Yesterday on Radio Lethbridge's Literature Hour show, imaginatively themed around "luuurve poetry" (I"m sorry, they really did say it that way), five minutes of airtime were dedicated to each of four Canadian writers, among them a certain plucky, amateur, deservedly obscure hack, Sylvia Barschatz, plugging her second book, The Music of Love.
Barschatz herself was blandly inoffensive and placid as always (the only amusing moment being her use of the expression "my editor" to describe what is in fact her husband), and unmemorably gave us a good indication of the quality of her book. The rather gushing junior DJ, however, spouted what must have been publisher's copy, and described the scribbler's latest efforts as "a bold and unconventional tour de force into the glorious heights and gut-wrenching lows of our favorite emotion", and the "startlingly original language-use" of a "darling of the poetic establishment."
Reviews of The Music of Love from more reputable sources tell a different story—this is neither a novel nor a book of poetry, but the worst of both genres: 600 pages (still only 2/3 the length of her previous outing) of turgid, ill-constructed, unattractively typeset prose that may borrow from blank-verse and stream-of-consciousness traditions but never approaches the poetic in style or quality. A protagonist as depressingly gray as the ghost girl of her début novel, a love story as convincing as a leprous horse in schoolgirl uniform, and a dénouement as staggeringly unoriginal as the title of the book itself.
The only thing bold or startling about this sordid little five minutes of fame was the audacity to claim Barschatz is a "writer".
Keep it up, Independent Radio. This is why we love you.
