Shelf Monkeys- Kate Kennedy

Corey Redekop wants you to buy his book and read it. Or burn it.

Just don’t write in the margins.

It’s only fitting that the characters in his first novel, entitled Shelf Monkey, get a thrill by burning books in secret, late-night ceremonies. They would never scribble in one though, Redekop says it’s just not right.

Redekop talked about his novel and read excerpts from it to a room of 21 people at London’s Central Library last June. The library director and graduate of the University of Western Ontario simply beamed as he laughed and joked with friends and fans.

The novel is about a group of disgruntled employees at Winnipeg’s newest “mega-box-hyper-super-huge bookstore,” as Redekop puts it. When they grow frustrated with customers asking only for the titles recommended by a popular talk-show host, the employees form a group called the “shelf monkeys”, and decide to start burning the particularly bad literature, he said.

Redekop adopted the voice of his lead character, Thomas Friesen, during the reading, and hardly a minute went by without the sound of laughter erupting from the audience.

“The reading was great,” said Tatiana Murkin, 27, “[He] is really funny and quirky.”

Redekop said he is generally a pretty shy guy--but it didn’t show on Saturday. As listener’s laughed at his jokes, Redekop smiled broadly. He also told the audience that his novel is featured in the June 2007 issue of Chatelaine magazine, as one of the best books to read this summer. One of the other featured novels is by Judy Blume. Which makes sense, he said, because he was voted “Most Likely to Become the Next Judy Blume” in high school.

London’s Central Library has about six readings per year, said Ellie Contursi, 39, Central Library’s fiction librarian. The main reason for readings is to support authors, she said, especially Canadian authors.

“I loved [Shelf Monkey],” said Sarah Dunn, 28, the ECW publicist, “Canadian Literature isn’t known for being funny.”

Redekop, like his lead character, started as a lawyer but left the profession after three months. The emotional stress of working in legal aid was just too high, he said.
“I left law just because I hated it. I really couldn’t stand it anymore.”

After leaving the law, Redekop worked at a Chapters bookstore, where he called himself and his co-workers “shelf monkeys” because they were always shelving books, he said. It’s also where he got the idea for his novel.

“Oprah’s book club was huge then,” he said, “People came in and only asked for her picks. It’s frustrating when no-one cares what you think.”

His idea may not have flourished if it had not been for The International 3-Day Novel Contest in 2002, he said, which he participated in over Labour Day weekend. The contest involved would-be authors writing almost constantly over a three-day period. The person with the best story won the opportunity to publish a novel. Redekop didn’t win but he did come away with 25,000 words of his first novel, he said.

So he sent the beginnings of it to the writer-in-residence of the Winnipeg Public Library at the time, Miriam Toews—who is now known for her top-selling novel A Complicated Kindness. Redekop said she encouraged him to keep writing, which he often did in the Starbucks that he worked at after he left Chapters.

“It’s true,” he said, “You can write a book in a coffee shop, in a Starbucks, and get it published.”

Redekop finished his novel just before starting his Masters in Information and Library Science at Western in 2004. While he was at Western he looked for a publishing company for his novel. He was lucky to get interest from the third company he applied to, ECW Press, he said.

“I loved the book proposal. In one page I could see the whole book,” said Jen Hale, 34, at the reading. Hale is Redekop’s editor from ECW.

Redekop said on Saturday that aspiring writers should try and find their own voice and a publishing company that fits well with it. However, not everyone should try and write a book, he said. He compared low-brow, and often popular, literature to eating McDonald’s fast-food.

“You feel sick after reading those [books], you don’t feel full, you don’t feel nourished, you feel used,” he said.

The Da Vinci Code, for example, is a book that both Redekop and his characters wish was never written.

“It’s not that it’s a bad story, it’s actually a quite entertaining story—but the guy can’t write a sentence to save his life,” said Redekop, of Dan Brown, author of the vastly popular The Da Vinci Code.

Still, Redekop doesn’t blame readers if they burn his novel like the “shelf monkeys” do.
“That’s the irony, of course, of writing a book about bad literature, this book is probably bad literature anyway,” he said with a laugh