Blindsided: How Twenty Years of Writing About Booze, Drugs and Sex Ended in the Blink of an Eye

by Russell Smith

Since the late 1980s, acclaimed novelist and Globe and Mail columnist Russell Smith had been a staple on the Toronto party circuit. Well into his forties, Smith was living like a man half his age, going out pretty much every night of the week, taking in the beautiful women, the latest fashions, the ever changing skyline of the growing city, as well as the glowing martini glasses and recreational drugs on offer to keep the good times rolling. From his first novel, How Insensitive, to his latest, Girl Crazy, chronicling underground life became his job. Then, in 2010, Smith began to lose his eyesight, first his left eye, and then next, cruelly, his right. Blindsided is a moving and brutally honest account of a writer not just dealing with the severe deterioration of a crucial tool—his ability to see—but also the sudden onslaught of some other very adult complications: the death of a father, an unexpected pregnancy, and a partner battling her own crippling demons.

ebook

First published April 23, 2012

About the author

Russell Claude Smith is a Canadian writer and newspaper columnist. Smith's novels and short stories are mostly set in Toronto, where he lives.

Smith grew up in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He attended the Halifax Grammar School and Queen Elizabeth High School, and studied French literature at Queen's University, the University of Poitiers, and the University of Paris III. He has an MA in French from Queen's.

Russell Smith is one of Canada’s funniest and nastiest writers. His previous novels, including How Insensitive and Girl Crazy, are records of urban frenzy and exciting underworlds. He writes a provocative weekly column on the arts in the national Globe and Mail, and teaches in the MFA program at the University of Guelph. He hates folk music.

Reviews

[Colibri · Rating 5 out of 5]

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