Slapshot Of Love
Gary Pearson
ISBN: 978-1495320972 Publisher: CreateSpace Date of publish: March 2014 Pages: 354
A Romance Novel/Satire That Rocks Reality TV:
In his debut novel, Slapshot Of Love, one of Canada’s sharpest satirical writers body-checks the medium he knows best.
Gary Pearson, veteran writer for This Hour Has 22 Minutes and Mad-TV, exposes the cold heart of reality-television with this winning tale – evocative of Bridget Jones’s Diary and Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity – in which a young Hamilton woman becomes a national celebrity on the flimsiest of pretexts.
The vehicle is Slapshot Of Love, a Bachelor-type series, in which a harem of wannabe hockey wives viciously competes for the hand of an NHL superstar. It’s a concept so crazily Canadian, it’s amazing no one’s actually produced it. But for a dissatisfied, credit-challenged thirtysomething Hamilton senior care worker named Geri Halton, the show is the metaphorical crossroads, with her body and soul on the auction block.
Sarcastic, yet warm-hearted – “feisty” and “pretty but not model pretty” in the openly sexist lexicon of TV – Geri follows her self-absorbed frenemy/cousin Meghan into the world of reality-TV. There they are manipulated into open warfare with each other, and with an ensemble of other often-desperate wives-in-waiting. And it’s there that Geri’s outward indifference to the “awesomeness” of it all, turns her into the most popular puck bunny in the country.
Pearson’s intimate knowledge of the workings of scripted “spontaneity” comes into play in Slapshot Of Love. And his wry take on life is embodied in Geri, a woman keenly aware of her surroundings, even as she begins to lose her grip on what’s real and what’s “reality.”
“Funny and tender… refreshing to see this sexist world challenged by real female voices.” -Debra McGrath. Little Mosque On The Prairie
“A funny, enchanting, story of one girl’s extraordinary search for love and happiness.”- Geri Hall, This Hour Has 22 Minutes.
Click HERE for my review.
About the author:
Gary Pearson is TV writer with credits on such shows as MadTV (FOX), Corner Gas (CTV), This Hour Has 22 Minutes (CBC), The Ron James Show (CBC) and That’s So Weird (YTV), for which he was also Executive Producer. Gary has been nominated for 6 Gemini Awards, 3 Canadian Screen Awards, has won the Writer’s Guild of Canada Award and a Canadian Comedy Award. He was a member of The Chumps Comedy troupe and a cast member of the Mainstage Company of Toronto’s Second City. Slapshot of Love is his first novel. Also look for 'Me and the Crack Mayor', his second novel. You can follow Gary on Twitter @CaptainPearson and his website is captainpearson.com He is not actually the captain of anything.
Website: http://www.captainpearson.com
Twitter: @Captainpearson
Interview:
I would like to welcome Gary Pearson and thank him for stopping by to tell us a little about himself and Slapshot Of Love.
I'd pick my main character in the book Geri Halton. I wanted to write a character that the reader would fall in love with and it worked on me! She's smart and funny and beautiful but also kind and considerate. That desert island is not going to be all fun and games, and Geri is also strong and thinks on her feet. She's not perfect, but I have no doubt she'd be a much better companion than that volleyball Tom Hanks had.
What inspired you to write your first book?
I was watching a reality TV dating show and thinking about how the women on it didn't seem real. None of them were very clever or funny to me and I know a lot of smart and witty women. They all seemed totally absorbed by this one man who was maybe going to choose them. This wasn't like any women I knew. I also work in TV, writing comedy shows, so I know that to make TV you spend a lot of time and do things multiple times to get it right. That, to me, just means much of what we see as reality TV isn't remotely real. So I wanted to write a story where a really strong, opinionated and passionate woman would get on one of those shows and upset the apple cart. That's what Geri Halton does when she appears on a reality dating show called Slapshot of Love where she is supposed to win the affections of a famous hockey player. You don't have to like hockey or reality shows to enjoy the book however, it is really about the characters and the trouble they've got themselves into.
How do you overcome writer’s block?
I always say that if you can't 'write', just 'type'. Get anything down. Push ahead with your story. Write dialogue. Even if it is all crappy and you hate it later, I bet there is something good there that you'll like. So write with abandon and edit carefully after.
What book are you reading now?
I just finished a Stephen King book called Joyland that was pulpy fun. I am now reading Philomena, the true story that inspired the movie. It reads like a novel. I like to read a lot of different things!
Can you share a little of your current work with us?
Yes, just published on Amazon is my second novel, 'Me and the Crack Mayor' about an out of control Mayor of Toronto. It is currently only available as an e book. You may have heard some crazy stories from Toronto about a crack smoking Mayor, and I've been inspired to write a comic novel around it.
Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?
Yes. Slapshot of Love is about...love. Different kinds of love. Geri Halton loves her best friend, Julie. She loves the seniors she works with at the residence and they love her. She loves the memory of her parents. She has to figure out in the book if she still loves Carlo, the man she has been dating, or if she is falling in love with Ryan, the hockey star, and if he loves her. Throw reality TV in the mix and determining real love is all the more difficult. The question of the book might be something like this.... Love is real; but is this real love?
And hang on folks, there are some twists and turns in the story!
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