The Official Site
I’m doing a couple readings in Calgary and Vancouver in the days to come and it would be great to see you there. Both events are free, so don’t let the depressing credit card bills from the holidays keep you from a fun, mildly spooky night out.
January 25: Calgary: Pages on Kensington Bookstore, 7:30 PM.
January 26: Vancouver: Vancouver Public Library (Main Branch) w/Amber Dawn and Michael Christie. 7:30 PM.
Just wanted to share the great news that The Guardians is a National Bestseller in its first week out in Canada! It debuts at #5 on the Maclean’s fiction list. Thank you to those who headed straight down to the bookstore to grab a copy. I always hoped you existed, but wasn’t sure…until now.
Officially speaking, I’m a novelist. But I’m really in the sleep disruption business. While it is gratifying when a reader or reviewer provides thoughtful analysis of my books’ themes or ideas or techniques, I always remind myself that the true test of the reading experience (or at least the true test for my reading) is excitement. Does the book in your hand race the heart, get under the skin? And notice the physical aspect that invariably arises when it comes to page-turning metaphors? It’s because a good book (thrilling or quiet, high-brow literary or neanderthal pulp) has to work on the body.
I have had the honour of readers reporting to me lost (or partly lost) nights of sleep at the hands of my books. Nothing delights me more than to hear of lights left on through the night, or altered dreams as a character wriggles into a reader’s slumber-thoughts.
So as The Guardians toddles (creeps?) out into the world, I’d love to know if anyone out there stays up late to finish one of its chapters…then stays up a bit later still to push the events of that chapter out of their head. Tell me if I’ve passed the sleep disruption test.
I’m not going to write a post every time a review for the new novel comes out, I promise. But I was just sent the first major newspaper review for The Guardians at the National Post. I’m relieved to say it’s a really great review. Doubly gratifying because it’s so well-written and (even more rare in reviews) so well structured. So the first question of my day is: How early can I open something bubbly and boozy (even if it’s a bottle of Keith’s)?
Check it out here: http://arts.nationalpost.com/2011/01/07/book-review-the-guardians-by-andrew-pyper/
But what I really want to say is that today is the day that my novel is officially no longer mine. It’s yours. The wide and anonymous world’s. For years the story of my fictional childhood friends and the not-so-empty Thurman house has nested in my head, been batted around in outline and on the page. It’s been a private matter, in other words. And now I wake up to find that it’s left the house in the night, leaving no note behind, and without a goodbye.
I’m happy, don’t get me wrong. And I knew this day would come. But you’d think, after five novels, you’d get used to it when the little punk grows up. As far as I can tell, you never do.
You know what I’m going to do today? I’m going to stroll into a bookstore to see The Guardians on the shelf. Because they’re there (the interweb told me)! And there’s nothing quite like that first sight of a pub date book, newborn and shivering, presenting itself to the world.
It’s a complicated moment. You want to protect it, nudge it out from the corner (“Go on! Introduce yourself!”), tell it to shut up and you’ll do all the talking. But even as you’re aware of its vulnerabilities, you always love it. You love it more because of its vulnerabilities.
So on behalf of The Guardians I invite you to check it out. If I’ve done my job halfway right, it should take you a quarter of the time as that new Franzen. And unlike that new Franzen…it’s got a haunted house in it!