A pair of married Vancouver writers are launching their latest books in Nanaimo and they said they’ve gotten over the “initial oddness” of presenting such unrelated works side-by-side.
Andrew Battershill will read from his second novel, Marry Bang Kill, a “weird” crime story set in the Strait of Georgia, while Suzannah Showler readers from Most Dramatic Ever: The Bachelor, a pop dissertation of the meaning of the titular matchmaking game show. The presentation takes place at Well Read Books on July 26. The event will also feature East Coast author Mark Anthony Jarman.
“The books have slightly more in common than one might think. I mean, maybe it’s a bit abstract, I don’t know. What’s my rationale?” Showler asked Battershill. “We’re married, so that would be the main reason,” he replied.
Marry Bang Kill follows Battershill’s successful debut novel, Pillow, which was longlisted for the Giller Pize in 2016. The book follows a thief who stole from the wrong people and finds himself on the run from both sides of the law. The fugitive decides to hide at his mother’s house on Quadra Island.
Battershill’s parents have owned property on Quadra since the mid ’80s. They recently built a small house on the land and that’s where the author wrote large portions of the book. He said he was inspired by the setting.
“I thought it was kind of a cool, funny idea to set a noire crime thriller on idyllic Quadra Island and it’s also just such a cool place and it has a lot of descriptive potential when you’re wring. Setting scenes on Quadra Island gives you a lot of cool scenery,” he said.
As opposed to Pillow, which had a high-concept surrealist tone, Battershill said Marry Bang Kill is “pretty realist.”
“But I think it’s similar to Pillow just in terms of there’s still a lot of crazy stuff that happens and the style is, I guess, pretty high energy,” he added.
“So I think they’re stylistically pretty similar but there’s not the one large concept.”
Most Dramatic Ever is part of a series of books called Pop Classics that delves into popular culture and guilty pleasures. Showler said she counts herself among the millions of viewers who watch the Bachelor “despite perhaps our better judgment,” and she’s long been fascinated about what makes the show so compelling.
She describes her take on the reality TV staple as filling the space between academic articles and hot-take fan service.
“Because it’s both a game show and a marriage plot, the Bachelor tells you that both anyone can win, but also that the winner has been fated all along. And that that conflict in some way deeply appeals to the American psyche,” Showler explained.
“Because likewise in America they survive on this myth that both if you just work hard enough and pull yourself up by your bootstraps you can get anything you want, but also you’re innately exceptional by virtue of your very Americanness.”
She said that was her underlying thesis in the book but in her analysis she found herself in unexpected territory.
“It started out with this question about why this show is so appealing and it really ended up kind of being more of a question of, like, is anything real? What does it mean for something to be real?”
WHAT’S ON … Andrew Battershill and Suzannah Showler read from their latest books at Well Read Books, 19 Commercial St., on Thursday, July 26 at 6 p.m.
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