Craig Davidson

Craig Davidson's Blog

Hi All,

I'm Craig Davidson, and welcome to my blog set up by the fine folks at Penguin. My latest book is called THE FIGHTER. You can read all about it at www.thefighter.ca. You can buy it online at www.Penguin.ca It is a harrowing book about love in the time of cholera. It is a heartwarming book about the triumph of the human spirit against impossible odds. It is the story of a horse named Gimpy Sue who won the Belmont Stakes on three legs and a broomstick. It's a story of love, honor, redemption, and the hero that lives inside of us all.

HA---no way, Jose! It's about NONE of that stuff.

It's called THE FIGHTER. You can guess what it's about.

Your most humble servant,

Craig Davidson, Esq.
email: craigdavidson11@gmail.com">craigdavidson11@gmail.com
website: www.craigdavidson.net
watch me take a beating: www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPXfpKxkbUU
...or a different beating: http://video.aol.com/video-detail/ames-vs-davidson/865956516
MYSPACE: http://www.myspace.com/craig_b_davidson
STEROIDS ARTICLE: http://www.esquire.com/features/steroids-0408

THINGS PEOPLE SAID ABOUT "RUST AND BONE":

"Davidsonï¿½smudges the line between comedy and horror, cruelty and mercy. His remarkable stories are challenging and upsettingï¿½Donï¿½t look for comfort here." ï¿½Chuck Palahniuk, FIGHT CLUB.

"These big, riveting stories about tough guys in trouble are the best I've read in a long time from a young writer. There's enough incident, shock, and suspense for a dozen books. This collection is filled with stories you haven't heard before." ï¿½ Bret Easton Ellis, AMERICAN PSYCHO

"There is a strikingly original tone to Mr. Davidson's stories. The prose is spare yet elegant, the insights are fresh and real, and best of all there is a boundless humanity in Mr. Davidson's writing: a love of life that is beautifully woven with an acute sense of its darkness. This is in every way an extraordinary book." ï¿½ Clive Barker

"... in "On Sleepless Roads," a repo man "wondered what it was about property seizure that gave rise to soliloquies so melodramatic they'd embarrass a threepenny hack." Once Davidson can curb the same impulse, he'll be on his way." ---Lizzie Skurnick, NY Times. (thanks a bunch, Lizzie! I love you, too!)

THINGS PEOPLE SAID ABOUT "THE FIGHTER":

"This is more than a stunning debut. It reminds me how vacuous, banal and insipid most highly-touted fiction is. Craig Davidson asksï¿½and answersï¿½some big, uncomfortable questions about the nature of our
humanity. The Fighter is an essential novel, destined for cult status at the very least." ---Irvine Welsh, author of FILTH

"More a grunt than a novel. 'Macho' doesnï¿½t begin to cover it."
---Unnamed Reviewer, KIRKUS.

All best, Craig.
Craig Davidson on 12.22.07 @ 12:16 PM EST [link]

Thursday, June 24th

Top Bets / Website back up

Hi All,

A link to some Top Bets, seeing as our Herenb website now allows them to show up:

http://herenb.canadaeast.com/reviews/article/1107727

Also, my website it up again. It's unchanged as of yet, but I'm getting some updates done on it in prep for Sarah Court. So you can check back whenever and hopefully we'll have the cover, an excerpt, maybe some extra art, and the odd link also.

http://craigdavidson.net/

All best, Craig.
Craig Davidson on 06.24.10 @ 10:27 AM EST [link]

Thursday, June 3rd

Sarah Court / Top Bets

Hello All,

Well, my editor at Chizine has been getting on me about promoting my upcoming book, Sarah Court. I mean, the publication date's a ways off - late August - but with summer approaching, he's got a point.

I should say thank you to everyone who has ordered it; apparently you made it the #1 upcoming release at Horror Mall for the month of May, with all your diligent pre-ordering. Many thanks to those of you who did. To those who didn't ... well, I forgive you. But you can still go order the hardcover version, with all the extra bells and whistles (a hank of real human hair - mine, or a hobos'? Impossible to tell!) here:

https://www.horror-mall.com/_search.php?page=1&q=SKU20746

Now I must also express some consternation about what readers may expect. Especially those who used to read my horror work, rife as it was with dismemberment, carnage, and death by tanning beds. Not to say my other books have been walks in the proverbial park ... but Sarah Court is more subtle, I'd say. I still totally think it's worth your while, and for those of you who remember Rust and Bone, you'll see a re-appearance of James Paris, thwarted pitbull owner and rodent videographer, as well as characters diverse as: a hitman who may or may not have Aspergers, a washed-up stuntman looking to hit the bigtime one last time, a female powerlifter, an ancient car thief, and many many other sorts who are disreputable or just a little lost in their own skin.

And yes, there is a supernatural element threaded through, although that takes awhile to disclose itself. But as for vampires, werewolves, zombies, or ectoplasmic phantasms - all of which featured prominently in THE PRESERVE, the last all-horror book I wrote - well, those simply aren't present.

If I ever write Sarah Court: Redux, I will be certain to include at least one ectoplasmic phantasm. Promise. Pinkie swear.

But for all that, I would say it's worth your while. To that end I sent the book out to some prominent writers for 'blurbs.' I am happy to report that the results are really quite stunning. Feast your eyes:

"All good books have one thing in common - they are truer than if they had really happened. I humbly sumbit that Sarah Court is one of those books."
- The Ghost of Ernest Hemingway, reached via seance.

(Aww, shucks, Papa, you do go on ...)

"All of us failed to match our dreams of perfection. So I rate us on the basis of our splendid failure to do the impossible. This is what I used to think, until I read Sarah Court by Craig Davidson. Which is a perfect book. He has accomplished the impossible, and so I can only admit that he is my artistic better in every conceivable and measurable way."
- William Faulker, noted ghoul (quote given at St. Peter's cemetery, in Oxford)

(Thanks, Willy, you're a sport!)

"I am a writer because writing is the thing I do best. It leaves me shocked and saddened to admit that Craig Davidson does it so, so much better. His prose is so intoxicating that I am ashamed to have ever set ink to page - compared to him, I am naught but a weasel with a pen tied to my tail, running crazedly over a blank page."
- Flannery O'Connor, noted phantasm.

(Ah, jeez, dollface - don't be so hard on yourself!)

"My mouth is full of decayed teeth and my soul of decayed ambitions. This is how I felt after reading Craig Davidson's Sarah Court, which laid bare my own sad ineptitude as a writer."
- James Joyce, who sent his blurb from purgatory, via Charon the Ferryman

(Hey, it takes a real man to admit it, pally!)

"A masterpiece of fiction is an original world and as such is not likely to fit the world of the reader. I say so after reading ... brains ... me want ... BRAAAAAAINS!"
- Zombie Vladimir Nabokov.

(What, too soon?)

As you can see, if these titans of the written word recognize me as their better - from beyond the grave, natch - I think you are all pretty safe ordering a copy.

After the break, some Top Bets

All best, Craig.
Craig Davidson on 06.03.10 @ 07:02 PM EST [more..]

Tuesday, May 4th

Order My Book and Top Bets

Hi All,

So, here's a link where you can order a really super-special crazy-ass souped-up wicked nitrous-oxide enhanced version of my book Sarah Court. It's limited edition, so a little pricey, but it comes with lots of special extras, the specialest of those being: each one will contain one of my own hacked-off fingers. So, like, we're only printing 8. Maybe, if the demand is strong, I'll consider parting with a few toes.

http://www.horror-mall.com/SARAH-COURT-by-Craig-Davidson-Limited-Edition-p-20746.html

Actually, it's sort of nice seeing a book of mine advertized on a horror site. I might want to write another horror book one day, but it's a matter of having an idea that fits.

Until then, you can read some Top Bets, if you'd like, after the break.
Craig Davidson on 05.04.10 @ 03:42 PM EST [more..]

Wednesday, April 21st

Top Bets

Hi All,

I think I skipped a week. So here's the entry from a few weeks back.

MONCTON. "Pappy! Pappy!" I would say when only a boy, shaking my father from his slumber. "Shall we fly a kite today?" Pappy would rise stiffly, his body carrying the raw sweet sugar-smell, and say: "Not today, my son. For the sugar calls." And he would heft his pickaxe and walk with the other men to the sugar mine. There they would stand at the pit-head above the sparkling caverns and laugh and touch one another's faces with great tenderness and descend the slope to chip away at that white gold. Pappy would come home stoop-shouldered and weary and would let me lick his shirtsleeves, which were ever so sweet. But he came down with the sugar-lung, as so many did; on his deathbed he coughed, a dry hacking rattle, fine granules of powdered sugar puffing the air about his haggard, sugar-bleached face. His final words were: "Life was sweet. The sweetness killed me." Damn you, sugar! Damn you to hell! (ed note: there is absolutely no historical relevancy to the preceding parable) Sugar Camp. Come see how maple sugar is made. Saturday, April 3. Open at 9. Dewey Road, off Turtle Creek Road.

SAINT JOHN. One afternoon I was sitting on the banks of the big lake they call Gitche Gumme, woolgathering about my time aboard the ill-fated Edmund Fitzgerald. I'd been that ship's mop-boy, you see, when it set out from Cleveland on a gloomy November morn. I was lamenting out loud - singing my laments, really, stringing my woes into lyrics - and out the corner of my eye I see this longshanked fella with a blonde mustache off in the bushes, writing down my every word on his little notepad. "Hey!" I said. "You're one a them Lightfoots, ain't ya?" The Lightfoots were a passel of rum-running, jack-rolling savages who lived in saltbox shacks upriver. That whole clan would steal the pennies off a dead man's eyes. Well, this Lightfoot sonofabitch laughs and tips me an evil nod and off he runs off into the shrubs. Next I see him is on the cover of Billboard magazine, a bigshot folksinger! Now I hear he's a zombie. Gordon Lightfoot in Concert. April 4. 7:00pm at Harbour Station, 99 Station Street. 657-1234.

FREDERICTON. My neuropathologist Shifty Tubman wanted to throw a fancy Italian feast at his shack in the woods. He figured everyone would get a kick out of squid-ink pasta - noodles colored with squid ink, right? So we shotgun a few Faxe tallboys and sway off to the fishmonger's. Who says he don't carry squid ink, cuttlefish ink, or ink of any sort. Now Shifty's in a dilly of a pickle. But he snaps his fingers and goes: "A-ha!" He heads to the stationary shop and buys a twelve-pack of Bic ballpoint pens. I say, "I don't know, Shifts - squid ink and pen ink don't exactly seem a one-to-one conversion." But we boil up a mess of noodles and bust them pens open and squeeze the ink out and sure enough them noodles go DARK. Later Jackknife Flynn and Handsome Maggie and Tarnose Bob are sittin' round Shifty's table, everybody's mouths black from the pasta. Lookin' like a pack of rotten-mouthed zombies. Pasta Night. Sunday, April 4 at Brewbaker's restaurant. 546 King Street. 459.0067.

MONCTON. Listen, can I be honest with you? Can I lay it all on the line? Okay, then, here it is: I hate kids. I know what you're saying: How can you hate kids, seeing as you're the Easter Bunny - the ambassador for springtime, togetherness, and the child in all of us? Yeah, well, screw that noise. I hate kids. There. I said it. They’re so ... NEEDY. Sticky-fingered and vacant-eyed, all up in my grille - "Where’s MY egg?" - grabby-grabbing at me, practically pulling clumps of fur out. What, like I LAY the damn things? The little dummies can’t tell the difference between a chicken and a rabbit! Not to mention, some of them are fat as hell - not for nothing, but we got a real childhood obesity crisis in North America. The very last thing these pudge-asses need is another chocolate egg. Go for a jog, y’know? Do a few burpees. Eat a stalk of celery, you tragic fatties. Lord. Forget it. I’ma go get hammered with the mall Santas. Easter EGGstravaganza at the Magnetic Zoo. Come see the Easter bunny! $5. April 3, 11:00. 125 Magic Mountain Rd.

SAINT JOHN. I was watching Doctor Phil when this commercial comes on for the Canadian Blood Services. It’s in me to give, apparently. I started feeling real morose and selfish for bogarting all that rich red goodness. My veins were practically swimmin’ with the stuff. So I moseyed down to the clinic. The nurse gives me a long look, then pricks my finger and draws a sample. She examines it and says, "Well, sir, I don’t think we can use it." I was gobsmacked! "Have I got a disease?" No, she says. "You got too much of my blood type lying around?" No, she says, mine was the most in-demand type. "So what in hell ...?" "Well, sir," she says, "look at it like siphoning gas out of a rusted-out, broken-down AMC Gremlin. The gas may be fine, but the vehicle it came from ..." She gives me an apologetic shrug. I say: "Damn it ... are you rejecting my blood?" She gives me a cookie. I was stunned and broke-hearted. Rejected at a blood clinic! Jeezly crow! How much lower can a man sink? Blood Donor Clinic. Free! Friday, April 2. 11am - 2:30pm. 405 University Avenue.

-30-

Craig Davidson on 04.21.10 @ 11:08 AM EST [link]

Thursday, April 15th

The Toronto Star

Hi All,

Published this, today, just now:

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/article/795669--critics-rip-martel-s-highly-anticipated-follow-up

... now I'm not saying someone there read my last post - this blog may be read by all of seven people, for all I know. And it is, after all, pretty big news in the literary community. The biggest book in Canada this year by far. But still. Sort of a carbon copy of my post, except their writer uses the term 'rubbishing,' which I like very much and vow to steal and use at every future opportunity. But all my very carefully-gathered and ripped-off 'sources' are there - yes, remember: I'm a newsie now, I can use terms like 'sources' - although to be fair they are two or three of the biggest papers in the world, so it's not like I'm really getting exclusive details.

But still.

My main thing is: listen, if I'm going to be a jumped-up little prick - and in this case, with Yann Martel, I am - if I'm going to go ahead and rubbish all over one of our country's great literary stars, well, why won't The Star pay me to do so? I mean, I'm a mercenery. I'm a total flaming prick, or at least in this case I'm being one. So why not let me line my pockets as a result of my prickish behavior? I'm sure my current boss wouldn't mind.

Anyway, probably a coincidence. Something in the water.

All best, Craig.
Craig Davidson on 04.15.10 @ 01:57 PM EST [link]

Wednesday, April 14th

Beatrice and Virgil (continued)

Hi All,

I guess since I wrote that very ... not nice review of Martel's new book, I've had my eyes open for other reviews. I think it's the first time I've written a very, I don't know, HURTFUL review, is maybe the word. I've badmouthed movies and other things, but with books I'm pretty tender and pretty careful. I must say I do have a general pathology I follow, that being: if the writer is a big enough deal that whatever I say about him/her will have no fundamental impact on their livelihood, then okay, I can open the floodgates. The only two writers I believe I've been harsh on, that I can recall, are Atwood and now Martel.

But since Martel's PI was such a lovely book, and since I hadn't read any other reviews of Beatrice and Virgil before the one I wrote went to press, there was some nervousness in that I'd been too harsh, or perhaps - even worse - I'd missed the nuances of Martel's work. I'd focused on the surface gloss, where a more intuitive reader or reviewer would have seen that which Martel had set in place. So I guess I was a little concerned that (a) I'd let the private tales I'd heard about the author colour my review (and I've since heard very NICE stories about Yann, which I hadn't been privvy to prior to writing the review) and that I'd maybe, out of some sense of jealousy, maybe, or spite or something, purposefully misread the book - but then, if that were my mindset I suppose I would've misread PI, beacuse it will likely go down as Martel's masterwork.

Anyhoo ... this is why, ultimately, I'm not a good reviewer. I'm always thinking ill of myself if I come to a poor judgement on a book. Like, subconsciously I've got 'issues' that I'm unfairly taking out. And sure, I've got issues, but I like to think I keep them pretty well-buried - where issues belong! LA-LA-LA! HAPPY, HAPPY!

So there have been some reviews. One by Michiko Kakutani, grand dame of the NY Times. I'm not really a big fan of hers; she's either giving books unmitigated raves or she's putting a boot up their (metaphysical) asses. Well, Yann gets a boot up his:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/13/books/13book.html?ref=books

... and I should say that I'm linking to these, but I'm almost not sure I'd want anyone to read them. I don't like seeing books get slammed, really, truly, I'm not a fan of it. And I sort of hate the sick sense of relief that flooded through, me, too - it's this really parasitic version of schadenfreude, basically. But it was weird because, with this book, even as much as I was disliking it, there was always a feeling of: "Davidson, this is all flying over your head - you're missing every delightful, earth-shaking nuance, you fucking clod, you."

Then Ron Charles, the heavy hitter at the Washington Post - which, with the Times, are likely the two biggest or most impactful book review outlets - steps on Yann's neck, too:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/13/AR2010041303903.html

But then Pasha Malla, who's got a head on his shoulders and knows his shit, gives it a nice review at the Globe and Mail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/review-beatrice-virgil-by-yann-martel/article1528941/

So there's a point where you think, well, someone's got to be right and someone's got to be wrong. But that's not it at all, with books.

But it does bring up one thing I've been thinking - when I was younger, I generally thought every book by a given writer was as good as the next, which was as good as the last. Like, I remember reading Stephen King and saying: I like Carrie as much as Salem's Lot as much as It. Or if not, at least I was thinking that no one book was really BAD; that, once you reached a certain level of craft, everything you write would be of generally equal merit. And then maybe I read Tommyknockers and sort of revised my opinion, but even then not really: it was that King had bent his craft in a direction that didn't appeal to me.

And I don't know where I stand on that, anymore. In a lot of ways, B&V is very similar to PI. The animal allegories. The simple but effective writing style. But the impact is so different. All the elements are the same, or close, but the overall feel is so much different. Diminished. And that's weird to me, still. It's like a basketball player hoisting a shot from the same spot on the court, the same loft, the same mechanics, and one's a swish and the other an airball. Which is reall reductive, but - you know? It's something you become aware of. A writer or director or musician or whoever can bring the same skills to bear, the same bag of tricks, and one succeeds where another fails - and sometimes fails spectacularly, where you get this sense of "How the hell did they pull it off in the first place?"

Anyway, there's no more to it my little screed than that. I feel awful feeling validated about this book, or at least having some other critics share my general opinion. I need to find other ways to pursue self-worth, I think!

All best, Craig.
Craig Davidson on 04.14.10 @ 01:39 PM EST [link]

Monday, April 12th

Top Bets - belated!

Hi All,

So, a few things about this batch. First, while I say these are 'true' stories, there are really only elements of truth to them. Some real, verifiable elements, but, in the interests of journalistic integrity, not totally 100% true. Secondly, I tend to pick on this bar, The Red Lantern, a lot. You likely have a Red Lantern in your city or town, too. But then I went there and filed a piece for our Drink Up! section and actually liked it. So, kudos to the Red Lantern. Even though I'll still make fun of it.

http://herenb.canadaeast.com/food/article/1010423

All best, Craig.

TOP BETS Apr 9-10-11

1. FREDERICTON. I was playing Ms. Pac Man drinking a Tab when my partner, Rick Tubbs, tells me there's a 224 in progress at the Red Lantern bar on the northside. So we haul ass down to the wharf, hop on a sleek cigarette boat and charge across the river with our piano ties flapping at our necks like streamers. We get to the Lantern - a grim scene. Apparently a '224' is radio semaphore for 'a criminally intoxicated white male in his mid-forties wearing a "Where's The Beef?" shirt three sizes too small doing the Truffle Shuffle while Huey Lewis's 'Hip to Be Square' plays on the jukebox.' Some things you see you can't UN-SEE, y'know? Concepts like God and simple human decency become really remote, almost unbelievable. "Doesn't matter how long you work these mean streets," says Rick, his facing going green. "You can never quite wrap your mind around such horrors." 80s Dance Party. $6. April 10, 10pm. Royal Canadian Legion, Minto.

2. SAINT JOHN. I was watching Doctor Phil when this commercial comes on for the Canadian Blood Services. It’s in me to give, apparently. I started feeling real morose and selfish for bogarting all that rich red goodness. My veins were practically swimmin’ with the stuff. So I moseyed down to the clinic. The nurse gives me a long look, then pricks my finger and draws a sample. She examines it and says, “Well, sir, I don’t think we can use it.” I was gobsmacked! “Have I got a disease?” No, she says. “You got too much of my blood type lying around?” No, she says, mine was the most in-demand type. “So what in hell ...?” “Well, sir,” she says, “look at it like siphoning gas out of a rusted-out, broken-down AMC Gremlin. The gas may be fine, but the vehicle it came from ...” She gives me an apologetic shrug. I say: “Damn it ... are you rejecting my blood?” She gives me a cookie. I was stunned and broke-hearted. Rejected at a blood clinic! Jeezly crow! How much lower can a man sink? Blood Donor Clinic. Free! Friday, April 9. 11am - 2:30pm. 405 University Avenue.

3. MONCTON. Here's a true story: as a kid, I bought a crossbow at a yard sale. I was eight, nine. This guy down the block had gone through a bitter divorce and was selling EVERYTHING. An impromptu fire sale: just piles of wares dragged onto the lawn, no prices on anything. The guy was drunk and maudlin and probably deeply depressed, though I was too young to understand that. So I see this crossbow and think it's pretty neat and this piss-eyed divorcee tells me he'll let it go for five bucks. I walked away with a honest-to-God crossbow and a quiver of razor-tipped arrows. I get home and show it to Mom, who LOSES it, has a conniption and marches me back. Well, the guy was so blitzed and so totally cleansed of shame or any real identifiable emotion save caustic self-pity that he just about laughs in Mom's face. Says she ought to monitor her son's purchases more closely. At first he refuses to take it back, but eventually relents and tells us to clear off his goddamn lawn, we're spoiling his day. Seriously, it was some shit out of a Raymond Carver story! Giant Yard and Bake Sale. April 10, starting at 7:30am.. 1455 Rte 133, Grand-Barachois.

4. SAINT JOHN. Here's a story from my childhood. Like a lot of men of his generation, my father collected Playboys. Every man did. No stigma to it. A lot of good, strong think-pieces. Mailer and Nabokov wrote for that august publication. And, sure, a little harmless T&A. When Dad got married the magazines went into a cardboard box. As a family, we moved a lot. In every house there was a pile of moving boxes in the basement; old bowling trophies and chafing dishes, stuff that wasn't quite worthless enough to toss away ... and the box of Playboys. Until my brother and I reached puberty that box held no allure. But when it did - BAM! Man, we TORE that box UP! We'd have friends over, all of us ogling Miss September 1973 Marilyn Cole and reciting jokes from the 'party jokes' section (Dressed as a pirate for Halloween, the small boy knocked on a door and was greeted by a matronly woman. "Aren't you a cute little pirate," she said. "But where are your buccaneers?" To which the little boy replied, "Under my buccan hat!" - hyuk!) After each viewing party we'd put the Playboys back in the box and cover them with packing paper. Mom eventually compels Dad to get rid of the collection. He can't bring himself to toss it, so he takes it to the Flea Market - there's a guy who sells vintage magazines. Dad hands over the box - which he'd never bothered to check, and which to his mind is full of pristine copies - and the guy opens it and sees this torn-up, mangled Playboys, all dog-eared, the centerfolds torn out. Guy says: "Let me guess - you got teenage sons?" Dad gets home just STEAMING. "That was your inheritance, you little perverts!" he shouted at my brother and I. "You just pissed it all away!" Indoor Flea Market. Saturday, August 10. 8am - 2pm. Champlain Heights school.
696-2463.

-30-

Craig Davidson on 04.12.10 @ 02:58 PM EST [link]