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Read All Over -- John Vigna

Read All Over celebrates the bookworm in all of us, showcasing readers in Vancouver and the books they love most.

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Read All Over celebrates the bookworm in all of us, showcasing readers in Vancouver and the books they love most.
John Vigna is the author of Bull Head (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2012), eight linked, tough-hearted stories about the peculiar failings of men who belong to neither history nor to the future. His fiction and non-fiction has appeared in numerous newspapers, magazines and anthologies including Cabin Fever: The Best New Canadian Non-FictionThe Dalhousie ReviewGrainEventsub-Terrain,The Antigonish Review, and Exact Fare 2: Stories of Public Transportation.
He lives in Vancouver with his wife, the writer Nancy Lee, and teaches fiction, creative non-fiction, and business writing at Douglas College and the University of the Fraser Valley.

What are you currently reading? Your thoughts on it?

I’m enjoying the graphic memoir, Stitches by David Small. When the author was 14 he had his throat slashed to remove his vocal chords. No one told him that he had cancer and was expected to die. His parents, particularly his mother, were incredibly cruel towards him and yet in the end, you understand why, which makes his story all the more devastating. A portrait of a man and his family that is filled with courage, redemption and hope.

The photo on the right is a picture of me reading Proust in our spartan flat in Vincennes, Paris while my dog Jaine rests nearby. Photo by Nancy Lee.

What books have changed your life?

How long can this list be? I think every great book changes your life in unexpected ways. At least, that’s what I expect as a reader. Most recently, Proust changed my life. It was a big-time commitment to read that many books over 3-4 months by the same author in his ornate, effusive, long-winded style. Proust was a challenge but illuminating as on nearly every page, there are surprising and vivid shifts when he moves from reflection to example. But I was living in Paris at the time I read him so maybe that’s what changed my life. Hard to say. I won’t know until I re-read him, one day.

The one book you always recommend is...

Nick Flynn’s Another Bullshit Night in Suck City; Anne Patchett’s Truth and Beauty; Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky; anything by Marilynne Robinson; Breece Pancake’s Collected Stories.

How do you like your books served up best - audio books, graphic novels, used paperbacks, library loaner, e-reader...? 

I haven’t tried using a Kindle, Kobo, iPad, or any other eReader. This could be because any online reading of my favourite websites that I currently do, I skim and scan instead of reading deeply, which is how I fear my electronic reading experience will be compared with print reading. I enjoy reading a book propped up in my hands, smelling the pages, turning them, marking passages I admire.

Where is your favourite place to crack open a book in Vancouver?

Wherever there is fine single malt, usually at home.

Favourite Vancouver/Lower Mainland writer?

For every known Vancouver writer of quality there are literally dozens of unknown writers. This city is a incubator for some of the most exciting fiction and literary non-fiction being written in Canada today. But to narrow it down to one writer, c’mon, I’d have to go with my wife, Nancy Lee, author of Dead Girls and her forthcoming novel, The Age. I admire the sharp luminescent quality in her prose, her eerie prophetic vision, her artistic precision and her uncanny ability to get deep inside the hearts and minds of her characters.

If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?

The Southern Gothic writers such as Flannery O’Connor and Faulkner. West Virginia writers Jayne Anne Phillips, Breece Pancake, and Keith Maillard. When I was younger I read all of Keith’s early books, specifically the Raysburg series and Two Strand River. I then had the great fortune of having him as my thesis advisor at UBC when I completed my MFA. His enthusiasm, support, humour, and guidance have been immeasurable in my development as a writer.

Your life story is published tomorrow. What's the title?

"Walking my dog, Jaine."

John Vigna launches his short story collection Bull Head tonight at 7:30 pm at The Bourbon, complete with a mechanical bull. Click for more details. You can read our review of Bull Head and interview with John Vigna over here.