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Art & Books

Q&A: Catherine Gildiner

Catherine Gildiner is milking her memoirs, and who can blame her? Too Close To The Falls was a huge hit, and her follow-up, After The Falls, was also successful. She brings the third instalment, Coming Ashore ($27.95, ECW), to the International Festival of Authors when she appears at the ECW 40th anniversary party Friday (October 24), 9 pm at the October Crisis panel November 1, 7:30 pm, both at the Lakeside Terrace and on the True Story panel November 2, noon, at the Studio Theatre. (See listings.) She took our literary quips questionnaire.

Summarize your book in a tweet.

Coming Ashore is about my life in the 60s. It takes place in England while I was a student at Oxford and Toronto where I moved into Rochdale, a major drug centre in Canada.

Who should star as you in your biopic?

Tuesday Weld in her heyday would have been good. She had those kind of blond 50s looks but played roles outside of the mould – a place I have always resided.

What important book have you pretended to have read? Were you convincing?

Ulysses by James Joyce. I saw the movie and listened to the audio tape and read Molly’s Soliloquy so I have been able to squeak by in semi-literate circles.

Recount your weirdest encounter with a fan.

Fan says, “I know you. You went over Niagara Falls in a barrel.”

I say, “No, I wrote Too Close To The Falls.”

Fan says, “You’re wrong. You went over the falls in a barrel.”

I say, “That happened in the 1890s.”

Fan says, “So what’s your point?”

Lena Dunham, creator and star of TV’s Girls, has received $3.5 million for her first book. Care to comment?

Lena portrays a neurotic young person and she, much like Woody Allen before her, has made her neuroses her comedy. Girls and Tiny Furniture are fuelled by her neuroses, but you always root for her honesty.

I admire how she refuses to gloss her personality, her life or her body. She just lays it out there and that is worth something. It will be interesting to see if she earns back her $3.5 million advance. I worry that her TV and film fans won’t translate into readers.

You’re ready to write the next bestselling dystopia for young adults. What’s the premise?

All those young adults have to turn into their parents and they have to parent themselves for the rest of their lives.

Do writers make good lovers? Why?

They don’t. They are the ones who write all the love scenes so they make themselves the heroes. The “great lover” just “happens” to be a writer. How often have you seen that plot? Fantasy wins again.

Do book reviews still matter or can you accomplish everything you need from social media?

They matter way less than they used to. There was a time when they could make or break you. Still, there is only so much self-promotion you can do. There are only so many favours you can call in. In the end when you get a great review in a good paper and have a high-end publisher instead of being self-published and reviewed by a psycho on Amazon, it still means something.

Whose memoir do you not want to read?

The Confessions Of Saint Augustine. He was more fun as a bad boy.

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