Milksop: In Others’ Words, Part 3
Will This Fish Out of Water Survive?
In my first ODD “In Others’ Words” post, I asked whether my novel Milksop rang true. In part because of an endorsement from Larry Link of Linkhaven farms, I answered in the affirmative, at least when it came to my portrayal of dairy farming in 1979. My second “In Others’ Words” post reflected on Milksop as a fresh take on coming-of-age stories, prompted by a wonderful “blurb” from Joseph Kertes.
What else are people saying?
Aiming for a Shining Performance
I recently received this equally wonderful endorsement from Melissa Kuipers:
Tender and hilarious, Milksop follows a young man on a reluctant quest towards self-discovery within a beautiful but unrelenting pastoral milieu. Deposited at a dairy farm in the heat of summer, directionless Evan is given the opportunity to find himself through proximity to land and animals. Full of delightful characters, farming mishaps, and a relatable city-slicker narrator who finds himself out of his depth in the country, Van Rys’s debut novel is full of description so rich you can smell the hay and feel the rumble of the tractor while reading.
This book brought me back to growing up in farm country through its vivid descriptions of the scents, sights, textures and people that make farm life so challenging and rewarding.
Melissa is the author of The Whole Beautiful World. She also writes at her Substack, The Mending Heap. Thank you, Melissa!
Melissa’s endorsement highlights several features I hope you’ll experience in Milksop:
Evan’s story brings together seeming opposites: tenderness and hilarity, a setting that’s unrelenting yet beautiful.
Although Evan’s story has a frame narrative set in the present, the main action happens in the past: his growing up might elicit feelings of nostalgia.
Evan’s coming-of-age story is also a fish-out-of-water tale. Will he in the end find a new lake to swim in? And, by the way, what species of fish is he, after all?
I’ve aimed to make Evan’s story “a vivid and continuous dream” for readers.
That last phrase is well known writing advice from John Gardner. What’s less well known is the longer sentence in which it is found.
“A true work of fiction does all of the following things, and does them elegantly, efficiently: it creates a vivid and continuous dream in the reader’s mind; it is implicitly philosophical; it fulfills or at least deals with all of the expectations it sets up; and it strikes us, in the end, not simply as a thing done but as a shining performance.”
John Gardner, The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers
Gardner’s guidance deserves to be unpacked more fully, possibly in another post, but for now let me simply say that you’ll have to judge whether I’ve achieved this ideal in Milksop. It’s a performance, alright, but is it shining?
Is There Something Fishy about Milksop?
In writing Milksop and sending it out into the world, am I perhaps also a fish out of water? In the big world of publishing, will my novel end up a fish flopping about on dry land, baking under a sun in a desert of dead books? Perhaps I’ll follow up on these questions in the coming months. For now, I would be honoured if you would consider supporting Milksop in any of the following ways:
Pre-ordering a copy of Milksop ahead of its May 23 release date: you can do so from my publisher, an independent bookstore in Canada, Indigo, and more. Check your options at my website. (I can’t count on the fantasy pre-ordering frenzy I described in an earlier post.)
Checking whether your local library will be purchasing Milksop. If they’re not, you can suggest they add it to their collection.
When you’ve read Milksop, share it. Give copies to your friends and family. And depending on your feelings about Milksop, send it to your enemies, as well.
If you enjoy Milksop, shout it from literal and digital rooftops. Share your joy through word of mouth, by posting a review, and/or by sharing on social media.
Thanks for considering these actions!
As always, if the spirit moves you, please share your thoughts and this post.