Vikings Invade Bluma Appel Salon at TRL

Vikings conquered much of the known world, from Ireland and England to what became Normandy in France. They even reached the northern tip of Newfoundland and established temporary quarters there at what is now L'Anse-aux-Meadows. These days latter day Vikings' sorties abroad are much more peaceful: they don't actually commit mayhem and murder, they write about them instead.

And a good many Hogtown fans of crime fiction are glad they do. How else to explain a full house for the "Kill Like a Scandinavian" panel at the Toronto Reference Library last Sunday as part of Luminato. On the panel were Norway's Thomas Enger, Jakob Melander from Denmark, Dan T. Sehlberg from Sweden and Herman Koch from The Netherlands. Herman, of course, is not a Scandinavian but Dutch. These are clearly men who have thought about the craft of writing; who bring to their work a literary sensibility rather than the much more common potboiler or puzzle approach found in the crime fiction of the giants of the genre - Britain and the U.S.; and who are not afraid to take chances and write characters who offend - Herman's new novel Summer House with Swimming Pool features a doctor who may make you gag.

Given that they had so much to say, all in good English, it was a shame that they didn't have as much time as they should have had to say it. I'd say that was down to Noah Richler. He's the literary curator for Luminato and hosted the panel. His early questions went on and on, but we weren't there to listen to him. I know that a question without context is a waste of time - but that doesn't excuse his too lengthy windups. Richler's later questions were noticeably shorter, so perhaps it was nerves and he'll do better next time. Perhaps next time he'll also give us his full name. He introduced himself with a cheery "I"m Noah." I couldn't decide if he was being chummy or pretentious. If I had to guess I'd say there were at least a few people present who didn't know who he was - one of them was sitting one seat from me.

Towards the end of the panel the audience were invited to ask questions. Well, Holy Odin. What they offered up made Richler look like a model of brevity. I'm pretty adept at following circumlocutions - I've interviewed lots of politicians, after all - but I was baffled and then annoyed and hissed sotto voce at one woman "question, question". Look, crime fans, if speaking in front of a large audience intimidates you to the point you can't remember your question, write it down and read it into the mic. TRL videotapes these panels and posts them on its website. You will find it at http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/programs-and-classes/appel-salon/past-events.jsp when the library puts it online.

Luminato Crime Free at TRL

If I were in a leaky lifeboat with Nuit Blanche and Luminato and I had to throw one of them overboard to save myself it would be Luminato. Why? Nuit Blanche is free at the venue, free in the street, Luminato is not, or at least most of its events are not. So imagine my surprise when I found out - thanks to Bill Clark at Toronto Writers Co-op - that Luminato is hosting an afternoon of Scandinavian crime fiction Sunday June 8 in the Bluma Appel Salon at the Toronto Reference Library. 

On the panel will be Norway's Thomas Enger, Jakob Melander from Denmark, Dan T. Sehlberg from Sweden and Herman Koch from The Netherlands. Herman's not a Scandinavian, of course, so I'll be interested to see how his views differ from those of his Nordic colleagues. And if his books have been translated into English I'd like to get ahold of them too. My knowledge of Dutch crime fiction is abysmal - OK, non-existent. In fact, I can only name one Dutch sleuth and that's Amsterdam cop Piet Van der Valk, a series written by Britain's Nicholas Freeling.

The MC next Sunday is Noah Richler. Tickets are free but have to be reserved - online is quickest and best. 

A Criminal Lack of Crime Fiction

Over a pint or two yesterday I was chatting to some friends about transit in Hogtown. Then one of them mentioned a tunnel on the Yonge Line. Oh, I said, that's the Ellis Portal. And ever keen to show off, I explained that Ellis Portal is also the name of Rosemary Aubert's protagonist in her excellent mystery series that features a disgraced judge who, when we first meet him, is living in a shack in the Rosedale Ravine.

Then the talk turned from subways to fiction. One member of our gathering was set to start reading Hemingway's Farewell to Arms after finishing a biography of Neil Young - no, I can't see a connection, either. Another had high praise for John LeCarre. I weighed in with further kudos for Rosemary Aubert's books, and as I did it struck me that for a big city Toronto doesn't have much of a reputation for modern crime fiction.

Hugh Garner wrote mysteries featuring a Toronto cop called McDumont, and Eric Wright had a series built around another Hogtown policeman, Charlie Salter. Jack Batten is back this spring, after a long layoff, with Take Five, another entry featuring Crang, his one name only sleuth. Much newer to the crime writing scene are Robert Rotenberg, a criminal lawyer who's published three novels, and real Toronto constable Brent Pilkey, who's had one book published. That's it as far as I know. Of course, the great Howard Engel lives in Toronto but he sets his Benny Cooperman books in Grantham, Ont., or St. Catharines as it's commonly known.

Now compare that lineup with the cops, private eyes, crusading lawyers and amateur sleuths we find in other big cities - London, New York, Los Angeles, Paris. Hogtown is, or should be, a goldmine for a crime writer. We have guns, gangs and a serious drugs trade. There's the Italian mob, the Russian mob, and very likely other mobsters in the largest - or even the smallest - immigrant communities. What about the ethnic or religious animosities that immigrants and refugees bring here from the "old country"? Pick up any newspaper; it's not hard to find compelling evidence of corruption and financial chicanery at every turn.  

All of the elements necessary to write good crime fiction are being served up on a silver platter here in Hogtown, so why aren't Canadian writers taking a crack at it? They may not be interested. Fair enough. Or they may be labouring under the false impression that crime writing can't also be good literature (Hello there, Mr. Chandler). But perhaps it's something else: crime fiction (like other works of fiction) demands that those who write it acknowledge that their society has flaws, serious flaws; that there's as much violence and dishonesty (per head) among their fellow citizens as anywhere else. It's so much easier to pretend otherwise - like the city's need for more transit.

   

Hack to Boycott Harbourfront!

In baseball and in certain American states it's three strikes and you're out. Well, in the U.S. you'd actually be in - in the joint for a long, long time after your third conviction. I don't play baseball nor am I a criminal but I do have three strikes against me. In 2009, 2011 and again this year I've been shut out by the Harbourfront Reading Series.

It's a question of tickets and money, specifically my lack of the latter to pay for the former. Today I phoned Harbourfront to inquire about free or reduced price tickets, as I had been encouraged to do in 2009 by a PR type when I moaned in this blog that real writers couldn't afford Harbourfront's prices. I explained all this to the young woman at the end of the line - I wanted to attend the splashy crime fiction evening March 21 with John Brady, Andrew Pyper and others - and she told me tickets for the event were "only" $10 or I could pay $57 for a membership. I think about spending ten bucks and fret for weeks on end before I spend $57, when I have $57 to spend, that is. The young woman, who struck me as largely unsympathetic to my situation and a trifle too cocky, wished me "good luck" when she signed off.

Good luck? Bad luck more like. Bad luck that an impoverished hack can't afford a ticket at Harbourfront. Bad luck that there's no provision for impoverished hacks to get comp'd. Bad luck for Harbourfront that from now on I will boycott its literary activities and encourage all budding crime writers, literary types, penurious freelance hacks, friends and associates to do the same. Now then, how do I get my hands on a Twitter account?

A Reading: Don't Be Caught Napping

A writer I know says he's had some of his best naps at poetry readings so when he decided to start an annual prose and poetry event by members of the Toronto Writers' Co-op he added music to the mix. So Jan. 24 at 8:00pm at Hogtown's AlleyCatz (Yonge & Eglinton) readings will be eclectic - prose, poetry and who knows what else - and the accompanying music will be wildly improvised. I'm reading to the sound of bebop some already discarded bits from the noir crime manuscript I'm working on to see if I should have discarded those bits quite so quickly. There's no comparable gauge of what you've written like the instant feedback of a live audience. I can't decide if the night will be cool or chaotic. Some of both is my guess. There's no cover.

Quality Detected at Word Stage

Word Stage, presented by Quattro Books, got off to a cracking new season last night at Dooney's bar in Hogtown's Annex. Reading were Liz Howard, Claudio Gaudio, Margaret Christakos and Howard Engel. The highlight of the night was Howard Engel's appearance. Of course; I'm biased. I'm a huge fan of well written crime fiction and Howard has been producing just that for years. Since suffering a stroke Howard can't read what he writes, which seems desperately unfair since there's nothing like an author reading his own words for himself and others. However, veteran actor Paul Soles filled in admirably, reading from a work in progress that promises Howard's usual high standards and a unique narrative structure. Paul Soles, incidentally, if he's not working much these days, should be. Hesitant and awkward at first, providing him with better lighting (to see the MS more clearly) worked wonders and the Stratford veteran found his mojo. His accent for a Scottish aristocrat - a female character -was spot on in that trilly, frilly way Scots toffs speak. One more bit of welcome news from last night: There's a new organizing team at Word Stage, the founders deciding to hand the job over to fresher blood, including poet and playwright Sonia Di Placido.

Well, so much for the good stuff. Among the not so good is the Dooney's room itself. It's a shaped a bit like a peninsular and its acoustics are decidedly iffy if you're not close to the stage. I know it's difficult to find bars and restaurants willing to take on a reading series (Art Bar was punted from Clinton's because the weekly poetry event wasn't generating enough money for the Bloor West watering hole. Poets don't spend enough on drink. Who'da thunk it?) but scouting another location should be a priority for the new organizers. If they find one it will save the likes of the financially challenged, that would be me and lots of others, some dough. Last night a pint of locally brewed Steamwhistle cost eight bucks with tip. I won't be doing that again. Nor, I suspect,will the three students who shelled out more than $20 for three bottles of Heineken.