Keep it Beautiful's first real
review has arrived in the form of a better-than-I-could-have-imagined
write up in Steven Beattie's National Post Shortcuts column. I
admit that this was the part of the publishing process that I was
most nervous about (well, after the idea of my mom reading the
book). But to have a positive review in a national newspaper---written by a respected
critic to boot---be my
first review ever? That is something I never really thought was a
possibility.
In a twist that will only serve to
reinforce the notion that Canadian publishing is a small and insular
enterprise, the book that shares this column with Keep it
Beautiful is Peter Unwin's collection Life Without Death. In
a previous life, I was Unwin's publicist for an beautiful non-fiction
book he wrote called Hard Surface: In Search of the Canadian Road. To be mentioned
in the same column, even to be thought of as anything close to a
contemporary of Peter Unwin, is itself incredibly high praise in my
opinion. He is a gifted writer. He has an eye for the curious that I
envy and a stylistic ease that I could only dream of matching. The
commonness of my name leads me to wonder whether Peter even knows
that I'm one in the same. So, if by some long shot you're reading
this, Peter: yup, it's me!
As
much as a positive review buoys my fragile, fledgling confidence as a
writer, I know that less positive reviews may be yet to come, so I
won't let myself off the hook just yet. Maybe I'll just come down
for a week or so at least.