Samuel Benoit

While spending the day at a district police station waiting for some residency papers earleir this week, I had the chance to finish a great little novel I’d like to tell you about.  It’s called The Convictions of Leonard McKinley and it’s written by Vancouver musician, storyteller, poet and author Brendan McLoed.  It was the winning entry in the 2006 3-Day Novel Contest in which authors write a book in – that’s right – only three days.  I bought the book from the author after watching him deliver his storytelling performance ‘The Fruit Machine’ at an Ottawa Storytellers event I attended a couple months ago with some friends.

One of the great things about the book is its voice.  Here’s an excerpt:

As his father dri­ves him to the dance, Leonard thinks that his father has a lot to worry about. God is prob­a­bly going to have Leonard stabbed at a uri­nal tonight, which will prob­a­bly lead to his whole fam­ily suf­fer­ing from depres­sion. Nick and Steve will doubt­less give up on their dreams and their mother will work even longer to avoid the stress. Then his par­ents will get divorced and his broth­ers will become drug addicts, so his father should stop act­ing so proud of him.

On the pre­tence of buy­ing chew­ing gum, Leonard asks to be let off at the store near­est his school so that none of the kids get a good look at his father’s fat. After Leonard gets out of the car he looks up at the thin sheet of his father’s smile and wonders if he is dis­hon­our­ing him with his shame, and if so that will be one more rea­son he will be on the Lord’s hit list.

“Knock ’em dead!” his father calls out the win­dow, and Leonard is left alone.

Inside, all the boys have come wear­ing their best button-up t-shirts. The girls are adorned in dresses and are danc­ing to “Thunderstruck” by AC/DC , which every­one agrees is awesome.

Leonard ratio­nal­izes that it will be harder for the Lord to strike him down if he is with a val­or­ous per­son, so he seeks out Ron, who is at the very least stu­dious because his par­ents are already putting pres­sure on him to grad­u­ate from den­tal school at McGill. But Ron is hang­ing out with a few others from his com­puter class, who also have mous­taches, and Leonard thinks it is bet­ter to face God’s wrath alone than to be seen in such company.

Here is a hilarious bit from ‘The Fruit Machine’ to get a glimpse at the manic way McLeod’s mind works:

A warning: the book is not all slow dances and peach fuzz moustaches.  It deals with some challenging but important sexual themes.  You can learn more about and order it here.  To see one of McLeod’s upcoming performances, check here for dates and locations.

Here’s something else most authors don’t do: