It seems we like talking about book trailers more than we'll ever actually like book trailers.
For Swap/Let It Ride I was fortunate to have some very talented writers say some very nice things about it so I put those quotes on this bit of video driving over the Ambassador Bridge from Detroit to Windsor, Ontario and I'm calling it a book trailer.
And I want to thank, again, all the people who have helped me so much in writing my books.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
A Crime Novel
This is the cover for Swap in the USA where it's called Let It Ride.
This one says, "a crime novel," instead of, "a mystery," which I think is more accurate as there are no mysteries in my books for the reader.
There are a lot of characters in the book and maybe there could've been a woman on the cover, too, but otherwise I like this a lot.
The publication date is set for February 16th, 2010.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Santa in a Red Dress - Live!
ECW Press recorded the readings at their Lit Party a couple of weeks ago and here's me reading the short story, Santa in a Red Dress that's in the December issue of Driven Magazine.
I've done a few of these readings the last few years so you'd think I'd be getting better at it, but no. Still just stare at the page and read.
The other ECW authors who read were really good and you can see them all here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/ecwpress
I've done a few of these readings the last few years so you'd think I'd be getting better at it, but no. Still just stare at the page and read.
The other ECW authors who read were really good and you can see them all here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/ecwpress
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Judge slapped for bias in pot case
He's right, but does that matter?
This is the kind of story that makes the background for my books. While sentencing a man convicted of running a marijuana grow op, the judge rejected a federal prosecutor's argument that a jail term was necessary to discourage people from getting involved in the drug trade.
"What's your basis for saying that?" the judge pressed. "Because nobody has been deterred. People have been going to jail for drug offences for – for a couple of generations now and the drug – the drug plague is worse than it ever was."
Allen questioned why, when a form of sentencing "doesn't work," he would try it again and again.
"Isn't that a form of insanity?" he asked.
And then the judge said what I've been writing about for three books now:
All society is really doing by prohibiting the production and consumption of marijuana is "giving the Hells Angels several billion dollars worth of income every year," Allen said.
Of course, I try to just present the criminal world as I see it. I try hard not to moralize or make my books too didactic. I have no answers to the "drug plague" as the judge called it, but if he's right about this part:
... the chances of a Dutch teen smoking marijuana – which is available at their local coffee shop – are substantially lower than the likelihood of an American teenager using the drug, he said.
It might be worth looking into.
A few years ago a teenager told me that he and his friends smoked dope because it was easier to get for them than beer. This kid claimed it was because stores that sold beer and alcohol (privately owned or government owned - I've lived in places with each system and there's little difference) didn't want to risk the fine and the criminal charge for selling to them but the drug dealer they bought from was already committing a criminal offense, so he didn't care.
To me there's no doubt that the drug trade supplies organized crime with a huge amount of capital and like all capitalists they reinvest that money and try to 'grow' their business into other areas.
And for now, it's all material for me.
And there's no shortage of material.
The Toronto Star article about the judge is here.
This is the kind of story that makes the background for my books. While sentencing a man convicted of running a marijuana grow op, the judge rejected a federal prosecutor's argument that a jail term was necessary to discourage people from getting involved in the drug trade.
"What's your basis for saying that?" the judge pressed. "Because nobody has been deterred. People have been going to jail for drug offences for – for a couple of generations now and the drug – the drug plague is worse than it ever was."
Allen questioned why, when a form of sentencing "doesn't work," he would try it again and again.
"Isn't that a form of insanity?" he asked.
And then the judge said what I've been writing about for three books now:
All society is really doing by prohibiting the production and consumption of marijuana is "giving the Hells Angels several billion dollars worth of income every year," Allen said.
Of course, I try to just present the criminal world as I see it. I try hard not to moralize or make my books too didactic. I have no answers to the "drug plague" as the judge called it, but if he's right about this part:
... the chances of a Dutch teen smoking marijuana – which is available at their local coffee shop – are substantially lower than the likelihood of an American teenager using the drug, he said.
It might be worth looking into.
A few years ago a teenager told me that he and his friends smoked dope because it was easier to get for them than beer. This kid claimed it was because stores that sold beer and alcohol (privately owned or government owned - I've lived in places with each system and there's little difference) didn't want to risk the fine and the criminal charge for selling to them but the drug dealer they bought from was already committing a criminal offense, so he didn't care.
To me there's no doubt that the drug trade supplies organized crime with a huge amount of capital and like all capitalists they reinvest that money and try to 'grow' their business into other areas.
And for now, it's all material for me.
And there's no shortage of material.
The Toronto Star article about the judge is here.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Santa in a Red Dress
Driven Magazine's December issue is now available online and includes my short story, Santa in a Red Dress.
There's also a really good interview with Stephen King about his new novel Under the Dome and a whole bunch of cool gift ideas.
The whole issue is available as a .pdf here.
There's also a really good interview with Stephen King about his new novel Under the Dome and a whole bunch of cool gift ideas.
The whole issue is available as a .pdf here.
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Suspicious Canadians
This was sent to me by my good friend, Adrian McKinty.*
Very funny.
* I've never atually met Adrian, but I follow his very well-written, thought-provoking and entertainingly opinionated blog and I highly recommend his novels, the most recent of which is Fifty Grand.
Apparently Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top gives people his business card that has only his name and, "Friend of Eric Clapton," printed on it. I was thinking I'd like cards with my name and, "Friend of ___," but thanks to this interweb thing it would have to list an awful lot of people, suspicious or not.
Very funny.
* I've never atually met Adrian, but I follow his very well-written, thought-provoking and entertainingly opinionated blog and I highly recommend his novels, the most recent of which is Fifty Grand.
Apparently Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top gives people his business card that has only his name and, "Friend of Eric Clapton," printed on it. I was thinking I'd like cards with my name and, "Friend of ___," but thanks to this interweb thing it would have to list an awful lot of people, suspicious or not.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Flash Fiction Challenge
The flash fiction gang (Patti Abbott, Gerald So and Aldo Calcagno) are running another Flash Fiction Challenge, this time it's called, Wal-Mart: I Love You and my contribution is up on Do Some Damage, along with stories from Steve Weddle and Jay Stringer.
The People of Wal-Mart website was the inspiration, and I certainly used it for my story.
The People of Wal-Mart website was the inspiration, and I certainly used it for my story.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
New Short Story
On Thursday, November 12th I was very pleased to be a part of the ECW Press-Fine Print Fall Lit Party in Toronto.
My excellent editor, Michael Holmes, introduced the five writers and we each read a little from our latest works.
Richard Rosenbaum read his introduction from the anthology he edited, Can'tLit: Fearless Fiction from Broken Pencil Magazine which was great. He said out loud all those things we think about boring, conservative Canadian literature, the kind of stuff that pretends to be deep but really just reinforces the soft liberal world view of middle-class Canadians.
Damian Rogers read poems from her collection, Paper Radio. In his introduction Michael said that sometimes as writers grow older they can be embarrassed about their earlier writing (sometimes!?! the best thing that can happen to a young writer is not getting published) but that's not something Damian will ever have to worry about, and based on the poems she read, he's right. A poem about a roller rink in Windsor? Great stuff.
Mark Sinnett read from his novel, The Carnivores (which I bought after the reading), a great scene that took place during the buildup to Hurricane Hazel which hit Toronto in 1954. It was form the point of view of a young cop working that night and while I liked everything he read, his description of people on the roof of the Gladstone Hotel thowing beer bottles into the river flowing down Queen Street, and, "The fact that instead of smashing they simply bobbed west seemed to strike them as miraculous," sold me. I'm only halfway through the book and it is terrific.
The final reader of the evening was Sky Gilbert. He read a few poems from his latest collection, A Nice Place to Visit. Sky and I have some very different memories of Costa Rica. His poems were funny - laugh out loud funny - and then heartbreaking. A real pro.
I decided not to read from Swap and instead read an entire short story that will be in Driven Magazine later this month. I said in my introduction that I really like Driven, it's a glossy "men's magazine" that usually has a car or a celebrity on the cover that also has fiction. Of course, as I said, it usually has fiction from a big-name, award winning, bestselling author. So, I was thrilled when the editor called me and asked me if I could write a story for the mag. After I said sure, he admitted that they had a big-name, award winning, bestselling author lined up but he dropped out at the last minute, so could I write it over the weekend? Um, ah, yeah, sure. Then he said, "Oh, and could you call it Santa in a Red Dress?"
For now I'll post the openingof the story. After it comes out in the magazine (November 23rd) I'll post the whole thing:
JT had been with the Saints of Hell going on two years, since almost the day he got back from Afghanistan, moving up from hangaround to prospect, still doing the shit work till he could get his patch. Like this: driving two days to Moncton to meet a guy who’d picked up 80 kilos of coke offshore.
Just before dawn, the freighter Sharon David, carrying low-sulphur coal from Maracaibo, Venezuela, to Sydney, Nova Scotia, passed by a mile off the coast, and one of the Filipino crew members tossed an oil drum overboard. At sun-up, a lobster fisherman named Jerry McNeil and his brother-in-law followed the GPS signal to the drum and pulled it onboard.
They had the drum open and the coke in three hockey bags before they even got back to shore. Later that day, Jerry drove almost four hours from Port Dufferin to the Magnetic Hill Motel in Moncton, parked his pickup in front of room number six and went to the coffee shop. Ten minutes later, JT came out of room number nine, took the hockey bags, 60 pounds apiece, and left a backpack with 40 grand in cash—enough to get Jerry through one more season, maybe even another, the price of lobsters didn’t go down as much as the price of fuel goes up.
JT drove back to Toronto, 15 hours in a brand-new Camaro, 300 horsepower and a Boston Acoustics stereo. On the Trans-Can through New Brunswick he saw a few signs for the US border: twelve miles, nine miles, always so close, and he thought how the coke he was carrying would bring almost twice as much wholesale in Canada, over 40 grand a kilo, because the market was so tightly controlled. Of course, the retail price in Canada was less than in the US, maybe 50 bucks a gram instead of 70 or 75, because the Saints sold to anybody and let them fight it out on the street. But that wasn’t his problem.
Getting the patch, that was his problem. Once JT had that, he’d never have to touch the product again...
My excellent editor, Michael Holmes, introduced the five writers and we each read a little from our latest works.
Richard Rosenbaum read his introduction from the anthology he edited, Can'tLit: Fearless Fiction from Broken Pencil Magazine which was great. He said out loud all those things we think about boring, conservative Canadian literature, the kind of stuff that pretends to be deep but really just reinforces the soft liberal world view of middle-class Canadians.
Damian Rogers read poems from her collection, Paper Radio. In his introduction Michael said that sometimes as writers grow older they can be embarrassed about their earlier writing (sometimes!?! the best thing that can happen to a young writer is not getting published) but that's not something Damian will ever have to worry about, and based on the poems she read, he's right. A poem about a roller rink in Windsor? Great stuff.
Mark Sinnett read from his novel, The Carnivores (which I bought after the reading), a great scene that took place during the buildup to Hurricane Hazel which hit Toronto in 1954. It was form the point of view of a young cop working that night and while I liked everything he read, his description of people on the roof of the Gladstone Hotel thowing beer bottles into the river flowing down Queen Street, and, "The fact that instead of smashing they simply bobbed west seemed to strike them as miraculous," sold me. I'm only halfway through the book and it is terrific.
The final reader of the evening was Sky Gilbert. He read a few poems from his latest collection, A Nice Place to Visit. Sky and I have some very different memories of Costa Rica. His poems were funny - laugh out loud funny - and then heartbreaking. A real pro.
I decided not to read from Swap and instead read an entire short story that will be in Driven Magazine later this month. I said in my introduction that I really like Driven, it's a glossy "men's magazine" that usually has a car or a celebrity on the cover that also has fiction. Of course, as I said, it usually has fiction from a big-name, award winning, bestselling author. So, I was thrilled when the editor called me and asked me if I could write a story for the mag. After I said sure, he admitted that they had a big-name, award winning, bestselling author lined up but he dropped out at the last minute, so could I write it over the weekend? Um, ah, yeah, sure. Then he said, "Oh, and could you call it Santa in a Red Dress?"
For now I'll post the openingof the story. After it comes out in the magazine (November 23rd) I'll post the whole thing:
JT had been with the Saints of Hell going on two years, since almost the day he got back from Afghanistan, moving up from hangaround to prospect, still doing the shit work till he could get his patch. Like this: driving two days to Moncton to meet a guy who’d picked up 80 kilos of coke offshore.
Just before dawn, the freighter Sharon David, carrying low-sulphur coal from Maracaibo, Venezuela, to Sydney, Nova Scotia, passed by a mile off the coast, and one of the Filipino crew members tossed an oil drum overboard. At sun-up, a lobster fisherman named Jerry McNeil and his brother-in-law followed the GPS signal to the drum and pulled it onboard.
They had the drum open and the coke in three hockey bags before they even got back to shore. Later that day, Jerry drove almost four hours from Port Dufferin to the Magnetic Hill Motel in Moncton, parked his pickup in front of room number six and went to the coffee shop. Ten minutes later, JT came out of room number nine, took the hockey bags, 60 pounds apiece, and left a backpack with 40 grand in cash—enough to get Jerry through one more season, maybe even another, the price of lobsters didn’t go down as much as the price of fuel goes up.
JT drove back to Toronto, 15 hours in a brand-new Camaro, 300 horsepower and a Boston Acoustics stereo. On the Trans-Can through New Brunswick he saw a few signs for the US border: twelve miles, nine miles, always so close, and he thought how the coke he was carrying would bring almost twice as much wholesale in Canada, over 40 grand a kilo, because the market was so tightly controlled. Of course, the retail price in Canada was less than in the US, maybe 50 bucks a gram instead of 70 or 75, because the Saints sold to anybody and let them fight it out on the street. But that wasn’t his problem.
Getting the patch, that was his problem. Once JT had that, he’d never have to touch the product again...
Thursday, November 05, 2009
What a Great Idea!
An article in the Toronto Star today told the story of Catherine Raine and her mission to visit - and write about on her blog - every one of the 99 branches of the city of Toronto Public Library system.
The article is here and Catherine's blog is here. It's really good.
Now, Toronto has all the problems of any big city but the library system is fantastic. My family and I use the library all the time. Our local is Beaches Branch:
The building was renovated a few years ago and it's terrific, right on Kew Gardens Park, a great place to do some research or just sit and read a book.
But the thing that makes the Toronto Library system so good is that I can go online and order any book (or CD or DVD) in the whole system and have it delivered to my local branch.
I grew up in a small, mostly english town in Quebec called Greenfield Park and the library was an old house on Chruchill Street. It had narrow, rickety stairs and the science fiction books I loved were shelved in what was the attic. Isaac Asimov should know how many fears I had to overcome to go get those books by myself.
Now, Greenfield Park has been incorporated into the city of Longueil and has a very nice library branch. It's still on Churchill, across the street from the old haunted house.
So, what's library system in your town like?
The article is here and Catherine's blog is here. It's really good.
Now, Toronto has all the problems of any big city but the library system is fantastic. My family and I use the library all the time. Our local is Beaches Branch:
The building was renovated a few years ago and it's terrific, right on Kew Gardens Park, a great place to do some research or just sit and read a book.
But the thing that makes the Toronto Library system so good is that I can go online and order any book (or CD or DVD) in the whole system and have it delivered to my local branch.
I grew up in a small, mostly english town in Quebec called Greenfield Park and the library was an old house on Chruchill Street. It had narrow, rickety stairs and the science fiction books I loved were shelved in what was the attic. Isaac Asimov should know how many fears I had to overcome to go get those books by myself.
Now, Greenfield Park has been incorporated into the city of Longueil and has a very nice library branch. It's still on Churchill, across the street from the old haunted house.
So, what's library system in your town like?
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Two Readings in One Week
On Tuesday, November 10th, I'll be at the Princess Theatre in Waterloo at 7:00 pm as the opening act for Robert Rotenberg and my pal, international bestseller, Linwood Barclay.
Robert Rotenberg is a good guy, too, and his first novel Old City Hall received some great reviews.
Tickets are ten bucks but you can get in free if you buy Linwood's new book, Fear the Worst.
The event is being put on by Words Worth Books in Waterloo and they've put up a good website with info here.
Then on Thursday, November 12th, I'm very happy to be part of the ECW Press Fall Lit Party.
It's at Supermarket, 268 Augusta Avenue (in the heart of Kensington Market) and starts at 7:30.
Also reading will be Sky Gilbert, Damien Rogers, Richard Rosenbaum and Mark Sinnett.
It'll be a lot of fun.
Robert Rotenberg is a good guy, too, and his first novel Old City Hall received some great reviews.
Tickets are ten bucks but you can get in free if you buy Linwood's new book, Fear the Worst.
The event is being put on by Words Worth Books in Waterloo and they've put up a good website with info here.
Then on Thursday, November 12th, I'm very happy to be part of the ECW Press Fall Lit Party.
It's at Supermarket, 268 Augusta Avenue (in the heart of Kensington Market) and starts at 7:30.
Also reading will be Sky Gilbert, Damien Rogers, Richard Rosenbaum and Mark Sinnett.
It'll be a lot of fun.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Everybody Knows - the paperback
I have a post up at the Do Some Damage blog to day about Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere's roundabout trip to paperback - which comes out this week.
And I want to thank everyone for all their support for that book, and for all my books. You're all fantastic.
It's here.
And I want to thank everyone for all their support for that book, and for all my books. You're all fantastic.
It's here.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Is He Vince?
So, my co-writer Dannis Koromilas and I are adapting Dirty Sweet into a screenplay.
So far so good.
We don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves, but it's good to be optimistic (at least for me, makes those days where we have to cut out so many of my beautifully crafted scenes easier) so we're talking about our ideal cast.
And I'd like to know if people think that guy - Russell Peters - would make a good Vince.
If the movie gets made it's likely Russell will be in it somwhere. In Hollywoodspeak, Dannis has a "relationship" with him.
I think he'd make a terrific Vince.
One thing we really noticed breaking down the novel for the screenplay is that Vince doesn't do all that much, he mostly watches other people do stuff. He reacts.
When you watch Russell perform, a lot of his act is interacting with the audience - reacting to what people say. He's very good at it. He's one of those guys who can express an awful lot with very few words and a raised eyebrow.
So, what do yo think. Is he Vince?
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Interview and Review
An interview I did a few weeks ago with my own publisher is up on their website now:
http://www.ecwpress.com/[catpath]/john_mcfetridge_interview
An interview with your own publisher has to be the very definition of softball questions, but it is kind of fun.
Also this week, Scene magazine in London, Ontario reviewd Swap. There's no link, but I'm happy to post the whole thing here:
Following on the heels of the well-received 2008 release, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Canadian author John McFetridge returns to the gritty streets of Toronto with his newest novel, Swap. When a husband and wife are murdered in their car on a busy downtown onramp, their unusual deaths spark an investigation leading police into the darkest recesses of the city’s criminal underworld. All of a sudden Toronto the Good isn’t looking so good anymore, and in McFetridge’s vision, the multicultural metropolis seems to assume a personality all its own - brooding, worldly, corrupt. Typical demonstrations of underworld power are passé here, and biker gangs consisting of well-groomed men driving European sports cars or Hummers roam streets filled with peeler bars and massage parlors. On the other side of the tracks, the cops are in disarray – having been the subject of a recent internal affairs probe - and rifts have started to fracture the force. Detectives Price and McKeon find themselves following the finest thread of a lead in the married couple’s murder case to an exclusive Toronto swinger’s club, where their investigation really starts to pick-up steam. McFetridge’s readership will recognize some of the shady characters from his earlier book here – Richard, Nugs, J.T. - but that knowledge is hardly required to appreciate the story. The magic of the writer’s electric prose lies in his sense of pacing and his ability to create plausible dialogue between characters. McFetridge doesn’t judge their actions; he lays bare their motivations, and benefi ts from all the tantalizing narrative possibilities he finds there. Come to think of it, so do we. ~ Chris Morgan.
.
http://www.ecwpress.com/[catpath]/john_mcfetridge_interview
An interview with your own publisher has to be the very definition of softball questions, but it is kind of fun.
Also this week, Scene magazine in London, Ontario reviewd Swap. There's no link, but I'm happy to post the whole thing here:
Following on the heels of the well-received 2008 release, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, Canadian author John McFetridge returns to the gritty streets of Toronto with his newest novel, Swap. When a husband and wife are murdered in their car on a busy downtown onramp, their unusual deaths spark an investigation leading police into the darkest recesses of the city’s criminal underworld. All of a sudden Toronto the Good isn’t looking so good anymore, and in McFetridge’s vision, the multicultural metropolis seems to assume a personality all its own - brooding, worldly, corrupt. Typical demonstrations of underworld power are passé here, and biker gangs consisting of well-groomed men driving European sports cars or Hummers roam streets filled with peeler bars and massage parlors. On the other side of the tracks, the cops are in disarray – having been the subject of a recent internal affairs probe - and rifts have started to fracture the force. Detectives Price and McKeon find themselves following the finest thread of a lead in the married couple’s murder case to an exclusive Toronto swinger’s club, where their investigation really starts to pick-up steam. McFetridge’s readership will recognize some of the shady characters from his earlier book here – Richard, Nugs, J.T. - but that knowledge is hardly required to appreciate the story. The magic of the writer’s electric prose lies in his sense of pacing and his ability to create plausible dialogue between characters. McFetridge doesn’t judge their actions; he lays bare their motivations, and benefi ts from all the tantalizing narrative possibilities he finds there. Come to think of it, so do we. ~ Chris Morgan.
.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Two Reviews - one good, one bad
Last week the Winnipeg Free Press ran a negative review of Swap:
Torontonian John McFetridge shook the manicured trees of Hogtown complacency with last year's gritty cops-and-bikers saga, Everyone Knows This Is Nowhere. But he seems to have lost his GPS in Swap (ECW Press, 240 pages, $25), a grimy sequel that seems designed only to set off another round of "oh-we-bad" titters among the overreaching Big Smoke glitterati.
The corps of ethnically hued cops is back, but this time they're little more than aw-shucks narrators on the sidelines of a greasy show that's all about the bad guys.
McFetridge strives for whorehouse/grow op-in-the-burbs shock value, but it all just seems like a low-rent Sopranos episode, full of suburban mob angst and endless reminiscing about gang warfare past.
An unrelieved dumpster-dive into Canada's criminal underclass, Swap is just too earnestly exploitive, a sleazy travelogue for dirtbags.
I think it's good to get some bad reviews. In this case it's tempered by the fact the reviewer also didn't like the new Dexter or the new Kathy Reich (full reviews here), but also I think I tried to write a book that didn't please everyone. If the book is going to be something that some people really like, it's also going to be something that some people really don't like.
Of course, that review is also tempered by a starred review in Canada's book magazine, Quill and Quire:
In Swap, John McFetridge gives readers an in-depth look into the world of organized crime in the form of outlaw biker gangs, and the difficulties law enforcement faces trying to quash them...The tension is palpable and the reader waits for the one spark that will ignite a bloody turf war...Swap’s dialogue displays much of [Elmore] Leonard’s sparkle, and the novel’s terse, staccato prose evokes [Ken] Bruen. But Swap is more than just the sum of its influences. It grabs you by the throat and squeezes until you agree to read just one page, just one more page.
You gotta take the bad with the good, right?
Torontonian John McFetridge shook the manicured trees of Hogtown complacency with last year's gritty cops-and-bikers saga, Everyone Knows This Is Nowhere. But he seems to have lost his GPS in Swap (ECW Press, 240 pages, $25), a grimy sequel that seems designed only to set off another round of "oh-we-bad" titters among the overreaching Big Smoke glitterati.
The corps of ethnically hued cops is back, but this time they're little more than aw-shucks narrators on the sidelines of a greasy show that's all about the bad guys.
McFetridge strives for whorehouse/grow op-in-the-burbs shock value, but it all just seems like a low-rent Sopranos episode, full of suburban mob angst and endless reminiscing about gang warfare past.
An unrelieved dumpster-dive into Canada's criminal underclass, Swap is just too earnestly exploitive, a sleazy travelogue for dirtbags.
I think it's good to get some bad reviews. In this case it's tempered by the fact the reviewer also didn't like the new Dexter or the new Kathy Reich (full reviews here), but also I think I tried to write a book that didn't please everyone. If the book is going to be something that some people really like, it's also going to be something that some people really don't like.
Of course, that review is also tempered by a starred review in Canada's book magazine, Quill and Quire:
In Swap, John McFetridge gives readers an in-depth look into the world of organized crime in the form of outlaw biker gangs, and the difficulties law enforcement faces trying to quash them...The tension is palpable and the reader waits for the one spark that will ignite a bloody turf war...Swap’s dialogue displays much of [Elmore] Leonard’s sparkle, and the novel’s terse, staccato prose evokes [Ken] Bruen. But Swap is more than just the sum of its influences. It grabs you by the throat and squeezes until you agree to read just one page, just one more page.
You gotta take the bad with the good, right?
Monday, September 14, 2009
Street Performers
Do you like them?
Buskers?
You're walking down the street minding your own business and suddenly some guy is in your face juggling a bowling ball, a rubber chicken and a cross-country ski - is that fun?
Well, yes, sometimes it is. I've seen some great buskers. Some of the best musicians I've seen in my life have been playing in the subway or on the sidewalk ignored by almost everyone (and often by me).
This year at the CNE in Toronto we watched a guy try and do a routine that involved laying down on a bed of glass while someone stood on a bed of nails on his chest. I say "try" but actually the routine was good - it was just going on at the same time the planes were practising for the air show so everyone in the audince kept looking up to the sky.
All this is by way of explanation, of excuse, for how I got myself into a street performer's act in Dublin.
Normally if a busker asked me for help I'd run away. But here I was walking down Grafton street in Dublin with a video camera in my hand and I stopped to watch a guy set up his act. I kept the camera running. The act started. The guy was enthusiastic and funny but the audience was deadpan.
I started to feel for him. I was thinking about that poor guy at the Ex.
The next thing I know the guy on Grafton Street, Figo he calls himself - is standing in front of me asking to borrow my jacket. And to make it worse, he'd already asked another guy who refused. I could see this guy's act slipping away and I felt for him. I've given readings in front of two people, I know what it's like when the audience just isn't interested.
So I hand him my jacket.
And good luck to him, I think.
But the next thing I know, he's pulling me out in front of the audience.
Wait a minute, this isn't what I signed up for. My jacket, okay. I didn't even mind that he was joking how he might set it on fire while he did his trick with the cigarette (he was making it disappear, saying it would only take about five minutes as he smoked it. He also said he didn't actually smoke, that was just for his act - he was up to about thirty acts a day) but there was no way I'd go out there in front of the crowd.
But I do like to see a big crowd when I do a reading.
So maybe this busker and I were sort of in it together. I couldn't very well ruin his act, he's some guy trying to make a living.
The next thing I know I'm handing my video camera to a woman beside me and I'm in front of the crowd.
Maybe I don't like a big crowd for a reading. Maybe that intimiate connection between a writer and a single reader is the way to go.
Or maybe I should dress up in red tights and make cigarettes disappear.
Maybe not.
But Figo made the cigarette disappear and didn't even burn my jacket.
Great, now I can get off stage.
Oh wait, what's this? Now he's blowing up a balloon and saying he's going to swallow it. Good for him, I'll just get my camera back and film that, might even put it up on YouTube, the guy is pretty entertaining and what's this?
Now he wants me to walk around in front of the audience holding the balloon.
Did I mention the Bobby hat?
Then I probabkly also forgot to mention he's asked me to walk around looking as "butch" as I can.
The really sad thing, now that I see this picture, is that's exactly what I'm trying to do.
Before he swallowed the balloon, though, he put a rubber glove over his head and blew it up.
The rubber glove, I mean, not his head.
But really, he's just getting warmed up.
The big finale involves Figo laying down on a bed of broken glass.
And me standing on his chest.
Now it really feels like that poor guy at the Ex who couldn't get anyone's attention. I can't give up on Figo now.
As he's setting it up he asks me how much I weigh and I think does Ireland use that weird "so many stone" meaasurement because I have no dea how many stone I am and if I say ____ pounds will anyone get it and then I realize I'm not going to put a number on it, so I just say, "Too much."
He's a good performer, he can work a crowd and Figo goes with that. Makes a bunch of jokes that good Canadian diet and pats my stomach.
So here I am in front of a big crowd of people showing off my fat stomach.
Figo and I are no longer in this together. I am going to put my full weight (however many freakin' stone it is) on him. Oh yeah, baby.
He gets a kid out of the audience to help me balance.
He tells the sudience if they don't each put at least five Euro in his hat he'll go back to his old job of selling drugs to children and the kid who's supposed to help me balance says, "Can I have some."
This is the same kid who, when Figo said not to worry, he wasn't going to burn my jacket yelled, "Burn it."
Now I'm going to stomp on Figo and then punch this smarmy kid in the face.
But I can actually hear the glass crunching as I step on this guy. His face is red and he's tensed up every muscle in his body.
This is actually pretty cool, this guy is really trying to entertain this crowd.
And the kid manages to keep my huge body weight steady for ten seconds, so good on him, too.
Now I'm actually excited to be a part of the act.
The audience does a big countdown from 10 and when they get to, "Zero!!!" I step off.
Figo jumps up to accept the appluase and I see chunks of glass stuck to his back.
He's right, I think, that deserves five Euro.
Figo tells me it's only like two bucks.
All in all a pleasant afternoon in Dublin.
Though I can't help but think Peter Rozovsky comes to Ireland and he sees the hurling final, a once in a lifetime exciting game, and I get to stand on a man's chest.
Buskers?
You're walking down the street minding your own business and suddenly some guy is in your face juggling a bowling ball, a rubber chicken and a cross-country ski - is that fun?
Well, yes, sometimes it is. I've seen some great buskers. Some of the best musicians I've seen in my life have been playing in the subway or on the sidewalk ignored by almost everyone (and often by me).
This year at the CNE in Toronto we watched a guy try and do a routine that involved laying down on a bed of glass while someone stood on a bed of nails on his chest. I say "try" but actually the routine was good - it was just going on at the same time the planes were practising for the air show so everyone in the audince kept looking up to the sky.
All this is by way of explanation, of excuse, for how I got myself into a street performer's act in Dublin.
Normally if a busker asked me for help I'd run away. But here I was walking down Grafton street in Dublin with a video camera in my hand and I stopped to watch a guy set up his act. I kept the camera running. The act started. The guy was enthusiastic and funny but the audience was deadpan.
I started to feel for him. I was thinking about that poor guy at the Ex.
The next thing I know the guy on Grafton Street, Figo he calls himself - is standing in front of me asking to borrow my jacket. And to make it worse, he'd already asked another guy who refused. I could see this guy's act slipping away and I felt for him. I've given readings in front of two people, I know what it's like when the audience just isn't interested.
So I hand him my jacket.
And good luck to him, I think.
But the next thing I know, he's pulling me out in front of the audience.
Wait a minute, this isn't what I signed up for. My jacket, okay. I didn't even mind that he was joking how he might set it on fire while he did his trick with the cigarette (he was making it disappear, saying it would only take about five minutes as he smoked it. He also said he didn't actually smoke, that was just for his act - he was up to about thirty acts a day) but there was no way I'd go out there in front of the crowd.
But I do like to see a big crowd when I do a reading.
So maybe this busker and I were sort of in it together. I couldn't very well ruin his act, he's some guy trying to make a living.
The next thing I know I'm handing my video camera to a woman beside me and I'm in front of the crowd.
Maybe I don't like a big crowd for a reading. Maybe that intimiate connection between a writer and a single reader is the way to go.
Or maybe I should dress up in red tights and make cigarettes disappear.
Maybe not.
But Figo made the cigarette disappear and didn't even burn my jacket.
Great, now I can get off stage.
Oh wait, what's this? Now he's blowing up a balloon and saying he's going to swallow it. Good for him, I'll just get my camera back and film that, might even put it up on YouTube, the guy is pretty entertaining and what's this?
Now he wants me to walk around in front of the audience holding the balloon.
Did I mention the Bobby hat?
Then I probabkly also forgot to mention he's asked me to walk around looking as "butch" as I can.
The really sad thing, now that I see this picture, is that's exactly what I'm trying to do.
Before he swallowed the balloon, though, he put a rubber glove over his head and blew it up.
The rubber glove, I mean, not his head.
But really, he's just getting warmed up.
The big finale involves Figo laying down on a bed of broken glass.
And me standing on his chest.
Now it really feels like that poor guy at the Ex who couldn't get anyone's attention. I can't give up on Figo now.
As he's setting it up he asks me how much I weigh and I think does Ireland use that weird "so many stone" meaasurement because I have no dea how many stone I am and if I say ____ pounds will anyone get it and then I realize I'm not going to put a number on it, so I just say, "Too much."
He's a good performer, he can work a crowd and Figo goes with that. Makes a bunch of jokes that good Canadian diet and pats my stomach.
So here I am in front of a big crowd of people showing off my fat stomach.
Figo and I are no longer in this together. I am going to put my full weight (however many freakin' stone it is) on him. Oh yeah, baby.
He gets a kid out of the audience to help me balance.
He tells the sudience if they don't each put at least five Euro in his hat he'll go back to his old job of selling drugs to children and the kid who's supposed to help me balance says, "Can I have some."
This is the same kid who, when Figo said not to worry, he wasn't going to burn my jacket yelled, "Burn it."
Now I'm going to stomp on Figo and then punch this smarmy kid in the face.
But I can actually hear the glass crunching as I step on this guy. His face is red and he's tensed up every muscle in his body.
This is actually pretty cool, this guy is really trying to entertain this crowd.
And the kid manages to keep my huge body weight steady for ten seconds, so good on him, too.
Now I'm actually excited to be a part of the act.
The audience does a big countdown from 10 and when they get to, "Zero!!!" I step off.
Figo jumps up to accept the appluase and I see chunks of glass stuck to his back.
He's right, I think, that deserves five Euro.
Figo tells me it's only like two bucks.
All in all a pleasant afternoon in Dublin.
Though I can't help but think Peter Rozovsky comes to Ireland and he sees the hurling final, a once in a lifetime exciting game, and I get to stand on a man's chest.
Sunday, September 06, 2009
The Globe and Mail Review
It's always stressful waiting for reviews of a new book - or really just wondering if you'll even get any reviews.
I've been very fortunate with my books to have received generally very good reviews.
I must admit I've been surprised that Margaret Cannon of the Globe and Mail has been so supportive. I guess I've always felt that she usually favours more traditional mysteries with a central detective, lots of suspects, clues and a resolution. But the fact that I don't really have any of those things in my books doesn't seem to bother her.
Here's her review of Swap:
If you're interested in learning about the backside of Toronto the Good, Swap is a great place to begin. Drugs, guns, gangs and just plain nastiness hide in the suburbs, just outside the shiny city centre. For Vernard McGetty, a Detroit homeboy in search of lucrative partnerships, Toronto's biker gangs are a perfect fit. They deliver the dope, he delivers the guns. Of course, he's a bit mystified by bikers who ignore their Harleys in order to drive SUVs, but who cares about appearances?
While Get is planning his get, Toronto detectives Price and McKeon have a pair of dead bodies on their hands. The couple are Mr. and Mrs. Clean, not so much as a traffic ticket. Someone sailed by and shot them as their car headed up a freeway ramp. Who knows what company these nice family folk may have been keeping?
McFetridge has his difficulties keeping the plot moving, and some of the dialogue owes a bit to Quentin Tarantino, but this is a slick little story.
Pretty good, I think.
I've been very fortunate with my books to have received generally very good reviews.
I must admit I've been surprised that Margaret Cannon of the Globe and Mail has been so supportive. I guess I've always felt that she usually favours more traditional mysteries with a central detective, lots of suspects, clues and a resolution. But the fact that I don't really have any of those things in my books doesn't seem to bother her.
Here's her review of Swap:
If you're interested in learning about the backside of Toronto the Good, Swap is a great place to begin. Drugs, guns, gangs and just plain nastiness hide in the suburbs, just outside the shiny city centre. For Vernard McGetty, a Detroit homeboy in search of lucrative partnerships, Toronto's biker gangs are a perfect fit. They deliver the dope, he delivers the guns. Of course, he's a bit mystified by bikers who ignore their Harleys in order to drive SUVs, but who cares about appearances?
While Get is planning his get, Toronto detectives Price and McKeon have a pair of dead bodies on their hands. The couple are Mr. and Mrs. Clean, not so much as a traffic ticket. Someone sailed by and shot them as their car headed up a freeway ramp. Who knows what company these nice family folk may have been keeping?
McFetridge has his difficulties keeping the plot moving, and some of the dialogue owes a bit to Quentin Tarantino, but this is a slick little story.
Pretty good, I think.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
In Stores Now
In Canada.
The official publication date is September 1st, but I was in my local bookstore yeterday and there was Swap.
It sort of feels like it's been snuck into stores in some kind of stealth operation. No reviews yet, but there is a fantastic blurb on the back from Ken Bruen:
"Swap is a stunning leap forward from an already fine author. This is John channelling Elmore Leonard at the height of his game and with dialogue Tarantino would kill for. A plot that moves lik Pulp Fiction but with a nice Canadian slant that keeps it fresh and different. John's creation of the African-American characters is like Sallis at his finest. With a wicked sense of humour that is irresistible, Swap moves Canadian mystery right to the top."
There's also a nice blurb on the back from Adrian McKinty and one from Tom Piccirilli.
Of course, I had a lot of help writing this book (and everthing else I've ever written) and I don't do those thank-yous in the books because I'll either leave people out or they'll be dozens of pages long but in this case I do want to make a special thank you to Patti Abbott for reading the manuscript and helping me with the Detroit references. I never would have come up with, "... a big house in Grosse Pointe, six bedrooms, a fucking library and a Sub-Zero on the patio in the backyard."
By the way, while I was in the bookstore I bought a first novel by Eugene Meese called A Magpie's Smile because Margaret Cannon gave it a good review in the Globe and Mail and it's set in Calgary in the late 70's and I lived in Calgary then. The wild west. It was booming then with tens of thousands of people moving in every month and I was one of them. I'm looking forward to the book.
And, one more time, here's the trailer for Swap.
The official publication date is September 1st, but I was in my local bookstore yeterday and there was Swap.
It sort of feels like it's been snuck into stores in some kind of stealth operation. No reviews yet, but there is a fantastic blurb on the back from Ken Bruen:
"Swap is a stunning leap forward from an already fine author. This is John channelling Elmore Leonard at the height of his game and with dialogue Tarantino would kill for. A plot that moves lik Pulp Fiction but with a nice Canadian slant that keeps it fresh and different. John's creation of the African-American characters is like Sallis at his finest. With a wicked sense of humour that is irresistible, Swap moves Canadian mystery right to the top."
There's also a nice blurb on the back from Adrian McKinty and one from Tom Piccirilli.
Of course, I had a lot of help writing this book (and everthing else I've ever written) and I don't do those thank-yous in the books because I'll either leave people out or they'll be dozens of pages long but in this case I do want to make a special thank you to Patti Abbott for reading the manuscript and helping me with the Detroit references. I never would have come up with, "... a big house in Grosse Pointe, six bedrooms, a fucking library and a Sub-Zero on the patio in the backyard."
By the way, while I was in the bookstore I bought a first novel by Eugene Meese called A Magpie's Smile because Margaret Cannon gave it a good review in the Globe and Mail and it's set in Calgary in the late 70's and I lived in Calgary then. The wild west. It was booming then with tens of thousands of people moving in every month and I was one of them. I'm looking forward to the book.
And, one more time, here's the trailer for Swap.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
The Bridge in the paper
This morning I woke up to see my boss on the front page of the Toronto Star. That can be a good thing or a bad thing. In this case it was very good.
Craig Bromell is the Executive Producer and Creative Consultant on the TV show, The Bridge. It's really his show, based on his experiences as a Toronto cop and then as head of the police union.
The article is straitforward enough, but then the comments start. Right away you can see how polarizing a guy Craig was in Toronto. Great fodder for a TV show.
In the pilot episode the character based on Craig, Frank Leo, says, "All I ever wanted to be was a cop." When he sees the way cops are treated by the brass and the politicians, the way cops are always guilty until proven innocent and the way their own bosses will sell out the cop on the street - the ones in the line of fire - for cheap political gain, it becomes too much for him and he gets elected pesident of the union.
At that point the brass go after him hard, one deputy chief telling him, "Whenever the public sees a corrupt, out of control cop, they'll see your face."
So now the guy who only ever wanted to be a good cop becomes the poster boy for bad cops.
Quite the internal conflict for a main character. Lots of emotional stuff to deal with. It's the kind of show that may take a few episodes to really find its footing so it's great that CTV and CBS are fully committed.
The Toronto Star article is here.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Creative Writing Classes
About twenty-five years ago I enrolled at Concordia University for English Lit and History. (a few years before that I'd tried a year of economics and, well, it didn't work out.)
I knew I wanted to write but I was unsure about creative writing classes. Can you learn to write, or do you just have to do it and hope you have "talent?" Concordia had a creative writing program and it seemed good, so I took some classes.
At the time, and for years after, I really didn't think the classes had much effect on me. Garry Geddes, a poet and now non-fiction writer, taught the short story class I took. He had us read our stories out loud. Only years later did I realize what a valuable tool this was for understanding how important voice is in fiction.
In the intervening years I've realized that I learned an awful lot in those creative writng classes. I don't know if the other people in those classes needed to learn as much as I did, but a few of them are very good writers today.
Michel Basilieres was the guy who told me about the Concordia program. His novel Black Bird, published by Knopf won the Amazon.ca/Books in Canada First Novel Award in 2004 and was nominated for the Steven Leacock Award and the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book.
Tess Fragoulis was in that class with Garry and was probably the most fully-formed writer at the time. Her story collection, Stories to Hide From Your Mother, was published in 1997 and her first novel Ariadne's Dream (sex, drugs, Greek mythology) was published in 2001.
There was also a guy in that class named David McGimpsey who understood poetry more than anyone else in the program. I mean he understood poetry the way I understood hockey. And he frustrated the poetry profs by using that understanding to write epic poems about Gilligan's Island and baseball. David has published a few books, still in the "literary-pop culture" world. Sitcom is very good but my favourite is still Hamburger Valley California.
And now comes word that another person from that same class, Lisa Pasold, has her first novel coming out in three weeks. Lisa has published a couple of very good poetry collections, Weave and A Bad Year for Journalits and I've been looking forward to this novel ever since she let me read the manuscript earlier this year.
Rats of Las Vegas is about... you know what, she has a petty good book trailer explaining it:
And there's more info on her webpage.
So, I would say that maybe the gestation period for creative writing classes can be quite a while, but it's a good idea to study your craft.
What do you think?
I knew I wanted to write but I was unsure about creative writing classes. Can you learn to write, or do you just have to do it and hope you have "talent?" Concordia had a creative writing program and it seemed good, so I took some classes.
At the time, and for years after, I really didn't think the classes had much effect on me. Garry Geddes, a poet and now non-fiction writer, taught the short story class I took. He had us read our stories out loud. Only years later did I realize what a valuable tool this was for understanding how important voice is in fiction.
In the intervening years I've realized that I learned an awful lot in those creative writng classes. I don't know if the other people in those classes needed to learn as much as I did, but a few of them are very good writers today.
Michel Basilieres was the guy who told me about the Concordia program. His novel Black Bird, published by Knopf won the Amazon.ca/Books in Canada First Novel Award in 2004 and was nominated for the Steven Leacock Award and the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book.
Tess Fragoulis was in that class with Garry and was probably the most fully-formed writer at the time. Her story collection, Stories to Hide From Your Mother, was published in 1997 and her first novel Ariadne's Dream (sex, drugs, Greek mythology) was published in 2001.
There was also a guy in that class named David McGimpsey who understood poetry more than anyone else in the program. I mean he understood poetry the way I understood hockey. And he frustrated the poetry profs by using that understanding to write epic poems about Gilligan's Island and baseball. David has published a few books, still in the "literary-pop culture" world. Sitcom is very good but my favourite is still Hamburger Valley California.
And now comes word that another person from that same class, Lisa Pasold, has her first novel coming out in three weeks. Lisa has published a couple of very good poetry collections, Weave and A Bad Year for Journalits and I've been looking forward to this novel ever since she let me read the manuscript earlier this year.
Rats of Las Vegas is about... you know what, she has a petty good book trailer explaining it:
And there's more info on her webpage.
So, I would say that maybe the gestation period for creative writing classes can be quite a while, but it's a good idea to study your craft.
What do you think?
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Mad Men week
It seems everywhere I look this week I see articles about Mad Men. Which is good, it's nice to see such a smart, well-written TV show getting so much press.
A lot of it seems to be the same, though, gushing fan stuff, so I was glad to pick up Jesse McLean's book, Kings of Madison Avenue.
Part episode guide, part history lesson and all fun, the book is an in-depth look at the show by someone who clearly loves it but isn't afraid to critisize it as well.
Of course, I don't get AMC so I'll have to wait until the third season gets released on DVD, but it seems worth the wait. It was nice of AMC to put last season's finale on their website to refresh everyone's memories.
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