What follows is a one-of-a-kind books list by Morgan Murray, whose debut novel Dirty Birds has been celebrated by CanLit institutions including the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, Canada Reads, the Atlantic Book Awards, the ReLit Award, and more.
Murray, obviously, however, with all this acclaim, has been much too busy and successful to write the list himself, and so he enlisted his protagonist Milton Ontario (not to be confused with Milton, Ontario) to create the list on his behalf...and then in truly Milton Ontario fashion, the list got lost amidst email back-and-forths and faulty attachments, and went missing for two whole years.
It was recently unearthed, however, and we think it's too good to waste. Many thanks for the Esteemed First Time Novelist for making sure we finally got it.
*****
An overly verbose note from the Esteemed First Time Novelist regarding what it is you are about to partake of:
Look! Novelling is a big business, okay! It is not what you think. It’s not the quaint pursuit of a lonely genius with their ink stained fingers scribbling away in a smoke filled Parisian cafe. Don’t be naive! This is the 21st century! Novels and associated novelanalia are the product of an elaborate machinery designed to rake in the dough. Big dough! So I, a novelist, a published novelist, obviously don’t have time to waste on anything as trivial as writing these days! What with my normal array of wine and cheese galas and appointments for Deep Irish Manicures (I must insist that the negative press this procedure has garnered of late is completely unfounded. It is not simply sticking your fingers in holes poked in common potatoes. A novelist wouldn’t be caught dead fondling a common potato! These are special holes drilled especially in special Irish potatoes that have medicinal properties especially suited for contending with the unfathomable demands upon the published novelist’s hands). The CEO of Exxon certainly doesn’t dirty his hands and ruin his manicure sucking oil from the earth like a common roughneck. Nor should a novelist sully his DIM with typing like a common peasant. So, as any self-respecting big novelling outfit does, I posted an ad to Craigslist in the w4m (writers seeking mentees) section seeking assistance in creating this list:
Esteemed novelist seeks sub to fill-in. Utmost discretion of the utmost importance. Send samples.
For some unknown reason, this ad netted me a flood of poorly composed, poorly lit, and overexposed photographs of men's *ahems*, there was only one legitimate applicant—if I might generously call it that—someone I recognized right off as the protagonist from my most recent [Ed. note: and only] novel, our hero Milton Ontario.
I assure you, kindly reader, that I had no intention of hiring this wet noodle, this—if you will indulge my Canadianism—hoser poseur, this real flannel flaneur. But, as I believe it was the honourable John G. Diefenbaker who once said, “desperate times call for someone from Saskatchewan,” or something. I had no choice but to hire the young protagonist to compose a piece of something that would sufficiently meet the requirements for the assignment from this esteemed electronic publication and duly promote my esteemed novel (Dirty Birds, in case you haven’t heard, the novel none other than the esteemed Scotia Bank Giller Prize and multi-Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour laureate Will Ferguson himself has compared to the work of none other than the esteemed Kurt Vonnegut. That’s right! Mr. Cat’s Cradle himself, Kurt Vonnegut! Mr. Ferguson might have meant to respond to my overtures with “quit doing that” but it autocorrected to Kurt Vonnegut, and here we are!). So without further ado, I place you in the incapable hands of Milton Ontario, protagonist.
Warmest salutations,
-Morgan Murray, novelist, published
Postscript—Did I mention that Milton Ontario is a poet? Not a very good one? Sincere apologies in advance.
*****
6 books that sound pretty good to me, by milton ontario
brisk like it
a triscuit a tracksuit
a biscuit in a
bask in it
6 books you say
6 books on the 49th shelf
leaning like the tower of
pizza
on the shelf
gone glossy with yesterday’s regrets
*
chinkstar, by jon chan simpson
set in the midst of a war
a gang war
between asian gangsta rappers
not unlike big big biggies
and redneck rig pig piggies
in red deer
no less
alberta yes
a missing big brother
an unrequited lover
sang like a song sings
the lingo and everything
its a small list
but chinkstar must be
among the top two or three
central alberta asian gangsta rap gang war fictions published in toronto in 2015
at least
*
hard core logo, by michael turner
washed up
has been
has beans
will travel
through western canada
one last hurrah
a band of punks
thrash
thrash
thrash
against the dying of the
cigarette lighter
in the tour van
on the way to van
or was it
on the way from van
with the raisin bran
like old men
its been a while
Its bean a while
but its given us
billy talent
both band and
callum keith rennie vehicle
a tour van
egg or chicken
doesnt matter
tarantino approves
*
caught, by lisa moore
watching the made-for-tv
miniseries movie of the week
is for the weak
is cheating
this must be read
this must be supped
this must be slurped and sipped and slipped into like hot
tomato soup
all these years later
too many
i can still hear the
glop
glop
glop
of the sexy
tomato soup
moore is to
tomato soup
what warhol is to
tomato soup
but with words
instead of factories full of
runaways and
tomato soup
*
the end of music, by jamie fitzpatrick
a gander
a goose
a time warp
an aeroport
a cold war
cold plate
cold shoulder
cold shower
mom
the razz-a-ma-tazz
showgirl
stewardess
of the bustling once was
now isn't
but neither are you
carter
you once was
almost
just about
not quite
just like
gander
international
except for that musical
it’s gotten good reviews
from politicians who have never been to a musical
almost
just about
not quite
*
mortimer, by robert munsch
clang
clang
rattle
bing
great
now
i'm
being
sued
by a beloved childrens author
*
boom time, by lindsay bird
bird
sings songs
of fort mac
cat calls
from cat walks
from mine hands
in hard hats
and work boots
boom
of black gold
black lung
boom
boom
of lunch room undoings
by back page
betty page
look-a-likes
for the barrel chested
blue breasted
roustabouts
on turnarounds
boom
boom
boom
we all know the
price
but not the
cost
because no one has ever been
to the bottom of the
bottomless pit
where they grow
iphones and
eye rolls and
eye sores and
crass boors in the
work camps and
work boots
boom
boom
boom
everybody is
a buddy from
somebodys
hometown
but this is
town is
home to
nobody
the bottomless pit
sees to that
*
In late 2008, as the world’s economy crumbles and Barack Obama ascends to the White House, the remarkably unremarkable Milton Ontario—not to be confused with Milton, Ontario—leaves his parents’ basement in Middle-of-Nowhere, Saskatchewan, and sets forth to find fame, fortune, and love in the Euro-lite electric sexuality of Montreal; to bask in the endless twenty-something Millennial adolescence of the Plateau; to escape the infinite flatness of Saskatchewan and find his messiah—Leonard Cohen. Hilariously ironic and irreverent, in Dirty Birds, Morgan Murray generates a quest novel for the twenty-first century—a coming-of-age, rom-com, crime-farce thriller—where a hero’s greatest foe is his own crippling mediocrity as he seeks purpose in art, money, power, crime, and sleeping in all day.