Live Nude Writers

A busy season of literary events and one interesting event I saw last week was Live Nude Writers. The evening was held at Stock Bar, also known as one of Montreal's most popular gay strip clubs.

Peter Dubé reading from his work

The readings started with Jordan Coulombe who's the editor of Crooked Fagazine (one of the few magazines today that can't be read online). He read a segment from a book that he is currently working on. Next up was Christopher DiRaddo, author of The Geography of Pluto, a fascinating novel set in 1990s Montreal about a young gay man coming of age. Chris read a funny segment he wrote a few years back from an anthology, a piece about being hairy(!). Then my friend Peter Dubé read from his forthcoming collection of short fiction pieces, Beginning with the Mirror. Peter is always a treat to read, not just for his eyebrow-raising subject matter (lots of sex scenes) but for his very unique timbre of reading and inflection. Also I'm a huge fan of his writing, including The City's Gates and Subtle Bodies. Indeed, whenever I hear someone complain about the dearth of Canadian fiction that pushes the boundaries of form, I always bring up Peter whose work is always a revelation and always unpredictable.

Poet John Barton rounded out the evening with a reading from his most recent collection, Polari,

Christopher DiRaddo reads about being hairy

which explores the coded language which gay men used to communicate about their lives with each other. I'm not terribly familiar with Barton's work but his collection is one that is definitely at the top of my list.

All in all it was an entertaining evening full of solid writing in a space that hinted at sexiness (though there were no strippers to be had on this particular evening). A stroke of genius to hold a reading at this space and I hope to see others here in the future.

Sarah Waters: The Little Stranger

So I've been reading Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger  the last few days and I have to say one aspect of it is really annoying me: the long chapters. Sheesh, how am I supposed to find two hours in one sitting to read a 200 page chapter? And it's not like there are many breaks within a chapter as natural ending points either.

It might seem like a small thing but I constantly drop back in to the middle of the action (her scenes go on and on and on...) and have to re-orient myself again.

The novel is set just after WWII in rural England and is told by a local doctor whose mother was a servant in The Hundreds, a dilapidated old mansion whose family is odd and isolated. Formerly part the ruling class, the family struggles with one inept servant and Waters does what Downton Abbey tries to do (though this book pre-dates D.A.) but without the opulence or obsequiousness of "before". We only see the shabbiness and helplessness of the after.

While I am reading in bed at night, I start to get a bit sleepy and zip ahead to see how many pages are left and then realize it's going to take another hour to get through this chapter. Ugh. Then I get irritated.

You'd think I could just get lost in the story and not notice but there are too many demands on our time today. It doesn't work that way.

And I've been thinking about this, how unusual it is nowadays when so many books have short chapters or many ending points within a chapter. I always assume it's a natural breaking point for a writer, to end a scene, to stop for the day. I can't imagine how a writer spends all day writing a few pages, then returns tomorrow and has to carry on with the same conversation, the same tensions, the same scene as she did the day before.

It's a good book otherwise. I like the atmosphere she creates of the spooky old house and all the dysfunction and polite chatter that masks something lurking underneath. The protagonist is elusive, the other characters all seem to be hiding things.

But shorter chapters, please!!