Reading
Went to Rachel's reading tonight at Cafe Montmartre on Main St. A decent venue (I read there 5 or 6 years ago) and crowd. Rachel's reading was strong and she sold a book and would've sold another, but the guy--after buying his beer--didn't have enough cash.
Carl Leggo, a Newfoundlander long resident in Richmond BC, read next. His stuff is Lyrical, but he had a good sense of humour and read with a lot of energy, even if without much variation of tone.
The last reader was Andrea MacPherson, who read from a new novel. When she was describing it, it sounded pretty interesting, but then she started reading it and I lost interest in a hurry. Very prosaic; it sounded like writing, and the characters, supposedly Scots in 1918, sounded an awful lot like 21st C. Canadians. There was also some of that awfully ponderous homiletic faux-wisdom that is such a stock-in-trade of earnest young Canuck writers. A friend at my table said it was during MacPherson's reading that she noticed there were a bunch of tricycles hung from the ceiling. Apparently, it's MacPherson's fourth book at the tender age of thirty (tho her site says three of those books are out this year). Thank you, UBC CW programme for producing such efficient graduates!
Carl Leggo, a Newfoundlander long resident in Richmond BC, read next. His stuff is Lyrical, but he had a good sense of humour and read with a lot of energy, even if without much variation of tone.
The last reader was Andrea MacPherson, who read from a new novel. When she was describing it, it sounded pretty interesting, but then she started reading it and I lost interest in a hurry. Very prosaic; it sounded like writing, and the characters, supposedly Scots in 1918, sounded an awful lot like 21st C. Canadians. There was also some of that awfully ponderous homiletic faux-wisdom that is such a stock-in-trade of earnest young Canuck writers. A friend at my table said it was during MacPherson's reading that she noticed there were a bunch of tricycles hung from the ceiling. Apparently, it's MacPherson's fourth book at the tender age of thirty (tho her site says three of those books are out this year). Thank you, UBC CW programme for producing such efficient graduates!
1 comment:
I was at the reading as well - happened by and saw the signs in the window, vaguely remembered reading about it online - and enjoyed it very much. I bought a book from MacPherson - thought her reading was lovely, and her prose lyrical and thick and lush. I saw similarities between Lebowitz's work and MacPherson's - language, pacing, lyricism - so I'm surprised at the review here. I read her first book (in 2003) and might pick up the poetry collection that comes out this summer. (I think the fourth book - also poetry? - appears next year.)
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