The Gum Thief - cropped Read online

  "It would," said Gloria.

  "And what if we threw away everything we have now-our house, our books, our stove, our carpets, our dust-and we started again somewhere new, cut ourselves away from the past and headed into the unknown like a space rocket-wouldn't that be something?"

  "I'd like that very much, Steve. That would be something."

  Steve heard only his breathing and Gloria's. The stars kept their silence. Steve nudged Gloria, "Look, it's the Big Dipper."

  "It is."

  "And over there-Orion."

  "Yes, it is."

  "You know, Gloria-"

  "Hush, Steve."

  "Why, my love?"

  "Because sometimes words can kill what it is we have right now."

  "But, Gloria, I don't think I've ever told you this as such, but I think you're very ... beautiful."

  Gloria squeezed Steve's hand, and then Steve remembered something he'd kept in his trouser pocket all day but had forgotten. "Good God, how could I forget something so simple?" He reached into his pocket and removed a small package, and then held an offering up to Gloria. "Gloria, my dear-gum?"

  c-

  Roger, as your instructor, I have to tell you that the truly good author creates a novel so true that it loses the voice of its individual author. We all strive to write "the universal book," one so good that it seems unauthored. Your Glove Pond (Roger, what sort of name is that?) has a voice that is too idiosyncratic. You need to lose your ego and create a work that speaks in the voice of the "Platonic everyman," not only the voice that you, Roger Thorpe, create.

  Your characters also seem like real people, which might sound like a compliment, but don't jump to that conclusion. Characters need to sound as if you made them up, or else people won't feel as if they're reading writing: bold, ballsy, masterful writing-and they won't feel that they're meeting people who couldn't otherwise exist were it not for books.

  Location wise, your book takes place in your own day-today world, and that's wrong. Books must be set in an imaginary places-otherwise, how will a reader know you've used your imagination? And I know you worked at Staples, Roger, so it's really not fair to the other writers in this class who tried to locate their books in different, exotic, imaginary places. Hilary set her fiction assignment in a vampire's cave-now that's a location. Dhanni set his collection of free-association verse on another planet; that takes work. Staples? I can go there any time and experience it myself. I don't need or want art that tells me about my daily life. I want art that tells me about somebody anybody-else but me.

  As a side note, I also think it was inconsiderate of you to mention our class's exercises in bread buttering. Your classmates tried hard to empathize with the buttered bread slice. After you left last week's session, some of us stayed behind and had a discussion about your attitude towards your bread. In the name of making better art, I have to tell you that we found your attitude a bit ... smug. Who says a piece of bread can't have a soul, a sense of drama or a point of view? Julie's buttering had me almost in tears thinking about its plight. Andre's buttering made me yearn for a stronger United Nations. Yours just left us ... cold.

  However, I think there is some hope for you-this book you've written can be used as a teaching aid in class. I'd like to distribute chapters of it, and then we will, as a group, analyze them, then go in and remove offending bits and replace them with what we unanimously agree are creative solutions. Only then can your characters crackle with life, and only then will readers feel they've visited a new place, met new people, joined their quest!

  I don't think I'd try to publish this, Roger. You'd only be setting yourself up for disappointment. I've written several books, one of which was published, so I think I have some authority on this subject. My book of collected short stories, Mama's Cranberries was published by To Catch a Dream Press and won the 2004 Eileen Braithwaite Memorial Trust Prize for Fiction Dealing with Equality.

  I am a fan of the arts, Roger-I love art and culture and music-and don't we all? It gives life colour and meaning. We writers-I feel I can speak to you man to man here-inhabit a giving, loving, feedback-filled community rife with generosity and selfless bonhomie. When something good happens to one writer, all writers read about it and rejoice! Take that, TV! Take that, cinema! Take that, Internet! We writers will never go away! We are strong!

  Now, I feel I have to ask you why you're not contributing to the coffee jar. It may be just a few quarters, but they all add up, and I don't feel it's my responsibility to subsidize my class's "habit." Please, at the next class, remember to pony up your share of the funds.

  You did finish a book, Roger. I'll give you that. If you like (and I don't think this is stepping out of any boundaries here), I can supply you with private editing at a rate of $40 per hour, which is the going fee for editors with my credentials. There would also have to be a "rereading fee" for me to once again go through your novel, but that, again, is standard practice.

  See you at next Wednesday's class,

  Ed Matheson, B.A.

  Creative Writing Instructor and winner of the 2004 Eileen Braithwaite Memorial Trust Prize for Fiction Dealing with Equality

  www.edmatheson.com

  Douglas Coupland was born on a NATO base in Germany in 1961. He is the author of the number-one international bestseller JPod, soon to be a TV series, and eight earlier novels, including Eleanor Rigby, Hey Nostradamus!, All Families Are Psychotic, and Generation X. His books have been translated into 35 languages and published in most countries around the world. He is also a visual artist and sculptor, furniture designer and screenwriter, as well as the author of Souvenir of Canada, its sequel Souvenir of Canada 2, and Terry, the story of Terry Fox. He lives and works in Vancouver.