Ryan Bigge wasted no time in demonstrating his disdain for Leah McLaren’s debut novel, The Continuity Girl, in his review for the Toronto Star on Sunday. After praising the typesetting as the novel’s only virtue, Bigge struggles for adjectives to describe the prose: “Uber-lousy? Fifth-rate? Super-bad? None of the above. There exists no English word that adequately describes the not-so-goodness herein.” Bigge then goes on to trash the novel and dismiss McLaren as a “provocative pool toy that is kept inflated only by the warm air of the chattering classes.”
What Bigge leaves out of his review is that McLaren trashed his debut book, a memoirish examination of the lives of single men called A Very Lonely Planet, in her column. In Other Media can’t remember McLaren’s exact wording, but we suspect that Bigge has been waiting for some time to even the score.
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Read Ryan Bigge’s article in the Toronto Star
It is impossible to say if McLaren’s critical commentary on Bigges A Very Lonely Planet or Bigge’s critical commentary on McLarens The Continuity Girl have merit without first reading both books. What I can comment on, having read many tremendously smart and entertaining novels by Canadian writers, is the comment by Ceri Marsh on the back of The Continuity Girl in which she writes: Leah McLaren’s writing is an elbow to the ribs of the accepted CanLit notion that smart and entertaining don’t belong together. I found the comment sad, offensive and in poor taste. Sad because she felt that the only way to be an advocate for the book was to diminish the work of others. Offensive because she carries the title of Editor-in-Chief of a Canadian publication and had no hesitation to publicly disregard the first rate, internationally recognized work of so very many great Canadian writers. In the end though I feel sorry that she has apparently missed out on a list of novels that have enthralled, enlightened and educated so many of us in Canada and around the world. Canadian fiction writers are gold medalists and their work should make us all, as Canadians, very proud and statements of this kind should not go unchallenged or unaddressed. I do not know if McLaren approved the quote but I am sorry that Haper Collins went with it. I cant think of many industries in which a patently untrue comment of this sort by someone of stature would go unaddressed. Carolyn Weaver Producer, Host Fine Print
Regarding the Ceri Marsh quote: Ceri and Leah are close friends, and likely was the only person who was willing to quote on the book (a solution taken by too many publishers with mediocre books on their hands).
Lets not mince words here, both of these authors are awful. Period. To have McLaren and Bigge lob bombs at one another, and for us to pay attention, feeds the ugly narcissism of similarly untalented writers who have no right to be published.
Meanwhile, the Globe and Mail review by Joanna Goodman was a rave. I just assumed that Goodman is a friend of McLaren’s as well, since, if McLaren’s ‘Generation Why’ column in the Globe can be considered a preview of her novel, ‘The Continuity Girl’ is not worth reading.
Just check out this: http://www.complete-review.com/saloon/archive/200602b.htm#qq7 Its about The Guardian and how that venerable book review section decided not to run a bad review of ‘one of their own.’
This book make me physically sick :(
The “Continuity Girl” is a cynosure of ubanite sexual dysfunction. I couldn’t consider any circumstance that would bring me to climax with a woman who has these thoughts in her cranium.
The continuity girl is derelict, demented and disgusting….. I hope we never hear a word from this author again :(
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