Naomi Freeman
Contributor
Across media outlets both real and virtual, on the radio, in the newspaper and on television, you’ll hear a resounding cry: the Giller Prize winner can’t be read!
The Scotiabank Giller Prize is the largest literary award for prose in Canada, and is awarded to a work of fiction or a collection of short stories. Five books reach the short list, and each finalist receives $5,000. The final prizewinner re- ceives $50,000, as well as heaps of publicity and prestige.
Johanna Skibsrud’s The Senti- mentalists, a story about a daughter’s relationship with her war veteran father, was recently named this year’s winner.
No one is contesting the win, or the book’s style or content.
No. Everyone is screaming because Skibsrud’s book is published through a small Nova Scotia-based press, Gaspereau Books, who make their books by hand. The production run is, as a result, quite limited, and they’ve no desire to ramp up print numbers, even with a Giller Prize-winner in their house.
The publishers are not refusing to sell Skibsrud’s book.
There are, in fact, an infinite number of copies, ready and waiting to be sold. They’re online, over at www.kobobooks.com.
For $14.95 – about half the list price of the paper copy – anyone with a Kobo, iPhone, Blackberry or desktop computer can read The Sentimentalists. Shipping and handling, which is instant, is free.
This didn’t happen by chance. It was a deliberate and very conscientious decision on the publishers’ behalf.
I understand your desire for a hard copy and the value in that and, as far as I can tell, so does Gaspereau. Last month, when the Giller Prize shortlist was announced, the publishing house refused Toronto publishing companies’ offers to print en masse. Knowing full well they’re capable of printing only 1,000 copies per week – the typical Giller Prize-winning novel sells 60,000 to 70,000 copies overall – they continue to stand by their decision.
By restricting access and maintaining the highest standards of press quality, Gaspereau forces us to retain the value of the book as an art object. Congratulations to them. It’s an admirable feat.
There is one small glitch in their current scheme, though: the book isn’t even available in libraries at the moment, in Toronto at least. That fact makes their mission seem a little too high brow, but hopefully it’s just a matter of lag that will soon be rectified.
“We got here because we make nice books,” said Gary Dunfield, co-owner of Gaspereau in a recent interview with The National Post. “We make nice books, and that’s our reputation. And a year from now this will have blown over and we’ll still make nice books and the bookstores will still like them. So why would we change that?”
Bravo, Mr. Dunfield, bravo. To the naysayers and name-callers I suggest: be quiet. Be patient and savour this rare moment when the book is so cherished.
- (Ian Alexander Martin)
