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East of Mourning
by Michael Markus
136 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #01-0076; ISBN 1-55212-677-3; US$16.50, C$18.50, EUR13.50, £9.50
A darkly comic novel about a bitter hockey coach and the young hockey phenom who he hopes will fulfill his frustrated dreams.
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About the book About the author Sample excerpt Catalogue info
About the Book"Sex, Drugs, Booze, Rock and Roll, Suicide, Murder and .......... Hockey"
Brian, stuck in his hometown of Mourning, Ontario, slipping down the wrong side of thirty, can never win. Not as a hockey player or a coach. Not at his career. Not at anything.
"Michael Markus' East of Mourning is a superbly crafted dark comedy about the Great Canadian Dream gone bad for a frustrated hockey coach and the young, talented hockey payer upon whom he pins the last of his bitter deams. Sex, Drugs, rock & roll, suicide, murder, and of course, hockey all lurk within the eerily inviting pages of this dynamic and sharply framed literary tableau. Aptly written in a literary style as fast-moving as the sport of hockey itself, East of Mourning captures the imagination and holds the reader's interest in its shadowy and wryly malefic way. Highly recommended." from the Wisconsin Bookwatch, The Midwest Book Review, December, 2001
Click here to read another review of the book REVIEW |
About the AuthorEast of Mourning is Michael Markus' second novel. His first, a popular children's novel, Lumps, Bumps and Bodyslams, was published by Scholastic. The lifelong resident of Pembroke, Ontario in the heart of the Ottawa Valley has decided to branch off into Adult fiction. In East of Mourning, Markus has relied on his educational background in Social Work and his years of experience as a volunteer in Minor Hockey to provide the dynamics and details for the novel. His knowledge and appreciation of the culture of the Ottawa Valley, its speech patterns, its unique way of life, are central to all his work. Recently he has finished a screenplay, a collaborative effort with the front man, Jordon Zadorozny of the musical group, Blinker the Star, about Elvis Presley. Also, Markus and several friends have formed Philistine Records an independent recording label and talent management company.
Click here to visit the author's web site, Mike Markus |
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Sample Excerpt
Mr. Dunn was not, by any generous stretch of the imagination, my favourite teacher in high school, but he is the one I remember the clearest. Pugnacious and opinionated (him), rebellious and opinionated (me), we were a bad mix and we bickered through two semesters of English in my senior year.
I was not surprised, then, that over ten years after my graduation, Dunn recognized me and went out of his way to totter across Front Street to talk to me.
"Hello Brian."
I groped vainly through my memory for his first name, but all I could come up with was Dick Slap, Dick Slap Dunn. God, I had written that name in a few bathroom stalls. So, I had to settle for a mumbled, "Hello Dunn."
We stood there awkwardly for a moment. I felt like he wanted to see my homework.
"What have you been doing?" Dunn asked.
"Getting French Fries." I pointed to the box in my hand.
"Flippant as ever, I see." To my immense satisfaction, Dunn showed every sign of aging badly, his skin sagged, loose and puckered around his jowls, and his spotted hands shook.
I could only shrug modestly in response.
"What are you doing with your life?" Dunn asked. What few teeth he had left were rotten and yellow. "Still lurking around in the background or are you an active participant in the pageant of life now?"
I wanted to ask him, How was his life going? Was he still fucking with kids' heads? Did he enjoy getting old, watching himself fall apart? How many times a night did he have to get up to piss? Could he still get it up?
"I'm working," I said. "I coach a lot of hockey. I enjoy that."
"Find that rewarding do you?"
"Yes, very much."
"Think you are making an important impact on their little lives?" He tilted his head to one side, one eye slitted closed, to peer at me.
"A little, yes."
"False boy, false," he practically hissed. "Do not fall into that trap. Do not lie to yourself. You cannot get what you want this way; nothing of substance will be achieved. You are expecting something from them they cannot give. Believe me, I know. That little world is not the real world. They do not have the capacity to understand. Just because you can control someone does not make them your friend." The crazy old bitter bastard still talked in paragraphs.
"I think I've done a good job. I think it's been mutually beneficial for everyone involved."
"You would think so." Dunn coughed, viciously and wetly, for a few seconds, something nasty was rattling around that old rib cage. I sincerely hoped it was a sign of something serious. The sort of disease they make T.V. movies of the week about.
"Do you still write?" Dunn asked.
"Write?" He always had that spiteful way of changing direction like that, snapping you in the kidneys with a question, rocking you back on your heels.
"Yes, write. I remember you continually jotting something down in your little notebooks. You used to make noise about being a writer." He hacked again, not so wet, an exhalation of bitter air that could have been a caustic chuckle of some sort.
"No, I don't write anymore."
His eyes, still bright and sharp, twinkled at me from under bushy dark eyebrows. "I would wager you still do write, Brian. You just will not show anyone, will you? Still afraid to share. Still afraid to be rejected. No trust, no commitment. Prolonged adolescence. Why not write about that? It would be interesting subject matter."
"You missed your calling Dunn. Instead of all these years, underpaid and ignored, boring students to death, giving them a life long aversion to literature and learning in general, you should have had an psychoanalyst's office and a couch somewhere."
"I am like you, Brian. I like to watch people."
"Well, keep watching. I got to go. Nice talking to you again."
"Yes, is it not? Occasionally a short skirmish with an old enemy is better than a long heart-to-heart with a trusted friend."
"I wouldn't know-" His name finally came to me in the vision of his old nameplate on the door of his Department-Head office. I would stare at that plate after school, plotting my revenge, while I waited for my weekly detention to begin.
"-Carson, I only have friends."
He almost laughed, settling for a quavering wheeze instead. "Seems like some time for dictionary work, Brian. Friends and acquaintances, look them up." He patted my shoulder and shuffled away.
My fries were cold.
Miserable old fuck.
