2000 short list:
Mouthing the Words
by Camilla Gibb
published by Pedlar Press
Five books were named to the short list for the 2000 Toronto Book Awards. The finalists, selected by the Toronto Book Awards committee, were chosen from 80 submissions. Camilla Gibb's novel Mouthing the Words won top honours. Camilla was presented with a cheque for $8,000 in prize money.
Mouthing The Words (Pedlar Press, 1999) is Toronto author Camilla Gibb's acclaimed first novel. Listed as one of the Best Books of 1999 by The Globe & Mail, it tells the story of the lost, neglected and often mute Thelma Barley, an English girl who emigrates to Toronto during the 1970s with her hapless parents and younger brother. In order to cope with life's sometimes violent and uncertain contingencies, Thelma develops rich and intimate friendships with three imaginary characters whose love throughout her adolescence protects Thelma's vulnerable but extraordinary inner landscape. A darkly comic novel of great power and resonance.
Camilla Gibb
Camilla Gibb's first novel, Mouthing the Words was selected as one of the Best Books of 1999 by the Globe and Mail and Toronto's NOW Magazine.
Camilla has a PhD in social anthropology from Oxford University, with numerous scholarly publications to her credit. Her short fiction has appeared in Canadian Forum, the Ottawa Citizen, the Hart House Review, Fireweed Magazine, and Taddle Creek Magazine, and will be appearing in the following anthologies: Carnal Nation: Brave New Fictions, Brazen Femme: Transgressing Femme Identity, and the IV Lounge Reader.
Her non-fiction essays and reviews have appeared in the National Post, the Globe and Mail, Maclean's Magazine, Quill & Quire, Xtra Magazine, and the anthologies Bad Jobs and (Re) Visions: Feminist and gender theory at the turn of the century.
Her second novel, The Petty Details of So-and-so's Life, will be published by Doubleday in Spring 2002. She is currently at work on a collection of short stories and a book of creative non-fiction.
Camilla Gibb on winning the Toronto Book Awards:
When I wrote Mouthing the Words, my first novel, I didn't yet know I was a writer. Toiling away in isolation and obscurity (in my case, a trailer park!), it is very hard to imagine that your words matter – that your stories will be read or understood. It was winning the City of Toronto Book Awards at such a critical stage in the development of my career that made me realize I was a writer. The public recognition of the work in this way has given me the confidence to continue.
The most encouraging thing about the award is that the committee is made up of readers – citizens of Toronto, not industry professionals (which is the case with all other major awards). I was touched by the fact that such a diverse group of people could be effected by a single piece of work. Mouthing the Words has gone on to be published in 11 countries and translated into 9 languages. The publishers in each of these countries have promoted this book as a "Winner of the City of Toronto Book Award." We are blessed in this city, by geography, economy and sheer numbers, to be at home among writers – and the world knows it!
Book excerpt
In the morning I had my nice school to go to. There I had my nice clean desk, and my exquisite penmanship to exercise in a nice new notebook under the guidance of my nice teacher named Mrs. Kelly. Mrs. Kelly gave Ma the book that was to be called My Autobiography, in which I wrote, I was a dead purple baby. She expressed concern about it, but it was my next entry that prompted her to call my parents in for an interview.
My name is Thelma and I am a dead, bled body or sometimes an insect or a rock in a cave. When I am a twig, my eyes turn around and I can see the inside of my head and it is red and bloody. My favorite hobbies are being a Shetland pony and coming to school.
Being anywhere but home really. Being in my imagination, or in another building altogether. Dad was the parent now and Mum was getting on her fold-up bicycle every morning and riding to her job as a secretary at the Ministry of Transportation. Dad was sending me to school with a piece of burnt toast and taking Willy to the Oriole Nursery School where Mrs. Elkinburg gave him graham crackers and powdered orange juice.
Every day Willy brought home a picture he had drawn with crayons. Every day it was a picture of a blue dragon stretching out its red tongue to eat the sun. He shows exceptional artistic promise, Mrs. Elkinburg wrote on Willy's first term report card. His creative impulse, though, seems oddly fixated on the image of a blue dragon trying to consume the sun. He should be encouraged to explore other images.
I think he's developmentally retarded, my father pronounced helpfully upon reading the report. Don't be stupid, my mother said. The poor boy's starved for a little inspiration and encouragement. What does he see when he gets home from school? You. He might as well come home to a corpse. And Thelma's hardly any help. She's so lost in her imaginary world all the time, she thinks he's some king of stuffed animal.
Mum only know the half of it. I would pick up Willy from nursery school on my way home, and Dad would park him in front of the television and say, Pipe down and don't bother me. Daddy has to help your sister with her homework. Why don't you try to do something useful like long division instead of your crappy dinosaur pictures.
Will defended meekly, it's a dragon, not a dinosaur.
And Dad said, I've heard about enough out of you.
But Dad was no good at homework really. He always wanted to make it into a game, while I took it very seriously. He always wanted to the teacher and whenever I tried to interject and say, But Mrs. Kelly doesn't do it that day, Dad would say: But Mrs. Kelly's school finished at the end of the day. A woman can't teach you everything you need to know. There are some things only your Daddy can teach you.
Published with permission from the author. This excerpt is copyright protected.
