Doing a love story in 2009 is a bitch. Write it with too slight a touch and you verge into pink dust jacket territory. Write it in an overly serious manner, with phrases like “erotic annihilation of the liminal” and, as such, it will be a little too French.
In Zoe Whittall’s second novel, she embraces neither approach, instead choosing arch melodrama to tell an operatic story played out in Queer West Toronto settings.
In lieu of a string section, Whittall’s elegant prose animates her characters as they navigate a love triangle that breaks apart with a tragedy at Dundas and Ossington. Josh is a brooding paramedic. Billy is an anxiety-wracked former teen music star. Amy is one of those students who is also a “filmmaker.” Alternating chapters of first person narration can be difficult for the reader to navigate, but Whittall is a writer of richly nuanced characters. There’s not a flubbed note in any of the voices.
For Fassbinder, the perfect ending for a melodrama was characters remaining unhappy despite the audience getting a happy ending. The conclusion of Holding Still For As Long As Possible doesn’t reach for that kind of downer-sophistication, but Whittall has still made a grand entertainment out of everyday collisions.
Rock around the blockZoe Whittall’s brief, drunken tour of TorontoZoe Whittall’s trio of medic, former-rock star, and student at the
heart of Holding Still For As Long As Possible could only have met in a
city as complex as Toronto. EYE WEEKLY spoke with Whittall about
several important locations in the novel.
What are the virtues of Toronto Western Hospital?The nurses aren’t too mean.
What’s your best memory of the Gladstone? Mine is accidentally watching Corpusse perform when it was still called Bronco’s.I
got very drunk there on free champagne. Perhaps it was the reopening?
My friend was working, and I only have two memories of the night.
Looking down into my purse and discovering it had several bunches of
fancy cheeses stolen from the buffet table and then looking up, to see
Adrienne Clarkson. The rest is a blur.
Is the Parkdale Price Chopper un-gentrifiable?Yes.
I think so. You can still only find the most minimal assortment of
vegetables, and two types of vinegar. Whole grain bread, pshaw! It will
always be old-school.
If Yes Magazine — your fictional
alt-weekly staffed by swinging middle-aged lefties — were a real
publication, which end of Church Street would it be located ON?I
had a moment the other day where I got worried about that chapter. But
really, on the record, it was an opportunity to make fun of myself. I’m
a lot like the mid-30s, no-kids, irony-loving, Daily Show–obsessed
music nerds I was poking fun of.
» Zoe Whittall reads at Word on the Street’s Great Books Marquee Sun 5:30pm.
»
Holding Still For As Long As Possible launches Sep 30. 7:30pm (doors
7pm). $5 (book rebate). Gladstone Hotel Ballroom, 1214 Queen W.
416-531-4635. www.pagesbooks.ca. (Corpusse and Adrienne Clarkson will not be in attendance.)