Maelstrom

by Marty Gregor

'Life is a comedy. Unfortunately, that comedy is a bit darker for some.' The words that kept echoing in Waldron Howison's mind. He aspired to become a great writer before he was confronted to a writer’s worst nightmare: writer’s block. As he could no longer lean on his parent’s help and had to work random jobs to survive, the clock was ticking. Everybody was urging him to go back to school, 'come on Waldron, you're not even thirty yet...' But his stubbornness refused to see it as so.

243 pages, Unknown Binding

About the author

Born in Sofia, Bulgaria inside the iron curtain; raised in Montreal, Canada since the age of four. As you could see, switching from a dictatorship to democracy, my childhood was already confusing as it was. Added to my confusion, was speaking Bulgarian at home, French at school and English on the playground. Life was not always easy, especially having to explain to schoolmates what kind of ingredients were used in my lunch. Growing up, meeting with different sorts of people from every path of life, speaking the infamous ‘’Franglais’’ (a mixture of French and English, Montrealers are known to perfect), I developed quite the sense of humour. It didn’t matter much though, as my mother would always say: it’s more important that people understand what you are trying to say, and that you end things with a smile.
After graduating with a finance degree from University, I entered the professional world of nine to five. They say that the real world is only nine to five, but it’s a lie: it’s a lot of overtime. That was my painful professional life. Working so many long hours, dreading the paper work, realizing that I was not anywhere near the steering wheel of a luxurious car and spend my vacations on a private yacht with billionaires, I began writing blogs to escape my vicious reality. The blogs received a great amount of success and more importantly, a great amount of emotion. I did not want people to simply salute me on how deep my thoughts were, and tell me how much they enjoyed reading me: I wanted them to jump, laugh at the simple observation they had missed out on or want to kill me because of the sad truth, the insecurity. After a year or so of the real world, dressed in a shirt and tie, I was at a house party where the guests were asked to perform stand-up comedy. I received rather warm applauses, suggesting I ought to tryout on a real stage in front of a real crowd; so I did. I performed in Montreal’s comedy clubs on open mic nights. I was slightly nervous at the beginning: unlike the professional nights, where people applaud and laugh at every joke, even the not so funny ones; the crowd was mainly there to support friends and see strangers fumble. However, luck was on my side as I received cordial applauses for my quirky, neurotic, nerdy humor. It made me happy because I really did love my jokes, as narcissistic as it may sound. What I really did not love was the sound of my voice, through the microphone, echoing in a deep tenor speech that made my ears bleed. I decided that writing was going to be my ultimate weapon of mass destruction. I continued writing, as it was the only thing I looked forward to.
Out of the blue, while getting ready for work, a slow nostalgic song was playing on the radio: the inspiration hit me for my first novel ‘’after the after’’. I believed it was a weird feeling, unsure what to think about it because I only knew what the ending was. I sought the advice of my father, whom reassured me that it was normal in everyday life. ‘You know how to get to work, you can go by car, bus, bicycle etc... A book is no different: you just have to start from the beginning and figure out how to get to that ending.’ Maybe it was the long exhausting hours that helped inspire me, maybe it was just a simple mundane song, maybe it was a combination of both: but that’s the truth, a mindless event which was the catalyst for me to write a memoir about my trips in Europe. Hence, what I get from writing is very simple: a way for me to express my feelings and thoughts, laugh and cry, find the irony in my life without going crazy about the meaning of life.

Reviews

[Kaya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Copy provided by the author in an exchange for an honest review

2.5 stars.

The author is talented and it's obvious he has a lot to express, but his thoughts need to be filtered. The book feels rushed and without any genuine emotion. Furthermore, one part of the book seems underdeveloped, while the other one looks unnecessary and can easily be cut out. In other words, the novel needs to be thoroughly edited.

Waldron struggles to write a book due to the writer’s block. He shuts everyone out and desperately tries to get back his inspiration, but in quite destructive ways. One might think that all he did was gaining valuable experience, but in my opinion he just needed an excuse to act like a dick. The plot has potential but it relies too much on an unlikable protagonist.

While it has a strong start, there are a lot of grammatical errors. The plot is overshadowed by depressing motives and dialogues are boring. The story consists of series of unlinked episodes that have no endgame. It bugged me to no end how I didn’t know what was the purpose of the book until the very end, and not even then was I satisfied.

Waldron's negative attitude towards everything and everyone bores me. He acts like an angry teenage boy and a rebel without a cause. Despite being strongly insightful, he sounded too pretentious and judgy. He's horrible to people for no apparent reason and everyone is a devil for him, which is quite repetitive. Don’t even get me started on the fact that he was a complete asshole just so he could get back his inspiration. Overall, he acts like a spoiled teenager and I’ve got not enough background on his past to to empathise with him.

[Tiguidou]

First of all, I applaud anyone for writing - it's a great exercise. I also applaud Gregor for acknowledging that the writing process is long and difficult and that feedback is crucial to growing as a writer.

This piece is still in its draft stage and will need quite a bit of work before it works. The first couple of chapters seem rushed and disjointed - a lot is going on and, as a reader, I wasn't able to feel Montreal or the character in Gregor's writing. Montreal is a great city that deserves more detail - so do the characters. I don't hear the characters' voices in the dialogues because I don't know anything about them. Detail of their tone, appearance, etc. would make the characters and the dialogue more imaginable. There are also quite a few grammar mistakes - I guess the manuscript hasn't been professionally edited?

I almost stopped reading after the homosexual slur in chapter 5 and did stop reading after the vulgar sex scene in chapter 7. The word choice is painfully crass and the main character just isn't developed enough to get away with that type of language. I felt creepy and dirty reading it and decided to abandon the book before page 30. In fewer than 30 pages I couldn't get a good grasp on the setting, the character, the plot, or the direction of the novel.

[Joyce Kleine]

dnf dit boek heb ik van een schrijfer gekregen maar ik kom er niet in en vindt het niet leuk