Congratulations to former LBC Nominee, Manbug, as publisher Arsenal Pulp Press sends out the following news:
"Arsenal Pulp Press is pleased to announce that three of its recent titles have been named finalists for the 8th annual ForeWord Book of the Year Award, presented annually by ForeWord magazine in the US: ManBug by George K. Ilsley is a finalist in Gay/Lesbian Fiction."
Many people have wondered about the research involved in writing a book like ManBug.
Research only goes so far in creating a character like Sebastian. Ultimately, I wanted the freedom to create a unique character, without the pressure of trying to accurately represent a particular condition or syndrome. The label Asperger's is used to suggest, but not confine. In addition, Sebastian experiences synesthesia -- in his case, he sees colours when he hears certain words or sounds.
I also did a lot of research into entomology (it amuses me enormously that people ask if I am an entomologist). I do find insects to be amazing little creatures. They are incredible, fantastic and often overlooked. However, research here is quickly overwhelming, because so much is unknown and because diversity in the insect world knows no limits. I like to think I showed great restraint in sharing amazing bug facts (did you know the weight of ants on the planet is greater than the weight of the human population). However, readers who are creeped out by the thought of lard worms are probably wishing for a little more restraint.
In terms of the entomology content in ManBug, I mainly focused on insects that live on or just under the skin. The metaphor here is the parallel between the skin of the planet and the skin of a person. Unfortunately the impulse to poison insects often means we are poisoning ourselves. I don't talk about bed bugs in the novel, but while finishing the book bed bugs have been very much in the news. Bed bugs are enjoying a resurgence in urban populations, because they are resilient and very hard to kill. In order to kill bed bugs, rooms are basically made uninhabitable for the human population -- a sad metaphor for what we are doing to more and more of the planet.
In the future, I might write something about ants or bees, because I find the hive mind to be extremely fascinating. The best thing about insects is that they provide an endless source of metaphors.
Brian Lam is the publisher of Arsenal Pulp Press, based in Vancouver, Canada.
Q (Matt Cheney): What did you think when you first read ManBug?
A (Brian Lam): I immediately liked it -- I've always liked George's work, though, beginning with his contributions to some of our anthologies such as Contra/Diction: New Queer Men's Fiction. There is a sense of inquiry about his work that is gentle yet persistent.... George always wishes to challenge himself as a writer, and I really respect that.
Q: What was the editing process for the book?
A: It was a very amiable process -- George was willing and able to work on the book editorially, to hone the characters and make the narrative as compelling as possible. From an editor's point of view, it was excellent because the original material was so good.
Q: Did marketing considerations come into play at all? Was there a particular sort of audience you thought would be receptive to the book, or one that you wanted to reach for?
A: I think positioning a novel as "gay" has both advantages and shortcomings; obviously it is a core audience and we need to identify the novel as such to that audience, but at the same time we don't want to ghettoize it, because the book's themes are universal. There is a double-standard about so-called "gay" literature that believes such works only resonate for gay readers, but that is absolutely not the case. The best "gay" novels are ones which touch on issues that have meaning for everyone. The Hours is a good example of that, which made more people talk about it, since its themes are universal, but could be construed as lesbian, and was written by a gay man.
Q: Is gay fiction a real category or a desirable category or a passe category or...
A: There will always be a need for "gay fiction" as a category because gay men and lesbians often first look to literature in order to better understand themselves and to give meaning to their lives. It isn't merely a marketing ploy. But again, there is a risk of ghettoizing, which doesn't happen with other books about minority communities. Would anyone suggest that Alice Walker only appeals to black readers? Of course not.
Q: Are there challenges to publishing in both Canada and the U.S.?
A: The main challenge as a Canadian publisher is the need to find an audience outside of Canada, since the country is so small--its population is less than California's. We wouldn't be able to publish the kind of literary books we do without having access to the US market.
Q: Are there similarities and/or differences in audiences between the two countries?
A: I don't think there are any measurable differences in audiences, but as Canadians we do look for books that speak to ourselves, being inundated as we are by American cultural products.
Q (Matt Cheney): With so many other possible things to do in the world, why write?
A (George Ilsley): This is the hardest question on the list, because there is no clear answer.
It probably has something to do with the influence of books in the life of a
sensitive bookish boy growing up in a rural area of Nova Scotia. Books and
language brought the whole world to me as a reader, and now language and
writing helps me somehow to better understand the world. Books are still a
major source of inspiration in my life, and books themselves make me want to
write. Reading and writing are very intimately intertwined. Whatever the
reason, I did start writing as a child, and my first "book" was about
tropical fish.
Q: When a friend of mine read the back cover of ManBug, where Sebastian is
described as "an entomologist with Asperger's Syndrome" and Tom as "a
dyslexic bisexual", she said, "Why does every character in contemporary
fiction have to have quirky descriptions!?" I was a little scared when I
started reading the book, myself, because I worried that it would feel like
some kind of extended writing-workshop exercise -- "Give your first
character 3 attributes and your second character 3 different attributes,
and then write a story!" -- but I thought the labeling worked wonderfully,
because the characters seem (to me, at least) aware of living in a
label-addled world, and part of the fascination of the book for me was
watching Sebastian and Tom play with, struggle against, embrace, and cast
off labels. I think there's a question in here somewhere. Something like,
maybe: What do you think of labels?
A: The fit and application of labels is a major theme in ManBug. There is a human impulse to use clear labels (right and wrong) but we live in a world where meaning is incremental, relative, and contextual. For example, the character Sebastian wonders as an adult if the diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome might have applied to him, but this diagnosis was never made. Autism is considered as presenting on a "spectrum," and a particular diagnosis for an individual is often not clear. Similarly, human sexuality is often labeled gay or straight, but the Kinsey scale gathers everyone together on a continuum of expression, where a label is best used to describe a type of behaviour, but not a person. The binary expectations of a label-crazy world do not match the reality of experience. Everyone uses labels, yet the meaning of labels often does not translate into a substance the literal-minded can comfortably grasp. Sebastian at first looks to labels to help bring order and structure to his world, but eventually he learns that he must instead, in the world of men, become comfortable with paradox.
Q: How did you develop the narrative voice of ManBug?
The voice of ManBug developed over several years. I have early drafts which I felt were unsuccessful. However, the voice of Sebastian did emerge and then the book became his book. At one point I had intended there be two voices, that Tom and Sebastian would each present his version of events. However, I never felt comfortable with the "Tom" voice, and so now even the parts about Tom are intended to be Sebastian repeating what he has learned from Tom.
Q: Are there any books you've enjoyed reading recently? Any perennial favorites?
A recent favorite is Murakami's Kafka on the Shore. Works I enjoy even more with each re-reading are Mark Merlis's novels (American Studies and An Arrow's Flight) and Gertrude Stein's The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.
Q: Will you be dressing up for Halloween?
The short honest answer is "no." However I do dress up every day as half-man, half-geek. My personal fashion statement is "clashing is good."
It's ManBug Week here at the LBC, which means we'll have all species of posts popping up through the next few days. Today we'll try to get some discussion going, and Tuesday I'll post a Q&A with Arsenal Pulp publisher Brian Lam and another with the man who made ManBug, George Ilsley himself. George will, we hope, put up some of his own posts later in the week, as will various intrepid LBC members, and we'll wind things up with our now-traditional podcast interview.
I thought I'd start things off with some questions designed to get some discussion going in the comments. For those of you who read the book and enjoyed it, what kept you reading? What did you make of the characters and their situations? I've said I found the narrative voice fascinating; was this true for you?
If you'd rather talk about something else, here's a topic that is central to the book and that both George and Brian address, in different ways, in their Q&As: What is the value of labels? In ManBug, the characters try on various labels (Tom at one point calls himself a dyslexic bisexual Buddhist; Sebastian is identified as a gay entomologist with Asperger's), sometimes finding them useful, sometimes finding them constricting. Are we in a post-label world? What about the label of "gay fiction"? Are you, regardless of your own sexual identification, attracted or repelled by books that are marketed as such? Is it just a marketing category, or is it something more (or less)?
When I first read Manbug, I knew I'd finally found the book to kill my inner conservative.
You see, I'd been feeling guilty. I feel guilty a lot, for all sorts of things (I'm sure you've done something that I feel guilty about), but this time it was because I hadn't been enjoying much innovative fiction recently. More specifically, I hadn't much cared for the last two LBC Read This! picks. Had I loved the weird and wonderful Garner so deeply that it had destroyed my ability to appreciate all other fragmentary, nonlinear, not-exactly-plot-focused fiction? Was I becoming less pretentious and artsy? Did I secretly just want that nemesis of all of us who take literature oh-so-seriously, a good read? Had my inner conservative, the one from the side of my family related to Big Uncle Dick, arisen and begun his global domination of my aesthetic sense?
Manbug saved me. I read it in one sitting, one giant gulp of pure bliss. Here is a book composed of fragments and fancies, a book that utterly disdains anything resembling a traditional plot, a book full of voice and vigor, a funny book, a sexy book, a book so well constructed, so carefully controlled that it would be easy to miss how deadly serious are its ideas and themes. It is a book I have now read three times, and each time my perception of the characters and their situations has changed, each time I have been amazed at some of the high-wire tricks of the ostensibly simple narration, and each time I have been delighted. My grumbles with many of the less traditional novels I had been reading mostly had to do with emotion and facility -- everything I was reading felt too slick, too self-satisfied, too removed from the world of human feeling. I did not want to believe that innovative fiction was condemned to be those things no matter what. Manbug was exactly the book I needed to make my case.
There will be plenty of time to discuss Manbug during the upcoming LBC Manbug Week, but for now let me give you a taste of the wonders therein and introduce you to our protagonists, Sebastian (an entomologist with Asperger's Syndrome) and Tom (a bisexual dyslexic Buddhist)...
"What did you say under the tree?" Tom asked. "About the future?"
"The future? The future is insects."
"Oh."
"What did you think?"
"I thought you said sex."
"Oh. I have pictures like that. I didn't want to just whip them out. Should I?"
"Sure," said Tom.
Sebastian pulled out another folder. "Look -- these azure snout weevils are really going at it. Look at their feet, aren't they cute? So Dr. Seuss. And the eyestalks on her, see how they're cocked forward, you know she's thinking oh yeah baby."
Tom had to laugh. "Wanna see more? Insects making out like mad?"
Tom watched Sebastian's face as he talked, listening not to the impenetrable flow of words as dense as a dictionary, but to the sound of excitement. These elaborate creatures lived in a complex chemical environment, Sebastian explained, where love and war are dictated by smell.
In the biochemical universe, formula is the message. And programming is attributed to an elusive, pernicious instinct. And as Sebastian says, everything he needed to know, he learned from insects.
He handed Tom a photo. "Look at this. One male mounting another male who is mating with a female. The one on top is called a superfluous male."
"A super-what?"
"A superfluous male. As far as I'm concerned," Sebastian stated, "there's no such thing."
Tom smiled. "Why not just say, threesome?"
"Yes," Sebastian said. "A tiny, marvelous threesome."
I've been there, Tom thought.
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