‘flavours’."

Finally, as I wrote in a comment to their post, Canada is by reputation polite, progressive, and civilized, and its crime writing has not had the international impact deserves. Sweden, on the other hand, is by reputation, polite, progressive, and civilized, and we all know what its crime writers have done.  Why is this?

© Peter Rozovsky 2015

Howard Engel's Memory Book, or What happens when a writer loses his ability to read?

(The graphically brilliant
and thematically relevant cover
of the Canadian edition of
Memory Book)

The Crime Writers of Canada announced the winners of the Arthur Ellis Awards this week, an honor my landsman Howard Shrier has won twice in the past. This year's awards inaugurated a Grand Master category, and the first winner is the author of what must be one of the most unusual crime novels ever published. In honor of the award here's a post I put up some years ago about Memory Book, by grandmaster Howard Engel.

© Peter Rozovsky 2014

======================

This was the first crime novel I can remember that comes with an afterword by a neurologist. That neurologist, Oliver Sacks, writes of his acquaintance with Howard Engel, which came about because of Engel's alexia sine agraphia, a condition in which the sufferer loses the ability to read but not to write -- a difficult affliction to bear for a novelist.

Sacks tells us about some of the surprising ways Engel overcame this condition and resumed his writing career. The first product of this resumption was Memory Book, the eleventh novel featuring private eye Benny Cooperman, and the first in which Benny must, like his creator, overcome alexia sine agraphia. (Engel's condition was the result of a mild stroke. Cooperman's was the result of -- but you'll have to read the book to find out.)

Confined to a rehabilitation hospital as he is, Cooperman must, like Alan Grant in Josephine Tey's Daughter of Time, solve a mystery from his sick bed. Cooperman is alive to the world of the hospital, to the personalities of his fellow patients, his nurses and his doctors.

The mystery Cooperman must solve is how he wound up in the condition in which he finds himself. This leads him back into the case that had brought him from his home town of Grantham, Ontario, to Toronto, where he was hospitalized. He must solve these dual mysteries as he struggles with neurological conditions that leave him constantly tired and unable to retain names and words. His discoveries of his own slowly returning cognitive abilities as he chases down the people who put him where he is add an intriguing dimension highly unusual in crime novels to say the least. Handicapped detectives have been around for almost a hundred years, if not longer, but I don't know of any others who have shared an affliction with their creator.

I also found myself wondering if Engel's cognitive struggles accounted for my one quibble with the novel's style. In at least two places, long stretches of dialogue are uninterrupted by reaction on Cooperman's part. In at least one of these, the lack of reaction was obtrusive. Is this a quirk of Engel's style unrelated to his condition? I'll tell you after I've read more of his books.

© Peter Rozovsky 2008

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Howard Engel
Canadian crime fiction

Good stuff from Canada

I am delighted to announce that John McFetridge's new novel, Tumblin' Dice, is on its way, with an interesting distribution offer from its publisher, ECW Press: Buy the book, get the e-book free.

Whatever the format, how can you resist an opening like:

"The High had been back together and on the road for a couple of months playing mostly casinos when the lead singer, Cliff Moore, got the idea to start robbing them."

Or this, part of which I've quoted before, but is worth quoting again:

"Cliff said, `What the fuck?' and the soccer mom looked up and said, you don’t like it?, and Cliff said, no, it’s good, honey, `Really good. I’m almost there.' When he finished, he signed another autograph, the mom saying the first time she saw the High was in Madison, must have been ’78 or ’79, her and her friends still in high school, sneaking into the show ..."

followed shortly by

"Cliff started to follow, felt a hand on his arm, and looked around to see two very hot chicks, had to be teenagers, but maybe legal, looked exactly the same — long blond hair, tight jeans, low-cut tees, like twins, same serious look on their faces — and he said, `Hey, ladies, looking for some fun?' 

"One of the girls said, `No, we’re looking for our mom. She was talking to you before.'”

Read the first chapter of what looks to be a funny, exciting, coming-of-middle-age crime story on the publisher's Web site. (If you're not in Canada, do what I did and order Tumblin' Dice from The Book Depository.)

***

Another landsman, Howard Shrier, weighs in with Boston Cream, his third novel about an ethical but tough Toronto private investigator named Jonah Geller. Shrier's first two books were called Buffalo Jump and High Chicago, and each won an Arthur Ellis Award from the Crime Writers of Canada.

In naming his novels for American cities close to the International Boundary between the United States and Canada, Shrier leaves himself 5,525 miles to prolong the series all the way from Port Angeles to Presque Isle. And, if the opening pages of Boston Cream are any indication, he continues to do a fine job of portraying the life of a P.I., who, in addition to using computers every day and killing if he absolutely must, is thoroughly secular yet aware at every moment of, and reasonably comfortable with, his Jewish identity.

© Peter Rozovsky 2012

Hi, Chicago

My landsman Howard Shrier's High Chicago opens with protagonist Jonah Geller landing in Chicago from Toronto and tumbling into the bearlike embrace of a newly large old friend.

Whether this is a metaphor for Canada's fear of being swallowed up by its neighbor, I don't know. But, like Shrier's earlier Buffalo Jump, High Chicago plunges across a border.

That first book begins with story strands on each side of the U.S.-Canada line, then brings them gradually together in a fine piece of suspense-building. And that's a neat paradigm for crime-writing in today's globalized economy.

More later.

© Peter Rozovsky 2010

Arthur Ellis Awards

The Crime Writers of Canada have bestowed the 2009 Arthur Ellis Awards. The winners include Linwood Barclay's Too Close to Home for best novel, Howard Shrier's Buffalo Jump for best first novel, and Jacques Côté's Le Chemin des brumes for best crime writing in French.

Find a complete list of winners and a list of all nominees. The awards, by the way, are charmingly named for the nom de travail of Canada's official hangman, according to the CWC.

And click here for previous discussion of Shrier on the blog, including his appearance at the first cross-border Noir at the Bar.

==================

N.B.: Here's a bit about Arthur Ellis, his name, his career as a hangman, and why that career came to an end on March 28, 1935.

© Peter Rozovsky 2009

Buffalo Jump up ... for an Arthur Ellis Award

Howard Shrier, a guest at the first cross-border Noir at the Bar earlier this year in Toronto, is up for an Arthur Ellis Award from the Crime Writers of Canada for best first novel.

Buffalo Jump offers funny and fresh takes on the private-eye novel and not-so-funny trips into scary moral territory. The novel is set near the Canada-United States border and crosses that border to tell a pair of stories that converge to pack a tough and thoroughly contemporary punch.

(Click here for a complete list of nominees. The winners are to be announced June 4.)

© Peter Rozovsky 2009

Noir at the Bar: Canadians and coincidences

Bouchercon 2008 in Baltimore included a panel on the private-eye novel at which Declan Hughes offered a ringing defense of the genre. Hughes' passionate theatrics are always a joy to behold, and they did at least as much as the hospitality-suite coffee to jar conventioneers out of their early-morning stupor.

I remember thinking at the time that defense implies attack. So when John McFetridge invited me to quiz Sean Chercover (left) and Howard Shrier (right) at Toronto's first Noir at the Bar, I thought about how these two writers both honor the venerable P.I. genre and keep it fresh.

They do it in some similar ways both small — Chercover's Ray Dudgeon and Shrier's Jonah Geller use computers and databases in their work — and large: both kill where their predecessors may only have felt like killing. Both also shed tears, which earlier tough P.I.s did not do.

The books share other features, too: Location (Both of Chercover's books and significant parts of Shrier's second are set in Chicago). And I don't remember Percocet previously figuring in the work of two consecutive authors on my crime-fiction reading list.

So John chose two well-matched authors. And if my reports on this Noir at the Bar are more disjointed than usual, I realize now that it's hard to take notes when one is asking the questions.

© Peter Rozovsky 2009

Extra time in Toronto, extra crime fiction

(From left: Sean Chercover, Peter "Deadbeard" Rozovsky, Howard Shrier)

My plane never made it off the ground, thanks to bad weather in my destination of Philadelphia, so I headed back into town to buy more crime fiction and Montreal-style bagels. Today's crime books come from England, Scotland, Ireland and the Netherlands.

On my way back to Sleuth of Baker Street, I saw a fellow passenger on the bus reading Howard Shrier's Buffalo Jump. She was reading the novel for a crime-fiction book group, and she also told me about a local university detective-fiction course that she said had been taught by Peter Robinson, among others.

"You should read this McFetridge guy, too," I said. "And this Sean Chercover guy, and this international crime-fiction blog, for which I just happen to have a business card right here."

Are crime-fiction sirens calling me to Toronto?

© Peter Rozovsky 2009

Toronto: International crime-fiction capital

Always carry a camera that works. Had mine not conked out today, I'd have posted a picture of an even better subway placard than the one I wrote about yesterday. This one bore handsome blow-ups of the covers of Nemesis by Jo Nesbø, Revelation by C.J. Sansom, Kennedy's Brain by Henning Mankell and This Night's Foul Work by Fred Vargas. All four are part of Vintage Canada's World of Crime series, and the ad's tag line did my heart good: "The Best of International Crime Fiction."

Howard Shrier's novels are published under the same imprint, one reason I was proud to have him as a guest at tonight's Noir at the Bar: T.O. Style (that's not him in the photo at left) along with Sean Chercover. All of us were there at the invitation of novelist/TV writer John McFetridge, who brought along a lively but well-behaved gang of authors and other interesting folks.

I did my second stint as a Noir at the Bar moderator, after October's session with McFetridge and Declan Burke, and I am beginning to realize that I love asking questions. I'll follow with a fuller report once I get some sleep. Suffice it to say that Chercover and Shrier both honor the P.I. tradition and renew it.

Until I can borrow some pictures from my fellow attendees, this post offers a photo of me buying some international crime fiction on Sunday at Toronto's Sleuth of Baker Street. The beard is now gone. Sorry, Arlene.

© Peter Rozovsky 2009

Keeping it fresh

Sean Chercover and Howard Shrier, the guest authors for "Noir at the Bar T.O. style" in Toronto on March 10, both face the challenge of keeping an old genre fresh. Each writes novels set in a big city (Toronto, principally, for Shrier, Chicago for Chercover), and each has as his protagonist a private investigator who's male, tough but reasonably sensitive, single and unhappily so.

How do these authors keep that well-worn fictional territory fresh? Yesterday I cited one way Shrier does it. Today is Chercover's turn. For one thing, he'll sharpen a traditional P.I. trait just enough to make it stand out. One such example in Big City, Bad Blood is his protagonist's willingness to use violence when necessary. Chercover's guy goes a bit farther than most. You'll recognize the example I have in mind when you read the book.

This protagonist is also comfortable with technology without compromising his toughness, slipping into geekiness, or getting obtrusive about how much research the author has done. I'd flagged one nice example of this, which I'll share with you as I soon as I can find the page it's on.

Now it's your turn. What are your favorite examples of authors' strategies for keeping a traditional genre fresh?

(Whether intentionally or otherwise, Shrier and Chercover have also given their P.I. heroes resonant names: Jonah — as in the whale guy who bounces back to life after being in a pretty tough situation — Geller in Shrier's case, Ray Dudgeon in Chercover's.)

© Peter Rozovsky 2009

Homework

In these hard times, fun becomes a luxury, pleasure a concept best left for the fat years when it can have no consequence. "The era of entitlement is over," we were told at a recent work meeting. "I," said the manager who made the announcement,"feel lucky to have a job." Personal fulfillment from work? Professional satisfaction? Pensions? Social security? Surely you jest.

Happily, though, not all assigned tasks are so grim. I've been doing my homework for the March 10 "Noir at the Bar T.O. style," featuring authors Howard Shrier and Sean Chercover, and the job has been fun. Here's one reason: The kicker to Chapter One of Shrier's novel Buffalo Jump. P.I. Jonah Geller has just ejected an ill-mannered, anti-Semitic slob from a Toronto streetcar after the bum had grabbed a seat intended for an elderly woman. As the streetcar doors close on the complaining yob, the hero of the piece muses: "Jonah Geller. Repairing the world, one asshole at a time."

What does this tell us? That Shrier has a sense of humor. That Geller is a gentleman of the old-fashioned kind, a knight errant who does what the rest of us only fantasize about doing to jerks, slobs and morons. But mostly it tells us that Geller, his creator or both paid attention in Hebrew school.

Repairing the world, in Hebrew tikkun olam, is an ancient ethical concept in Judaism, its various meanings embodying service, social conscience, duty and responsibility for others. It may be time to make room for Geller on the roster of ethnic detectives (for which, see here and here). And, since tikkun olam originated in the rabbinic period, with roots in the Mishnah, perhaps the Mishnah joins that list of proto-detective classics of world literature.

© Peter Rozovsky 2009

Nice poster, eh?

Generous John McFetridge, author, blogger and television writer, has invited me to Toronto to present "Noir at the Bar T.O. style."

I'll be up there Tuesday, March 10, quizzing Sean Chercover, author of Big City, Bad Blood and Trigger City, and Howard Shrier, author of Buffalo Jump and High Chicago.

Come join Sean, Howard, John and me at Scotland Yard Pub, 56 The Esplanade, one block east of Yonge Street and one block south of Front Street in one of North America's coolest crime fiction cities. The fun starts at 7:30 pm.

© Peter Rozovsky 2009

Detectives across the Canada-U.S. border

Something interesting is going on in Canadian crime fiction. John McFetridge's Swap, to be published in the U.S. late this year or early next, opens with a Canada-U.S. border crossing. Howard Shrier, like McFetridge a Montreal native now living in Toronto, is setting up a kind of cross-border travelogue in his new series about Toronto investigator Jonah Geller (The first book is Buffalo Jump, the second High Chicago).

I'm from Montreal, too, and I am familiar with Canadians' understandable apprehension about being swallowed up culturally by the United States. I grew up, for instance, among rules mandating a certain proportion of Canadian content on radio and television. So it's nice to come across work that neither cringes at the U.S. nor ignores it.

And it's nice to read crime fiction that acknowledges this globalized world of ours. Savvy crime writers are recognizing that global and local perspectives need not be mutually exclusive, that they can interact in all sorts of interesting ways. Henry Chang's Year of the Dog comes to mind. The author is American, from New York's Chinatown, and his fiction examines its crowded streets in minute detail. Yet the criminal life he depicts is intertwined with that of mainland China, of Hong Kong and, yes, of Canada.

(Read the Detectives Beyond Borders interview with John McFetridge here.)

© Peter Rozovsky 2009