By GEORDIE CARRAGHER
Wednesday, Jan. 18, 2012
This past Wednesday, I attended a reading in the faculty lounge of UPEI’s Main building.
The highlight of the reading was the P.E.I. launch of “Drive-By Saviours,” a novel by Canadian author Chris Benjamin that chronicles the lives and intersections of two men from very different worlds.
I walked into the lounge and immediately realized I was easily the youngest person in attendance.
There were two rows of high-back chairs, all pastel green. The look of the chairs suggested a near-antique feel, as did the room itself.
I settled into the first chair I could find where I could have a good vantage point of the readers and prepared for the evening.
My nervousness may have been apparent, as I found myself going back and forth from my chair to the snack table a few times before the reading started.
Finally, at about 7:15 p.m., Island poet Yvette Doucette welcomed everybody to the reading, the first of 2012.
Doucette reminded everybody of a reading happening the following Tuesday prior to introducing Chris Benjamin as the first reader.
Drive-By Saviours was named to the Canada Reads list shortly after its release in 2010, and it was recently long-listed for the 2011 ReLit Awards, which honour the best new work of independent publishers.
Prior to reading, Benjamin thanked fellow author Jeff Bursey for extending the invitation to return to do a P.E.I. launch for Drive-By Saviours.
Benjamin had launched his new book, Eco-Innovators: Sustainability in Atlantic Canada, back in December when Bursey noted that Drive-By Saviours hadn’t officially been launched on P.E.I. yet.
Benjamin introduced the two central characters from the story, which is primarily set in Toronto.
First, there’s Bumi, an Indonesian refugee who was looking to escape from the dictatorship of Suharto.
Then, there’s Mark, a Nova Scotia-born social worker who moved to Toronto with dreams of saving the world.
“It goes about as well as any of that ever does in Toronto,” Benjamin said, drawing laughter from the crowd.
Benjamin launched into a pair of book excerpts, with one coming from both Bumi’s and Mark’s perspectives.
The first excerpt featured Mark’s first encounter with Bumi, an unexpected meeting on a Toronto subway where Bumi caught Mark taking a sketch of him, which was something Mark was fond of doing.
Bumi was unhappy about the sketch, insisting on seeing it before eventually destroying it.
Mark, using his experience as a social worker to his advantage, diffused the situation by asking questions that helped him better relate to how Bumi was feeling.
After the reading, Benjamin said he drew from personal experiences working with other people to help come up with the excerpt, which becomes a common theme throughout the story.
Then, Benjamin shifted directly to his second excerpt, which focused on Bumi’s escape from Indonesia and Suharto.
Bumi’s uncertainty over whether or not he could trust the Chinese man who helped him flee to safety was the central theme of the excerpt, as Suharto’s soldiers had the ship under siege as the two men tried to escape.
Following contributions from Doucette and fellow Island writer David Helwig, P.E.I. Poet Laureate Hugh MacDonald stepped up and read some of the poetry from his vast collection.
MacDonald’s stories revealed a burning desire to return to the golf course even though it’s only January.
We bonded over our mutual love of golf after the readings, where he also elaborated on how he got started as a writer.
His mother and father were both readers and writers, so MacDonald felt the qualities came naturally to him.
He also took some time to plug his upcoming children’s book, ‘I Is For Island: An Island Alphabet,’ which will be coming out in June.
Finally, it was Jeff Bursey’s turn to read from his novel Verbatim, which explores his observations from his time working with the Newfoundland and Labrador HANSARD, which documents all legislative discussions in the province.
Bursey immediately got the audience involved in a scenario from Verbatim, with those approving of a proposal shouting “Here, here!” while those opposed would either boo or shout “Resign!”
Bursey had the earlier readers play different members of the Assembly as he tried to pass a resolution before the audience.
After the reading, Bursey said he likes to involve the audience with his shows so as to break up the evening and not make people feel like they’re just listening all night.
The show ended, and everybody went their separate ways.
I’ll admit to having been skeptical about how the evening was going to go, having never attended a public reading.
However, I enjoyed myself, and it’s always nice to hear about different perspectives from different people.
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