Paul Quarrington - The Ravine

PRAISE FOR THE RAVINE AND FOR
PAUL QUARRINGTON

The funniest novelist writing in Canada today.

Toronto Star

No one gives humanity to lifes oddballs as well and as sensitively as Paul Quarrington.

Roddy Doyle

The humour is fast and furious, with guffaws built beautifully into the drunken pathos, and the story elements are lined up in a way that makes it really difficult to put this book down for a pause. In just the same way that [Mordecai Richlers] Barneys Version took the literary scene by storm in 1997, readers will soon be asking their friends, Have you read Paul Quarringtons The Ravine yet?

Calgary Herald

Quarrington makes you laugh, but also slams you in the solar plexus.

Times Colonist

In his new novel, The Ravine, Quarrington continues to display his fine writing chops and his trademark mordant sense of humour.

Edmonton Journal

No one does dysfunctional middle-age crises like Toronto writer Paul Quarrington. He has created a moving tale filled with compassion and empathy.

The Record

Quarrington is a wild, original, thoroughly Canadian, surprisingly mature national treasure.

Edmonton Journal

Quarringtons comedic romp has universal appeal.

Canadian Living

Quarringtons language is a consistent source of pleasure. With each succeeding novel, his command of comic tone is refined and deepened, to the point where even the most outlandish scenes are described with pinpoint economy and deadpan irony.

The Gazette

Theres nothing in the dark thats not
there when the lights are on.

ROD SERLING

Distress Hotline. Carlos speaking.

Carlos? Phil here.

Phil! Hows it hanging?

Hows it hanging? Is that really an appropriate way to greet callers to a distress centre?

Phil, weve talked about this. You are not really in distress.

Says who?

Says all of us. Youre depressed, youve got this self-destructive drinking thing going on, but you dont pose any true threat to yourself or others.

I beg to differ. I pose a huge threat to others. Why, look at what Ive already done to them! And I wasnt even trying.

Phil, some of what youre going through is just life, you know. I mean, Ive gone through some of this stuff. My marriage fell apart

Really?

Big time. Mirella just decided she was in love with somebody else. She decided at, I dont know, eleven oclock in the morning, she was out, she was fucking gone, before dinner.

Do you have kids?

A boy and a girl. Six and three. And now there is this really bitter custody battle, she keeps dragging up all this heroin stuffthat is like years old.

Hmm. Heroin, you say?

Ive been clean for twelve fucking years. Shes a ruthless bitch to even mention it. And its not like she was a fucking Girl Guide. I mean, theres been some shit in her body, you can bet your ass on that.

Uh-huh.

And like this sexuality stuff. I mean, whose goddam business is that?

Whose sexuality are we discussing?

Mine. There has been a little confusion. A little ambivalence. But who among us is absolutely one hundred per cent hetero?

I see. So I take it shes making a strong case for sole custody.

It breaks my fucking heart, Phil. Some days I dont know how Im going to go on.

Well, you know. Baby steps. Right? One little step after another little step, before you know it, youve covered vast distances.

Didnt I say that to you?

And you were right.

I guess so. Look, Phil, sorry, sorry, I mean, you called me, we should talk about so? What happened tonight that made you pick up the phone?

Well

Aside from drinking four bottles of wine or whatever it was.

I just called to say, um, I wont be calling any more. I mean, its been pleasant getting to know you all, but maybe its taken up a little bit too much of my time. And I need time, now, I need lots of it.

How come?

Because Im working on a book.

Really? A book about what? Your career in television?

Well, I might mention that.

People find television very interesting.

I have noticed. But I think my book is going to be a bit more general.

Like about how you screwed around and did all these things which you think are so bad but really arent? Things that when you get right down to it are a little bit boring?

Yeah. And of course therell be quite a bit about my career in television.

What are you going to call this book?

Umm The Ravine.

The Ravine? How come?

Because it seems to me, Carlos, that I went down into a ravine, and never really came back out.

WHEN I WAS ELEVEN, AND JAY WAS TEN, WE JOINED THE WOLF CUBS. was actually too old to be a Cubat eleven a lad should be a proper Boy Scoutbut there is apparently a kind of apprenticeship that Lord Baden-Powell insisted be undertaken, symbolically represented by placing two little stars in your Cub beanie, which means you then have both eyes open. This has to do with the wolf imagery, you see, the baby cub growing until the birth-gook clears from his eyelids and they pop open with self-realization. I adored all that wolf stuff, I loved sitting around in a circle with the other boys and chantingprayingto the plastic wolfs head that our scoutmaster held mounted on a staff.

Akeyyyy-la! Well do our best! Dib dib dib, dob dob dob!

Jay and I still do this, after several too many at Birds of a Feather, the hateful bar at which my brother has been resident pianist for lo these many years. At least, we used to do this, but havent for months now, because Jay and I arent talking. Hes mad at me for screwing up my life. He should talk. But before this estrangement (and often) we used to stumble out onto the street and find a suitable object for our venerationthe moon, a comely hooker, a two-fingered man playing the ukuleleand wed snap to attention and begin the Grand Howl.

Akeyyyy-la! Well do our best! Dib dib dib, dob dob dob!

Despite my enthusiasm for the Wolf Cubs, I never did get both eyes opened. I managed a solitary gold star and then quit the organization, or was forced out, I have forgotten exactly what happened. Anyway, one gets ones eyes opened by achieving badges in various disciplinesarts and crafts, outdoorsmanship, map-readingbut I was a failure at all these things. The only thing I was ever any good at was knot-tying. For some reason, I was a whiz at tying knots, despite chubby little fingers and spectacularly bad eyesight. (Im legally blind in my left eye, and my right is only marginally better.) But when the scoutmaster handed me lengths of rope, these handicaps faded away; indeed, they may have been a benefit, my sense receptors overcompensating for the little cocktail sausages that housed them, some inner sense making crystal clear what my eyes rendered indistinct. The scoutmaster always called upon me to demonstrate new knots. I would hold two lengths in front of me, one white, the other darkened (still far away from the pitch-black second strand featured in the manual), and announce the knotGarricks Bendbefore grabbing a standing end and setting things into motion.