Holy crap! Margaret Atwood just called to ask if she could stop by. She heard about our Halloween pumpkin that looks like author Gabriel Garcia Marquez and she hoped she could see it. What could I do? I said yes, and now she’ll be here in 10 minutes. How the hell did Margaret Atwood get my number?
And the pumpkin that looks like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, it was amazing, but now it’s all started to cave in and go glumpy, especially after the trick-or-treaters handled it and all those English majors marveling at the uncanny likeness to the Nobel Prize-winning author of Love in the Time of Cholera. But now it looks like present-day Danny DeVito, and Margaret Atwood is going to be so disappointed. I don’t want to disappoint Margaret freaking Atwood!
I have a potato that vaguely resembles Alice Munro. Would that compensate?
What am I thinking? Throw two Nobel winners in her face? And one a Canadian? Like Margaret Atwood needs a reminder that she has two Booker Prizes, two Governor General’s Awards and a Giller Prize but zero Nobel prizes? Could I possibly be that callous?
Stick with the pumpkin.
What do you serve Margaret Atwood? Tea, right? Do I offer something harder, with a wink? Does one wink at Margaret Atwood? What’s the protocol for this?
Does this place smell like cat pee? I can’t even tell anymore, but it does, I know it. The beloved author of Alias Grace is going to see me in all this cat-pee squalor. I could make a joke: “Sorry the place is a little… LITTERary! Ha-ha. HAHAHAHAHA!”
I’ve got to take control of the situation. Invite her in. (Bow? Yes? No?) Show her the pumpkin, apologize for the pumpkin, throw in words like “atrophy” and “moral decline.” “Talkin’ ‘bout degeneration!” No, no! You don’t make music-related puns with Margaret Atwood. For God’s sake!
The pumpkin at least is safe. I can talk about the pumpkin. I’ll go on about the pumpkin for as long as I can. “Carving the pumpkin took a hundred hours of solitude. Ha-ha. HAHAHAHAHA!” Anything to keep the conversation with Margaret Atwood away from the subject of Margaret freaking Atwood.
I haven’t read any Margaret Atwood.
Not a single short story. Not an interview. Not a gosh darn prize-winning bestseller. And now Margaret Atwood is stopping by my house in like – crap! – five minutes!
I’ve got to get her from the front door past the bookshelf and into the kitchen. “Ah, I see you have The Handmaid’s Tale.” “Who doesn’t have The Handmaid’s Tale,” I can reply. “Ha-ha. HAHAHAHAHAHA! Tea?” Wink.
No, I haven’t read The Handmaid’s Tale. It’s been on my shelf forever. Haven’t watched the series either. Wait! I saw the movie! Years ago, with Robert Duvall, yeah, and that actress who died in the ski accident. Yes! I saw the film of The Handmaid’s Tale!
I hated it!
Why the hell haven’t I read any Margaret Atwood? Would it have been so hard? Maybe? I don’t know. I feel like it would be hard. Dystopian feminist literature’s not my thing. That doesn’t mean I’m anti-feminist. Shut up!
Why should I feel obliged to read Margaret Atwood? Just because I’m Canadian? There are lots of Canadian writers I haven’t read, other books I wanted to read more. It’s not personal. It’s not like I’m not reading Margaret Atwood out of spite. Shut up!
Margaret Atwood is coming to my house and I’m going to sound like an idiot.
What if she asks me who my favourite Canadian author is? Margaret Atwood wouldn’t do that, would she? She’s not that crass, surely, not that needy. But still, that Nobel business has gotta sting.
I have these nice peanut butter cookies to serve with the tea or whatever. Does Margaret Atwood have a peanut allergy? I don’t know, I don’t know! Her Wikipedia entry doesn’t say. Google “Margaret Atwood peanut”: Princess Prunella and the Purple Peanut? She writes kids books, too? Oh great, something else I haven’t read!
Myriam Toews! That’s my favourite Canadian writer, Margaret Atwood! Are you happy now? I believe A Complicated Kindness contains one of the most realized young female narrators in contemporary literature and thought Women Talking was brilliant. So don’t call me anti-feminist, you peripatetic pumpkin peeper!
Crap! There’s the door. Crap, crap, crap! I have to get rid of Margaret Atwood as quickly as possible. I have to tell Margaret Atwood the truth: the pumpkin – it was actually supposed to be Geraldo Rivera.
Drinking Tips for Teens 
You’re on fire today, Ross. (And I don’t mean liar, liar, pants on fire kind of fire.)
A very specifically Canadian kind of guilt.
I could see a James Joyce pumpkin at our house, with that wincing smug kind of face. And then taking some delight in dropping it in the compost tote and the dull sound it makes inside, kind of like a body. “The Dead.” I did share with you once that film got mis-categorized in the video rental section more than once I’m sure, with “horror.” Imagine the disappointment!
“Adam Sandler’s ‘The Dead.'” I can see it.
LITTERary–ha, so good. I’ve only read Alias Grace and maybe one other–not Handmaid’s. Thank you for helping me purge my guilt. Good thing I’m not Canadian.
It’s very real. Wait until they hear I’m only so-so on The Tragically Hip.
And I haven’t seen anything about hockey on this blog. It might be time to ask CSIS to check that you aren’t an American refugee trying to pass.
My Achilles heel, eh?
A very fun panic attack & guilt trip. “Talkin’ ‘bout degeneration” gets a gold⭐
The tragically hip young pornographers caused the arcade fire.
There, we’re all caught up on our Canadian Content for the month.
This one’s for the home fans.
Is Robertson Davies required reading? Some years ago I ran across an old copy of Leaven of Malice, never got around yet to reading anything else by him, but enjoyed that quite a lot. And pretty sure he must be dead, and unlikely to drop in for a visit.
I read one of his trilogies in my 20s, but I sense he’s not much read anymore. A lot of the old guys kind of fell out of favour: W.O. Mitchell, Farley Mowatt, Morley Callaghan, some other guy whose name I forget. I think Mordecai Richler has survived the white male purge. Leacock is still acceptable. But maybe that’s just through my lens.
Too bad, based on the one book I’ve read, Davies seemed old-fashioned, but in a very appealing, Dickensian way, when I’m on break, I’ll look for another one from that trilogy. Are writers still allowed to do a sex change with their nom de plume, like George Eliot/George Sand, or is that not kosher any more. I was thinking, Rossinante, from Don Quixote, but I guess that was the horse, not the girl, right? A horse would be a stretch.
I read one of his trilogies in my 20s and remember enjoying it.
There’s Lionel Shriver, but that’s her nom de choix, not nom de plume.
My nom de choix is Your Excellency, but I haven’t gotten a lot of traction with that.
mine looks like steve kornacki, msnbc stats man, a few days into the election tallying, slowing losing sleep hours, but still hanging in there, full of vim and vigor and numbers
I’m late in responding. What’s it look like now?
The squirrels have mauled it and it black and caving in, like if we dug up George Washington
Ha! Alert the press.
This is great But I could never go through it This is the reason I don’t carve pumpkins. If I carved one and Margaret Atwood called me. I wouldn’t know what to do. BTW I read The Handmaids Tale…
Didn’t Like it much. So You Are Not Alone
Laugh along with Margaret
Someone sent me a short story to read after I posted this. It was amusing but not subtle. I’ll stick with Alice.
i Told you
She probably confused you with another Ross Murray. 😁
The English middle distance runner? Story of my life!