Green Music

by Ursula Pflug

Sometimes he swam on his back and then the stars would make pinholes in his eyes, sinking, sinking until they came to rest in the darkness of his brain, sleeping reflections to their brothers across the void of space. Then they were in his mind, and he could hear them. Green Music blends the gritty reality of Toronto's studio district with a medieval tropical paradise shaped by the union of sea turtles and humans. A struggling artist, overwhelmed by grief and the strange tales of a Great Lakes mariner, embarks on an epic journey into an unknown world. In her debut novel, Ursula Pflug delivers a shimmering narrative, gliding effortlessly between humour and psychological insight, delving deep into the unexplored depths of magic realism and fantasy.

Genres: Speculative Fiction

232 pages, Paperback

First published November 14, 2001

About the author

Born in Tunis to German parents, Ursula Pflug grew up in Toronto and attended the University of Toronto and The Ontario College of Art and Design. She travelled widely, living on her own in Hawai'i and in New York City as a teen in the late seventies. Formerly a graphic artist, Pflug began concentrating on her writing after moving to the rural Kawarthas to raise a family with the internationally known new media sculptor Doug Back.

Her first novel, the critically acclaimed magic realist/fantasy Green Music was published by Tesseract Books in 2002.

Her long awaited story collection After the Fires was published by Tightrope Books in 2008. ATF received advance praise from Matthew Cheney and Jeff VanderMeer and an Honourable Mention from the Sunburst Award jury. It was short-listed for the Aurora Award.

Her second novel, the YA/Adult crossover The Alphabet Stones (Blue Denim, 2013) received advance praise from Charles DeLint, Tim Wynne-Jones, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Candas Jane Dorsey, Jan Thornill and more. The Alphabet Stones was a finalist for the ReLit.

In 2014 a YA/Adult flash novel, Motion Sickness (illustrated by SK Dyment) appeared from Inanna, and was also a finalist for the ReLit Award. Motion Sickness received advance praise from Heather Spears.

In addition, a new story collection, Harvesting The Moon, was published by PS in Great Britain, with advance praise from Jeff VanderMeer and an introduction by Candas Jane Dorsey.

Also in 2014, Pflug`s first edited book, the fundraiser anthology They Have To Take You In, appeared from Hidden Brook Press. The beneficiary was The Dana Fund, administered by the CMHA, a no-overhead fund to benefit women and families in transition. THTTYI includes stories from Michelle Berry, Jan Thornhill, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Silvia Moreno-Garcia and more.

2015 saw the publication of Playground of Lost Toys (Exile) co-edited with Colleen Anderson. Playground was shortlisted for the Aurora Award.

2017 and 2018 saw the publication of two novellas, Mountain and Down From (Snuggly). Mountain (Inanna) was a finalist for The Sunburst Award, and received advance praise from Heather Spears and Candas Jane Dorsey.

In 2020 her third story collection, Seeds, appeared from Inanna and received a starred PW review, as well as accolades at Black Gate and Strange Horizons.. 2021 saw the release of a new anthology, Food of My people, co-edited with Candas Jane Dorsey.

A writer of both genre and literary short fiction, Pflug has published over ninety stories in award winning publications in Canada, the United States and the UK, including Strange Horizons, Fantasy, Lightspeed, Now Magazine, The Nine Muses, Quarry, Tesseracts, Leviathan, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, Nemonymous, Back Brain Recluse, Transversions, Bamboo Ridge, Bandersnatch, Postscripts, Herizons, Chizine and many others.

She has had several solo or co-authored plays produced by professional companies, and was a contributing editor at The Peterborough Review for three years. Pflug’s first published short story, “Memory Lapse at The Waterfront” has been reprinted in After The Fires. Pflug wrote the script and storyboard for the short film version, directed by Carol McBride. “Waterfont” toured festivals and was purchased by WTN.

Pflug has received numerous Canada Council, Ontario Arts Council and Laidlaw Foundation grants in support of her novels, short fiction, criticism and plays. She has previously been a finalist for the KM Hunter Award, the Descant Novella Contest, the Three Day Novel Contest, the Aurora Award and others. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee.

Pflug mentors private clients in creative writing and has taught short fiction writing at Loyalist College, The Campbellford Resource Centre, and Trent University (with Derek Newman-Stille.)

For several years she was artistic director at Cat Sass Reading Series, in Norwood, Ontario, showcasing local, national, and international

Reviews

[Em Glasspool · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this on my one and only trip to Spain. Sat by the Mediterranean ocean. Read Green Music. Was more transported by the incredibly imaginative and intense plot and characters than my idyllic surroundings. Will never forget the trip. Of reading “Green Music”. It’s a wild ride. 5 brilliant night stars over a blue and green endless ocean.

[Lynda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ursula's Green Magic makes a street woman's tragic life a brave transition to another world. Dreamlike overlapping realities are not usually my favorite fare. But when done well, as this book is, the magic sweeps me out on the tide of their particular fiction. I recommend this book for literary readers with a fondness for the whimsical, touching and speculative.

[Pamela · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is something so tender about this book even though it is also so bold. There are vivid moments that stay with me, as if from a dream, years after reading it. It is like the world you are reading about isn't created until you turn the page.

[Tapanga Koe · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is beautiful on many levels. The prose can be so moving, I took pause to reread a sentence here, a description there. Also, I've never read a book where I felt so truly satisfied with its conclusion.

[Brian Gaston · Rating 3 out of 5]

This a very good literary fantasy novel. Not the sort of book I would usually read but I recognize the good writing.

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recently I discovered that leatherback turtles swim at incredible depths in the oceans. This put me in mind of Ursula Pflugs’s dreamy book Green Music, of a world existing beyond/between a brick and pavement city and a tropical sandy paradise of boats and sunsets . Green Music split my mind’s eye, flitting back and forth, dragonflies, bars, coffee houses, fishing tackle, paintings as doorways and songs as paths until a large wave submerged me into the characters and flipped my turtle being upside down. I read this sandwiched between Joan Didion’s Book of the Common Prayer and Patti Smith’s Year of the Monkey and found them all remarkably relatable; marinas, Marin, Marina, southern heat, that sense of stretched time, beaches, roads that end nowhere, implausible happenings shifting of reality, lost daughters, too many drinks, endless coffees, all told with a level eyed accounting of life only women can write. I highly recommend a voyage over and under into Green Music for anyone wanting to shift their perspective and dream a bit.
Pflug has written a great deal more since Green Music, her debut novel, was published. Here are a few that stood out for me, a YA novel, Mountain which tells the story of a young girl’s discovery of herself and the people her parent’s are/were/will be; They Have to Take You In, an edited collection of poems and stories on belonging and home; After the Fires, a fragile tremulous play of blunt stories with odd beginnings, quirky characters and unsettling endings. Alphabet Stones, Pflug’s dynamite coming of age tale set in the Canadian countryside of Ontario, filled with native lore, adolescent hunger. Her petroglyphic stones laid out in a field, an enigmatic message lying there for centuries to be read, is imprinted forever in my mind. As in so many of her stories, images remain, visuals to sift and sort ( women’s endless work), like the Raven turning over and over those pebbles on the beach to try and grasp new understandings with each flip.

[Sara]

Its gd tradiation sci fic one .also i read to UP python and trading poliars..there somthing rtrang when y come back after few weak absence.exhusted trep and a love friend.i love it Alia eyes .itsnt strange to return come back with eyes of heart.no heat of fair or forest village can make me lose up.its love

[Ursula Pflug · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wrote it.

As to what I learned from it, I could write a book.

There are all kinds of nice reviews I've linked to from my website:

http://ursulapflug.ca

Comment most often heard from readers:

"Are you Su or Marina?"

To which I usually answer, "Actually, I'm most like Stiv."

Also, while I love the cover, what I'd really like to see is "Woman with Sea Turtles," a photograph by Arthur Tress, in which "A woman sits on the edge of a bed, one hand tugging at a strand of her hair as she looks at large turtles crowded on the bed, all staring at her."

There are actually two different photographs, both equally amazing, replete with signature Tress surreal melancholia.

[Ursula Pflug · Rating 5 out of 5]

http://www.emcit.com/emcit096.shtml#Song

There were many nice reviews of GM, most of which I've linked to from my website. Cheryl Morgan's, above, was one of my favourites. IMHO, the sadly defunct Emerald City deserves readers.