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My Life in Pictures
The prose poems of My Life in Pictures are about the life and times of Canadian poet and novelist, Christian McPherson. He runs his own narrative through a film projector and what illuminates onto the page is a poignant coming of age story, along with the harrowing trails of dealing with a mentally ill father, relationships won and lost, and a lifetime search to find meaning in the world. McPherson infuses his story with his love of cinema, beginning at his conception and moving one film at a time to his present middle age. My Life in Pictures is a book best read in dim lighting with a bag of popcorn.
181 pages, Paperback
First published April 15, 2013
2 people want to read
About the author
Christian McPherson
15 books13 followersChristian McPherson was born in Ottawa, Ontario in 1970. He is the author of ten books, Walking on the Beaches of Temporal Candy, Going Fly, One Poem, Saving Her, Cube Squared, My Life in Pictures, The Sun Has Forgotten Where I Live, The Cube People (shortlisted for the 2011 ReLit Awards), Poems that swim from my brain like rats leaving a sinking ship, and Six Ways to Sunday (shortlisted for the 2008 ReLit Awards). He has a degree in philosophy from Carleton University and a computer programming diploma from Algonquin College. He is married to the beautiful Marty Carr. They have two kids, Molly and Henry. They all live together in Ottawa.
Praise for Saving Her
"Fans of psychological thrillers like Stephen King's will clamour for this book" - All Lit Up's Super Secret Festival of Lit: Mysteries & Thrillers
"I have often purchased at book stores or downloaded from the internet a novel about which the advertisers and the reviewers say “You can’t put it down.” Once in a while, rarely for me, the description and my personal experience as a reader are a match. Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl was a match for me. Saving Her is another." - Rem Westland, Apt613
"With the taut pace of a thriller, it's a story about an accomplished woman going off the rails and striving to save herself and others. I itched to be reading this slim volume when I had to put it down, driven by a fast-moving plot and the suggestion that it could unravel in many different directions." - Hattie Klotz, Ottawa Magazine
Praise for The Cube People
"What’s really distinctive about the book is just how funny it is. The sex scenes and masturbatory scenes are side-splitting; the bizarre, labyrinthine governmental logic is richly, darkly comic; the failures of the struggling writer are, in their sad-sack way, laughalong. McPherson has many ways to make the reader laugh, from the more energetic and obvious to the more sophisticated" – Shane Neilson, The Fiddlehead
"The life-among-the-bean-counters part of McPherson's book is well managed and entertaining ... the comic evocation of domestic routines makes for an interesting counterpoint to the rest of the book. What ties everything together is the character of Colin, a well-meaning, dutiful type who acts as a pivot of sanity for the chaos to swirl around. And despite the raw moments, the conclusion is a good-natured affirmation of his core family values."
—Alex Good, Quill & Quire
"[The] Cube People is a sardonic and acerbic tale of one man’s daily grind as a faceless underling in a federal office. Outside of the office he works on his own novel (we get the plot within the plot), and desperately tries to get his wife — anxious and impatient for children — pregnant. It’s a funny and clever book, and it could deservedly become a sleeper hit for the writer."
—Peter Simpson, Ottawa Citizen (The Cube People was also Simpson’s pick as his critic’s top choice!)
"Christian McPherson’s The Cube People is a cocktail of genre work that has something for every reader to enjoy. Though the novel follows in the footsteps of novelists interested in exploring the angst of white collar workers (the kind of novel now diligently studied in Am Lit graduate seminars), it also ventures into the campy worlds of science fiction, blood-and-guts schlock horror, and a certain kind of fantasy, all the while sustaining the episodic carnival with a sincerely touching family narrative that is honest, funny, relatable, and very loving."
—Amanda Trip, Maple Tree Literary Supplement
"There is something to be said about a book that can keep you so deeply immersed you finish it in a single day … between his book’s rejections, his baby-obsessed wife and horrible day job, Colin becomes the everyman for anyone who has been constantly beaten down and hoped for salvation."
―The Charlatan
Praise for Saving Her
"Fans of psychological thrillers like Stephen King's will clamour for this book" - All Lit Up's Super Secret Festival of Lit: Mysteries & Thrillers
"I have often purchased at book stores or downloaded from the internet a novel about which the advertisers and the reviewers say “You can’t put it down.” Once in a while, rarely for me, the description and my personal experience as a reader are a match. Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl was a match for me. Saving Her is another." - Rem Westland, Apt613
"With the taut pace of a thriller, it's a story about an accomplished woman going off the rails and striving to save herself and others. I itched to be reading this slim volume when I had to put it down, driven by a fast-moving plot and the suggestion that it could unravel in many different directions." - Hattie Klotz, Ottawa Magazine
Praise for The Cube People
"What’s really distinctive about the book is just how funny it is. The sex scenes and masturbatory scenes are side-splitting; the bizarre, labyrinthine governmental logic is richly, darkly comic; the failures of the struggling writer are, in their sad-sack way, laughalong. McPherson has many ways to make the reader laugh, from the more energetic and obvious to the more sophisticated" – Shane Neilson, The Fiddlehead
"The life-among-the-bean-counters part of McPherson's book is well managed and entertaining ... the comic evocation of domestic routines makes for an interesting counterpoint to the rest of the book. What ties everything together is the character of Colin, a well-meaning, dutiful type who acts as a pivot of sanity for the chaos to swirl around. And despite the raw moments, the conclusion is a good-natured affirmation of his core family values."
—Alex Good, Quill & Quire
"[The] Cube People is a sardonic and acerbic tale of one man’s daily grind as a faceless underling in a federal office. Outside of the office he works on his own novel (we get the plot within the plot), and desperately tries to get his wife — anxious and impatient for children — pregnant. It’s a funny and clever book, and it could deservedly become a sleeper hit for the writer."
—Peter Simpson, Ottawa Citizen (The Cube People was also Simpson’s pick as his critic’s top choice!)
"Christian McPherson’s The Cube People is a cocktail of genre work that has something for every reader to enjoy. Though the novel follows in the footsteps of novelists interested in exploring the angst of white collar workers (the kind of novel now diligently studied in Am Lit graduate seminars), it also ventures into the campy worlds of science fiction, blood-and-guts schlock horror, and a certain kind of fantasy, all the while sustaining the episodic carnival with a sincerely touching family narrative that is honest, funny, relatable, and very loving."
—Amanda Trip, Maple Tree Literary Supplement
"There is something to be said about a book that can keep you so deeply immersed you finish it in a single day … between his book’s rejections, his baby-obsessed wife and horrible day job, Colin becomes the everyman for anyone who has been constantly beaten down and hoped for salvation."
―The Charlatan
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December 4, 2016
Picked this book up at the Ottawa Small Press Book Fair. The poems are in a chronological order according to events that marked the author's life and also chronologically according to films that were released at the time. Some poems draw parallels with the film, others just use the films as a backdrop to what the author was preoccupied with at the time. I found this book very easy to read and relatable, since I am in the same age group as the author. It made me think of certain films in my own life that I go back to frequently because they remind me of certain people or certain times of my life. I would recommend this book.
Displaying 1 of 1 review