Craig Davidson

Sunday, June 24th

Two UK Reviews; A Thought upon British Tabloids

Hi All,

Here are some UK reviews. The first is from a website called BookMunch, done by a fellow called Darran who I've just completed an interview with. That should be posted at some point and I'll direct you there with a link.

The review ... you know, I didn't read it. I'm pretty sure it's a good one, and no matter I appreciate Darran for providing one at all, but I've become very mercurial with my review-reading habits. I'd almost rather read a nasty one, like Kirkus, than a nice one. What odd currents must be shifting in the deep rivers of my psyche. And God, I'll say it again: every time I see that cover, I think of my brother. Uncanny, the resemblance. Look at his Myspace page and tell me I'm lying:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=78047491

It's him! Or his doppelganger!

review: http://bookmunch.co.uk//view.php?id=1841

Craig Davidson on 06.24.07 @ 05:08 PM EST [more..]

Friday, June 15th

THE FIGHTER up on Amazon ... and reviews

Hi All,

Quick note to say that, although the actual release date is July in the US, THE FIGHTER is now available via Amazon.com for all you American fellows and gals:

www.amazon.com/Fighter-Novel-Craig-Davidson/dp/1569474656/ref=sr_1_3/105-8868394-0604402?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1181937427&sr=1-3

It's also now available in the UK for all you blokes and birds across the pond:

www.amazon.co.uk/Fighter-Novel-Craig-Davidson/dp/0330450948/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/203-3406215-7616730?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1181937550&sr=8-1

There's also RUST AND BONE, the Golden Oldie, still available:

UK:
www.amazon.co.uk/Rust-Bone-Craig-Davidson/dp/0330445863/ref=sr_1_1/203-3406215-7616730?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1181937607&sr=1-1

US (dig the dogs, baby!):

www.amazon.com/Rust-Bone-Stories-Craig-Davidson/dp/0393329003/ref=sr_1_2/105-8868394-0604402?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1181938679&sr=1-2

CANADA (the one that started it all!):
www.amazon.ca/Fighter-Craig-Davidson/dp/0670064300/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/701-9678179-9637935?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1181937753&sr=8-1
www.amazon.ca/Rust-Bone-Craig-Davidson/dp/0143051253/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3/701-9678179-9637935?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1181937753&sr=8-3

Why do I assault you with all these links, you might ask? Well, as perusual, I'm a sonofabitch. But really, if you wanted, a bit of a favor:

You see, every week I get a few very nice emails about my stories, the novel, what-have-you. Also, on perhaps a bi-weekly basis, I get a nasty email telling me I'm a jerk or something. I always get back in the appropriate manner---"Thanks for your kind words ..." or "Yes, you nailed it, I AM an asshole ..."---but what woudl be nice is that those people make their views public.

Amazon, as most people know, has a book rating system. People write their reviews, leave comments, etc. You wouldn't believe how powerful those reviews can be---good or bad. Plus no writer has a right to request that his/her every review be nice or gladhanding or whatever. But I guess, if you've read any of my books and had some sort of opinion on them, opinions I receive every week, privately, in emails, it would be great if you'd take the time to express those same views on Amazon. I don't think it takes anything to write a review---no security password, no vetting process or anything---and many many times I've gotten emails about my books and say to myself, "Damn, I wish that was somewhere people might read it."

Now this is, of course, a personal matter. Some people just don't feel right posting their views on public forums, so I can understand that. But there's no saying you have to use your real name. Here are some fake names I've made up and you can feel free to use (in fact, I'd get a kick out of it if I saw a review posted under one of these aliases):

1: Phinneas Titwillow
2: Jack Jurgens, Cobbler to the Stars
3: The Masked Photon
4: Phil Lamborghini
5: Remo Palladini

...the names can be fake-a-roo, so long as the review is honest. At least, that's what I'd say; if you want to post your real name and a dishonest review ("...in my humble opinion, every copy of WAR AND PEACE should be burned to ashes to make way for THE FIGHTER on all classical literature bookshelves ...") then that's fine by me, too. However you slice it.

Anyway, people think it doesn't make a difference, maybe, but I'm here to tell you it does. I don't see why all these opinions of my books have to float around, unclarified, in the ether, when they could perfectly well be physically manifested on Amazon.

In the words of Cosmo Kramer: Do me a solid, will ya?

It's not easy trying to be a cult writer. I hate banging my own drum, but, y'know ...

Bang. Bang.

Bang.

All best, Jethro Gutbucket.
Craig Davidson on 06.15.07 @ 04:22 PM EST [link]

Sunday, June 10th

This, That, the Other Thing...

Hi All,

A little all-purpose blog entry, a few bits and pieces about what's happening lately.

First, a little blurb about my upcoming boxing match with Jonathan Ames, as it appeared in USA Today a few weeks ago:

Some writers take a punch from critics, and some writers just take a punch. Soho Press is throwing Craig Davidson into the ring---literally---to promote his debut July novel, The Fighter. . . . The guy has guts; after all, in Canada, he got clobbered by a poet. This time his opponent is NY writer Jonathan Ames (Wake Up, Sir!), who has boxed as an amateur. The free fight is July 26 in New York at Hudson River Park’s Pier 84.”---USA Today, May 31, 2007

Craig Davidson on 06.10.07 @ 04:21 PM EST [more..]

Friday, June 8th

More Reviews

Hi All,

Please find following the rest of the bloody carcass of that Kirkus review. What a stinker. I noticed the authorship is withheld; with a shoot-a-guy-in-the-spine review like that, it's best to wipe your fingerprints off it, I guess.

The second is from Booklist. It ends with "despite its many flaws ..." but what I'm sure the reviewer meant was, "despite its complete abscence of flaws ... this book is perfect." At least, I would like to hope that is what the paperback blurb will eventually read.

In any case, I had a buddy staying at my place a few days before heading to Edmonton to vy for a literary award---good luck, Dave---and he more or less said what I've come to hold as true: at least it's out there; at least it's getting reviewed; at least there's some emotion being thrust at it, wether good or bad. My editor at Soho was a little leery about sending me the Kirkus one, but the truth is ... I don't know, odd to say that at 31 I'm already hardened, a bit of a vet, but I am. I've written four (nearly five) books, published 3 of them; all have gotten hammered from some quarter or another. Most of it slides right off. Water off a duck's ass. And the ones that get me are often ones I stumble across out of the clear blue sky, some guy popping off about how much he hated this or that on his blog. Those gut me; Kirkus, nope. Getting a little more thick-skinned, must be. Although I do, at ground zero, emotional core, want to be liked; but if that's the case, I really should consider that more as I'm writing. Not always writing the easiest books to like, am I?

Check 'em out.

Craig Davidson on 06.08.07 @ 01:13 PM EST [more..]

Tuesday, June 5th

Back!

Hi All,

Well, back from my sundry trips abroad. Met lots of cool people, ate a shitload of good food---and some really cruddy nachos in Toronto, but of that no matter---drank some wine, ate oysters, l'agostine, Irish stew at 1 o'clock in the morning at a NY bar while being served by a bartender with an Irish brogue so pronounced I could barely understand him, took two over-the-counter sleeping pills my first night in Paris trying to overcome jetlag and all I did was make my fingers and toes go numb for a few hours, sat out on sidewalk cafes writing---which I've always thought was completely pretentious, and should've been even more so in Paris, where really that whole mindset came from, but it's like two negatives equalling a positive because I was able to sit out there, scribbling away, sipping an espresso (or a Belgian beer, which they served with a bowl of olives: why don't North American bars do this?) and not feeling at all like a ponce, which I totally would've felt were you to have switched my location to a Tim Horton's. Weird. Met a lot of cool people, stayed up waaaaaaaay past my bedtime, drank pear brandy in a huge mansion overlooking the sea. On two separate occassions thought about hassling Martin Amis, who was at this festival and who I twice saw sitting, alone, in a hotel bar but anyway did not, met Ken Bruen, a great crime writer who told the audience at our panel he'd had an incensed reader come up to him at a reading in Dublin and break his jaw with a baseball bat---whoa!---came to hate Air Canada, bar none the worst airline in the world, darkened the door of several friends' houses, all of whom treated me well, slept on a grand total of seven different beds during my time away, one of them inflatable, always alone, and also caught kips where I could sprawled out on train and airplane seats.

All in all a damn good time. Exhausting as all hell, but good.

Big shout outs (that's my new thing: shout outs) to Francis Geffard for having me over, Anne-Emmanuelle, publicist extraordinaire, Anne Wicke, my translator---who I was supposed to meet up with in NY but a plane fiasco derailed my arrival time by 7 hours making it impossible (sorry, Anne!)---Jocelyne and Helene, who translated for me in my panels, Mathieu who opened his house to me and Charles D'Ambrosio for a wonderful dinner, to Charles and David Treuer who were great fun to travel around with and muck around on panels with. In Toronto: thanks to Neil and Kirsten for having me, Matt and Ryan for coming out. In NY: Katie, Sarah, Ailen, Laura, and everyone else I met at the BEA, including Ellen Datlow, who I've known of many years but never met until then. Oh, and I met up with Jonathan Ames, my boxing opponent, who's a cool guy and I look forward to knocking heads with him. got to hit the training extra hard now that I'm back.

I don't have a lot else, specifically, to say. I could blabber on, but why?

I'll post the PW review for THE FIGHTER---pretty dismal---and the beginning of the Kirkus reviews one, which, even unfinished, is completely chilling. It's a little like finding a half-unearthed corpse in the ground and having to imagine what the rest of it looks like. Foul!

Craig Davidson on 06.05.07 @ 02:58 PM EST [more..]