For my wife Lorna and me, 2009 started and ended with two icons of our teenage years: Vietnam and Paul McCartney. In between, our year was punctuated with friendships, for which we are very grateful. Now that the kids have left the house, we have more time for friends, which makes this a very positive stage of life.

February took us to Vietnam aboard the Silver Whisper of the Silversea cruise line. In our teens, Vietnam was a war, not a country. It preoccupied the nightly news then raged in the cinemas as Apocalypse Now, Platoon, The Deer Hunter, and numerous others. Four decades later, in real life, the openness of Vietnam’s vibrant, peace-loving people lifted our hearts. They’ve built a safe, well-organized country from the ashes of the carpet bombing. The country feels rustic, not poor, and may keep motorcycle manufacturers in business forever.

December brought us Paul McCartney. I was twelve when he appeared with the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show; Lorna and I have been fans ever since. We flew to Paris for the ambience, the window shopping, the food. Sir Paul was there, too, within walking distance of our hotel. We snagged the best seats in the house for his fabulous concert. He sang for 2½ hours without stopping for even a glass of water; played our favourites with renewed vibrancy and sophistication; interacted wittily with the crowd; projected a youthful manner and appearance. The visuals were dazzling. His presence touched our souls.

All the best for 2010.

Ross

It’s tricky sustaining interest in a book when it’s sold out. That was the happy situation TAINTED found itself in for most of July. But now it’s back in a second printing — a high-five to the good people at ECW Press. A couple of inconsistencies in small details have been corrected (thanks to a hawkeyed doctor-reader friend). And in the opening scene, Zol defines prions and BSE more clearly for the reader. There was no time for me to draw up a glossary, but I’m going to do that for Zol and Hamish’s second outing.

Frank Moher, a Canadian playwright, wrote a really nice review of TAINTED in yesterdays National Post. I’ve placed it here on the website under the BOOKS tab. (click on More reviews).

Last weekend, Lorna and I had a wonderful time in Owen Sound, Ontario. What a gem of a place: immaculate downtown business district, flowers planted everywhere, user-friendly waterside paths, bucolic picnic spots overlooking waterfalls, and beautifully restored nineteenth-century Ontario mansions (somehow, the funeral parlours do the best job of the restorations; too bad you have to die to be an honoured guest). Mayor Ruth Lovell Stanners and her husband Bruce Stanners (a doctor friend and colleague) hosted us in their home and organized a terrific book-lovers evening in support of TAINTED. After a delicious buffet supper that spilled into their back garden, we all trooped over to the Downtown Bookstore on the main street of Owen Sound. Hazel and Andre Lyder, the proprietors, were engaging hosts at their shop — one of the nicest I’ve been to.  After treating us to sangria, Hazel gave me a most simpatico introduction; then I spoke about the transformation of the doctor into the writer. I told anecdotes about famous figures in history who died of tainted food, and described the genesis of TAINTED and my first book, THE UNFORGIVING TIDES. I finished with three short readings.

I believe in keeping readings short. Mostly, the audience wants to know personal details about the writer and how the book came about. I don’t know about you, but my mind quickly wanders when I’m sitting being read to.  Linwood Barclay, author of  the highly successful thriller No Time For Goodbye, has been an inspiration to me on this score. He gives a lively, engaging monologue and tops it off with a very short reading.

Anyway, we had a terrific time at the Downtown Bookstore in Owen Sound and I’m raring to take the show on the road — hoping to be invited elsewhere.

It’s time I got back to writing about Zol and Hamish’s next adventure. We’re getting close to the climax where everything falls apart.

Cheers, Ross

When you write a novel, especially your first, you have no idea how it’s going to be received — by your friends, your family, a publisher (if you’re lucky), the reading public, the critics.

I’m thrilled, and humbled, to say that TAINTED is being very well received in lots of places. Margaret Cannon in today’s Globe and Mail called it:

“[an] excellent debut novel… What works are the two likeable and convincing doctors and the scary plot. Pennie’s message – that no matter how safe our world seems, it’s still very fragile – is timely and true.”

And this just in! The original print run has almost sold out and my publisher, those talented folks at ECW Press, have ordered a second printing, bless them.

Thank you all for your enthusiastic support and for going out and purchasing copies with your heard-earned, after-tax income. Of course, sales figures are not the only measure of the value of a novel, but a second printing is just the boost I need to keep me working on the next Zol and Hamish outing. If I don’t get bogged down — or laid up — by an epidemic of real-live H1N1 swine flu, Zol and Hamish will be back on the bookshelves next year.

It’s seven thirty on Saturday morning, and I’ve just returned home from the second-ever, all-night Ancaster-Dundas “Relay for Life” sponsored by the Canadian Cancer Society. My wife Lorna has been the event’s co-chair these past two years, working with a committee of a dozen talented and tireless women – and one man – to raise funds for cancer care and research. In towns and cities all across the world, people pitch their tents and walk laps around a track in an outdoor lovefest of live music, donated food, games, karaoke, exercise, catharsis, and goodwill. But most of all, it’s a night to remember and celebrate those among us touched by the Big C.

There are tears at the Survivor Ceremony, where cancer patients relive the painful indignities of their treatments and give thanks for their cancer-free days, months, or years. There are more tears at the Luminary Ceremony where friends and relatives light candles and tell stories that honour their fallen. My favourite time comes at nightfall, when everyone follows the piper’s Amazing Grace in a commemorative lap around the track, now lined with the glow of flickering lanterns. Each flame represents a life ensnared – some lives burned out long ago and are remembered with bittersweet joy, some departed only last week and the pain of their leaving is all too fresh, other lives are still burning bright and cancer free.

At seven in the morning, after an early breakfast cooked and served by the smiling faces of a service club, the total of the funds raised is announced with a flourish of pride and excitement. Our Relay raised $125,000 this year, a stunning accomplishment in difficult economic times.

But as I was driving home, I couldn’t help thinking about the money, which is the object of the exercise – the prize at the end of eight months of meticulous planning, frenzied emailing, energetic canvassing, and monumental collaborating by dozens of people. And then I thought of the NHL hockey player who earns $125,000 in just one hockey game, and the movie star who earns the same in just one day on the set.

I asked myself why we place outlandish monetary value on professional entertainment – sports and movies – and not on medical care and research. Why did it take so many volunteers eight months to raise the same number of dollars that the NHL pays a single high-profile player in just one game? If there is an answer, it’s beyond me at the moment.

Still, I’m proud of Lorna, her co-chair Vicky, and the countless others who made this year’s Ancaster-Dundas Relay for Life a resounding success. Of course, it’s not all about the money. It’s about honouring our community and bringing out the best in ourselves, and we did that in spades.

Tolstoi wrote, in War and Peace: “The strongest of all warriors are these two – Time and Patience.” I’ve learned that his words hold true for writers as well as soldiers.

More than anything, the completion of a novel to the standard required for publication requires patience. There’s the slogging through the first draft, then the revising/reshaping/polishing/repolishing that prevent the work from inciting ridicule when shared with others, then the complete rewrite for the publisher who finally deems to read bits of it, the major changes/additions/deletions imposed by an editor, and finally, the multitude of minutiae that must be altered to please the owl-eyed proofreaders. Yes, patience and persistence are at the heart of the writer’s mantra.

But when your book finally hits the bookstores, online sites, and libraries, it’s timing that determines whether it succeeds or fails. A beautifully written novel, engaging in every way but published at the wrong time, may fail to catch the eyes of readers. It will sell few copies and end its life remaindered on flea-market tables. Luckily, (and good timing comes more often from dumb luck than expert planning), Tainted has landed in bookstores with perfect timing. What better time for a mystery novel about an epidemic than Phase Five of a super-epidemic sanctioned by the World Health Organization?

The doctor in me is far from pleased about the current crisis induced by Mexican Swine-Flu, 2009 H1N1 Influenza (it needs a shorter handle). I’m thankful that the illness induced by the virus is mostly mild, gets better on its own, and is not spreading like wildfire. What unsettles me more than the virus itself, is the world’s reaction to it.

The media, of course, are titillated and cannot help themselves spending half their newscasts on tales of pandemic flu; they tell stories for a living (so do I) and this is one that can be spun into one heck of a story. We need to remember that much of what we read/see/hear is either exaggerated or untrue.

Members of the public don’t understand the complexities of things like modes of transmission, incubation periods, N95 mask-respirators, neurominidase inhibitors, and overstimulation of immune systems by superantigens. It’s natural to worry and respond irrationally when facing a little-known agent that the press says is both dangerous and headed our way. That said, it’s okay for your neighbour to fret more than necessary, but it’s quite another for people in authority to go off the deep end – I was outraged at the story of that perfectly healthy Montreal boy barred from school for a week by his ignorant principal.

I would most like to see more members of my infectious-disease community being circumspect in their comments. Those who predicted a disastrous pandemic, in which schools would become morgues, are rubbing their hands with glee while telling us, I told you so. They’re exaggerating, of course. The statistics show it: deaths have been few, numbers of new cases have evened out in Mexico, and numbers are rising only slowly elsewhere. We’re not all going to get this. Far more people have died this year of regular winter flu than of this Mexican variety.

Why do some experts exaggerate? It comes down to office politics, academic investments, and personal ambitions. And if you read Tainted, you’ll see it all in action. It’s only fiction, of course, but I think you’ll agree that the timing is perfect.

Our “Tainted” book launch celebration on Wednesday April 15 at the Ancaster Old Town Hall was a great success. The venue is charming in an olde worlde sort of way, with a clock tower, limestone walls, and high cove ceilings. The party was a team effort, masterminded and mostly executed by my wife Lorna. She prepared and labelled “tainted” nibbles that reflected the clues and characters in the novel (including young Max’s favourite brownies). Acoustic Properties, the musical trio that  comforts the patients in the palliative care unit at my hospital (Brantford General), added greatly to the ambience, especially when they premiered “Zol Szabo’s Theme”, a tribute to Tainted’s main character. My lively sister Sheena acted as host of ceremonies; my brother-in-law Tim set up the tables/chairs and kept us calm; my parents Barbara and Archie, all the way from Ottawa, chatted with the guests from their front-row seats; our daughter sent her love from Windsor while writing university exams; Patti and Mario sold Tainted copies on behalf of Brantford General Hospital Foundation; our son Fraser charmed the long line of guests waiting to
have their brand new books signed by this very happy and grateful author.

Jack David, the helmsman at ECW Press, said some very kind words and then I talked about the book’s setting and characters before reading a few short excerpts. It’s tricky to do a reading of a mystery novel. You don’t want to give the game away, yet you want to engage the audience and impress them with your writing style. I chose short passages, which introduced four of the characters. There were a few chuckles and then a lot of hand clapping, as you’d expect when you’ve corralled 130 of your good friends and supporters.

Edna Barker, my skilled and patient editor, along with Simon and Erin from ECW Press, made the trek from Toronto to provide their continued support and encouragement, which have been essential to the success of the enterprise. At the end of the evening, three lucky winners took home Lorna’s specially made, and truly gorgeous, quilted table runners.

Now that the big launch is over, I’m looking forward to the next few Tainted talks and readings, which people have been kind enough to arrange. For me, meeting enthusiastic readers is the biggest bonus of being a published author. Please click on this website’s Author Events tab, and do come out and say hello when you can.

This is the first day for my website. I’ll be posting blogs from time to time, but in the meantime, I hope you enjoy reading Tainted, the debut mystery for  Zol Szabo and Hamish Wakefield.