From Amazon
Mount Appetite, Bill Gaston's fourth collection of short fiction, is a deliciously carnal little book, full of tugging, teasing desire and the occasional moment of satiation. It isn't a sex book, and Gaston is neither an Irving Layton in prose nor a Canadian Nicholson Baker, but it is nonetheless a compelling dissertation on the psychology of the flesh.
Gaston's stories are fresh, strange, and filled with the strain of melancholic levity that is common in Hank Williams songs but scarce in literary fiction. Matt Cohen fans will love these stories, as will anyone looking for a dozen startlingly original plots that seamlessly mingle the sublime and the mundane. In "Driving Under the Influence," a broken-hearted drunk driver, accompanied only by his dog, Spatula, traverses an impaired driving roadblock again and again, mesmerized by a beautiful policewoman. "A Forest Path" reappraises Malcolm Lowry's time in British Columbia through the voice of his embittered illegitimate son, while "The Alcoholist" concerns the last moments of Lyle Van Luven, the most delicate of professional tasters. This is, appropriately enough, addictive writing, and readers new to Gaston may find themselves in grave danger of getting hooked. --Jack Illingworth
From Publishers Weekly
A dozen rueful and gorgeously observed if sometimes oblique stories centered on the idea of appetites (their denial and their satisfaction) make up Gaston's (The Good Body; Sex Is Red; etc.) latest. In "The Alcoholist," a man with an exquisitely sensitive palate who is dying of cancer mourns all that he will no longer consume and, at the same time, makes peace with his death through the experience of one final intimate tasting. In "The Little Drug Addict Who Could," a young heroin addict, turning to his Uncle Jack for support as he tries to kick his habit, ends up introducing Jack to the drug, which is, the boy says, as magical as "sucking the big, beautiful breast. Not just any breast. Mother's breast. The best mother's breast.... It's like sucking Eve's breast." A heavy drinker's hopes for romance with a road-block cop are sweetly unrealistic in "Driving Under the Influence," and a fish researcher's sexual urges become tied to the fate of her latest aquatic subjects in "The Northern Cod." Gaston's prose is careful and probing, which makes up for a few rambling entries and the odd lethargic conclusion.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
It always seems a shame that there is such a strong tendency in Canada to divide our short fiction into camps: realistic vs surrealistic, psychological vs symbolic, rural vs urban, traditional vs cutting edge. Especially difficult to avoid is the Alice Munro conundrum; you're either with her, or railing against her seemingly far-reaching "establishment" influence. (This last is unfair to everybody, including Alice Munro, who, while remaining true to her voice, continues to take amazing risks in her stories.) That risk-taking and hybridity occur in all camps is perhaps what's most interesting and overlooked in our stories. Stylistically wide-ranging recent collections by technically grounded and innovative writers such as Annabel Lyon, Libby Creelman, Mike Barnes, Sheila Heti, and Shaena Lambert prove that it is difficult and maybe even wrongheaded to try to pigeonhole how we write (or don't write) short fiction as Canadians.
That said, it is hard to resist placing this new collection from Raincoast Books, Mount Appetite by Bill Gaston, into the character-driven, "psychological" camp of Canadian short fiction. Gaston's stories are similar in that they try, and for the most part, succeed, in getting inside their characters' heads and hearts. There is a sense also of the characters searching for meaning in their lives, even if that meaning is somehow unrecognizable or unavailable to them. Set in "real" Canadian places, the stories in Mount Appetite have a notion of solid geography in common, although their characters' perceptions of "location" often prove more ephemeral.
In Mount Appetite, Bill Gaston's fourth collection of short stories, we encounter a drug addict, a parolee, a wanderer, a faith healer, a fish researcher, and a girl who can't make up her mind, among others. His quirky characters often find themselves on the brink, of themselves, or of the land-many of the stories are set, fittingly, on Canada's coasts, where a sense of both possibility and edge-of-the-world uncertainty prevails and characters often arrive at "a clarity with no meaning to it at all" ("Comedian Tire"). In "The Northern Cod" a salmon researcher from BC takes a gig in Newfoundland studying cod breeding patterns, leaving behind a husband she suspects of being unfaithful. While on the Rock, her work first absorbs, then obsesses her, until finally the importance of "coupling" and its repercussions take on a whole new meaning.
Along with minds plagued by trying circumstances, Gaston plumbs the depths of those mired in chemically altered states. "Under the Influence" and "The Little Addict That Could" have at their hollow centres a wanton downward spiral that is common to many of the characters in the collection. In the latter, Tyson, a heroin addict, chooses his uncle Jack's island home as a space to kick his habit. Instead he quickly falls off the wagon, leading the option-bankrupt Jack into junkie-land. The two end up at a bar together, having "sucked Eve's breast" (Tyson's take on a heroin hit) and we understand that Jack has given himself over to Tyson's glamourous decline. This easy collapse feels a bit rushed and somewhat implausible, given how little space and time we have to get to know Jack and his particular brand of emptiness. However, the altered states (in several stories) do allow for some wonderful surreal imagery and a temporal, spatial "jumpiness" to the prose that makes for good reading, if not always concrete characterization.
In fact, it is exactly these blurry "fictions" for which that the narrator of the well-wrought "A Forest Path" has no time. The illegitimate, unrecognized and self-righteous son of Malcolm Lowry, and a teetotaler, he carefully rectifies the drunken inaccuracies in his father's prose, putting a new spin on his story "A Forest Path to the Spring" wherein a crouching cougar turns out to symbolize more and less than what Lowry and his readers might have imagined. Also notable for its pitch-perfect voice is "Where it comes from and where it goes", the story of a faith healer, Mr. Oates, from small town New Brunswick. Mr. Oates' colloquialisms are genuine without seeming over-the-top, which makes him an affable and sympathetic protagonist, even as he struggles to understand the gift that sets him apart.
The children and teens of "Mount Appetite" are also not immune to the world of adult anguish. They thrash and stare in its face, or become paralyzed by indecision when forced to enter it. Particularly strong, if one of the more macabre pieces in the book, is "Maria's Older Brother", in which the not-so-bright weakling in a bunch of merciless (normal) boys seeks an odd, literal way to voice his frustration at being picked on and excluded. This sense of exclusion is at the core of many of Gaston's stories, and although the role of outsider and onlooker is perhaps a staple of short fiction (and of fiction in general) he manages to give his loners a new twist by placing them in slightly freakish situations where it is likely they will lose control.
I did get the feeling some of these stories had been deliberately truncated for effect, which can be frustrating for a reader. Strangely amputated endings call attention to a story's oddness only, which isn't always enough, and can make for a disappointing, rather than thought-provoking absence of closure. However, for the most part, reading Gaston's stories is like being submerged, momentarily, in strange waters; you're not sure you want to stay there long, but you come out dripping and shivering with the newness of it all, and prepared to dip in all over again. Gaston's tales offer brief and visceral shots of consciousness.
Gaston is writer who has excelled in other genres (Gaston's novel The Good Body was much praised). It is a boon for readers that he continues to enrich and broaden the realm of Canadian short fiction.
Heather Birrell (Books in Canada) -- Books in Canada
That said, it is hard to resist placing this new collection from Raincoast Books, Mount Appetite by Bill Gaston, into the character-driven, "psychological" camp of Canadian short fiction. Gaston's stories are similar in that they try, and for the most part, succeed, in getting inside their characters' heads and hearts. There is a sense also of the characters searching for meaning in their lives, even if that meaning is somehow unrecognizable or unavailable to them. Set in "real" Canadian places, the stories in Mount Appetite have a notion of solid geography in common, although their characters' perceptions of "location" often prove more ephemeral.
In Mount Appetite, Bill Gaston's fourth collection of short stories, we encounter a drug addict, a parolee, a wanderer, a faith healer, a fish researcher, and a girl who can't make up her mind, among others. His quirky characters often find themselves on the brink, of themselves, or of the land-many of the stories are set, fittingly, on Canada's coasts, where a sense of both possibility and edge-of-the-world uncertainty prevails and characters often arrive at "a clarity with no meaning to it at all" ("Comedian Tire"). In "The Northern Cod" a salmon researcher from BC takes a gig in Newfoundland studying cod breeding patterns, leaving behind a husband she suspects of being unfaithful. While on the Rock, her work first absorbs, then obsesses her, until finally the importance of "coupling" and its repercussions take on a whole new meaning.
Along with minds plagued by trying circumstances, Gaston plumbs the depths of those mired in chemically altered states. "Under the Influence" and "The Little Addict That Could" have at their hollow centres a wanton downward spiral that is common to many of the characters in the collection. In the latter, Tyson, a heroin addict, chooses his uncle Jack's island home as a space to kick his habit. Instead he quickly falls off the wagon, leading the option-bankrupt Jack into junkie-land. The two end up at a bar together, having "sucked Eve's breast" (Tyson's take on a heroin hit) and we understand that Jack has given himself over to Tyson's glamourous decline. This easy collapse feels a bit rushed and somewhat implausible, given how little space and time we have to get to know Jack and his particular brand of emptiness. However, the altered states (in several stories) do allow for some wonderful surreal imagery and a temporal, spatial "jumpiness" to the prose that makes for good reading, if not always concrete characterization.
In fact, it is exactly these blurry "fictions" for which that the narrator of the well-wrought "A Forest Path" has no time. The illegitimate, unrecognized and self-righteous son of Malcolm Lowry, and a teetotaler, he carefully rectifies the drunken inaccuracies in his father's prose, putting a new spin on his story "A Forest Path to the Spring" wherein a crouching cougar turns out to symbolize more and less than what Lowry and his readers might have imagined. Also notable for its pitch-perfect voice is "Where it comes from and where it goes", the story of a faith healer, Mr. Oates, from small town New Brunswick. Mr. Oates' colloquialisms are genuine without seeming over-the-top, which makes him an affable and sympathetic protagonist, even as he struggles to understand the gift that sets him apart.
The children and teens of "Mount Appetite" are also not immune to the world of adult anguish. They thrash and stare in its face, or become paralyzed by indecision when forced to enter it. Particularly strong, if one of the more macabre pieces in the book, is "Maria's Older Brother", in which the not-so-bright weakling in a bunch of merciless (normal) boys seeks an odd, literal way to voice his frustration at being picked on and excluded. This sense of exclusion is at the core of many of Gaston's stories, and although the role of outsider and onlooker is perhaps a staple of short fiction (and of fiction in general) he manages to give his loners a new twist by placing them in slightly freakish situations where it is likely they will lose control.
I did get the feeling some of these stories had been deliberately truncated for effect, which can be frustrating for a reader. Strangely amputated endings call attention to a story's oddness only, which isn't always enough, and can make for a disappointing, rather than thought-provoking absence of closure. However, for the most part, reading Gaston's stories is like being submerged, momentarily, in strange waters; you're not sure you want to stay there long, but you come out dripping and shivering with the newness of it all, and prepared to dip in all over again. Gaston's tales offer brief and visceral shots of consciousness.
Gaston is writer who has excelled in other genres (Gaston's novel The Good Body was much praised). It is a boon for readers that he continues to enrich and broaden the realm of Canadian short fiction.
Heather Birrell (Books in Canada) -- Books in Canada
Book Description
Full text of 2002 Giller Jury's comments: "As its title suggests, Mount Appetite is about hunger -- hunger for love, acknowledgment, comfort, clear answers. In each of his stories, Bill Gaston mines another vein of desire running through the heart of yet another wholly original character. He is a writer of great empathy, capable, it seems, of getting beneath the skin of anybody, from a faith healer to a heroin addict to a teenaged 7-Eleven clerk. His language is pure, his concerns humane. And his insights are offered up with a humility that recognizes the possibility of other insights, other conclusions to be drawn. This is a sophisticated, generous book, steeped in the poignancy of longing." --Barbara Gowdy, Thomas King, William New; The 2002 Giller Jury
A wry and witty collection by one of the country's best-loved storytellers, Mount Appetite is vintage Gaston: candid, personal, unabashed. The mountain of the title is no physical peak but, rather, a state of grace, a hierarchy of desire, a pinnacle of both truth and perfection. "Everyone at the top of Mt. Appetite is as close as they can get to heaven. It's work to get there and agony to be denied." This relentless state of longing is the subject of many of Gaston's stories, each one by turns grotesque and gorgeous, unsettling and familiar.
About the Author
Bill Gaston is the author of Deep Cove Stories, Tall Lives, North of Jesus Beans, Belle Combe Journal, Sex is Red and The Good Body. His poetry and stories have been widely anthologized and have been broadcast on CBC radio. Two half-hour screenplays are currently in production for CBC TV: The New Brunswicker and Saving Eve's Father. He teaches writing at the University of Victoria.
