The year is 2010. I'm looking for something I can't find in Chapters... but can still find on Chapters.Ca (that's here for anyone feeling thoughtful). You know, really digging.
That means the last of my gift card scratch went straight to Grainger's pocket and in four to six weeks the package arrived.
In a half dozen stories you can lick in a sitting each, Grainger took a bite out of his twenties, chewed it over good and used his readers as a spittoon. Equal parts self-loathing and arrogant. I liked it.
It's pieces of love through different spectrums of neurosis. Filial, romantic and other. Maybe all his characters sit in the director chair beside you and give the "Get a load of these guys" nudge, but you get a naked shot of some real neutral human beings.
His first story, the title track, is pure Salinger minus all that classy stuff. If you've ever spent a summer day that turned into night hanging out North of Bloor you're bound to be able feel your way around his character, you'll know his swagger even if you don't like it.
The Government of Spiders is a love affair gone bananas. It's about the mental illness and the straws that break backs. It plays as the most bizarre allegory for procrastination I've come across.
A Confusion of Islands should be read aloud to anybody who can't get After the Goldrush out of their heads. A road trip to put road trips to rest.
The book is arranged in ascending order of the responsibilities of the protagonist, from tongue-in-cheek hedonism (picture cruel intentions in the College St. Set.) right up to single-parent widowhood. All of his characters are done the first leg of the race, and they aren't moving until somebody tells them their score. The sort of Spiritual fermentation that grows furious buried under student debt. This is the book I'm going to push on my friends when I see them.
*ECW is the subpop of Toronto Lit, or so a handful of black-rimmed Devil-may-care head shots would have me believe.
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