DG enjoys the way other people like to make up sound-bite narratives about his life and then publish them in large newspapers. This particular angle is poignant. The lonely hero, finding his path solo, forgotten, unnoticed, friendless, a man without a country, stranger, outsider, off the grid (completely–he doesn’t even know what the grid is), a craggy, moss-eaten hermit dwelling in the barren lands, the old bull moose with spider webs in his antlers, the Fisher King, etc. But, you know, you read this stuff (and when Elle came out what a terrific writer I am, etc. etc.) and it bears so little on your real life that you have the distinct impression that there is another DG, a double, call him DG2, out there, a composite of readers’ and reviewers’ imagined DGs, just as Don Quixote was haunted by a second fictional Don Quixote who was wandering around Spain telling everyone he was the real Don Quixote. Luckily, I kind of like DG2. We met once in Montreal at the Old Bagel Factory and walked down the Main to The Shed and had a drink and talked about old times (his old times were much more scandalous than mine, of course–once in a while we happened upon a memory we had in common, not too often, and, yes, he is better looking than I am, and maybe 10 years younger). Then we parted company and I drove back to Oblivion where the blue dog and Hobbes had completely forgotten me, so I felt at home.
Flying Under the Radar: 10 Underrated Canadian Authors | Afterword | National Post.