gregg norman

Lake Dauphin is part of a unique prairie watershed. It is the wind-worked home to pickerel and pike surrounded by wetlands and peaty sedge meadows. The lake represents a mature ecology bounded by strong parkland features and clearly influenced by the seemingly unending prairie to the south and west. The northern-influenced climate and relatively sparse human population present a persona still wild in its soulful inner self but outwardly, a place of calm and quiet strength.

This account of place could just as easily describe one of the region’s residents: five-book author Gregg Norman. I’ve had the good fortune to stumble onto Gregg’s writing and just as enjoyably, his cordial, affable, and knowledgeable personality. After a few years of comments and emails, reading each others’ work and becoming online friends it’s time to write a proper review.

Drawing from two of Gregg’s novels—A Gift of Scars and Bingo at the Legion—here’s a summary that offers an overview of author Norman’s overall skills and attributes as a writer, as well as commentary on these two excellent reads.

In Gregg Norman’s books, we find a stabilizing foundation beneath the storytelling. Part of his underlying prose meter is to allow readers to view life and its intricacies, complexity, and sudden reversals almost exclusively through the experiences of the characters. As a result, fiction readers looking for an escape from their own day-to-day entanglements will find in these books a place where transportation into a virtual world is pleasingly easy and without the slippery footing so common in current literary fiction. Norman’s gripping realism feels exacting and personal even if it is drawn from places and characters that could be right next door. The scenes arrive, ruddy-cheeked and vital, from any one of a number of common memories and experiences that the author provides. Common only in their familiarity; uncommon in their singular personality and well-delivered descriptions. Norman steeps his stories in slowly revealed character studies, influenced as they should be, as they must be, by landscapes and neighbourhoods and relationships that this strong, characterful author knows well. Knows in his bones and his scars and his mature sensibility. He communicates fluidly, with the firm hand and big heart we desire from a storyteller.

Even treacherous ground like a failed high school romance renewed does not succumb to treacle or overwrought plotting and stilted dialogue. Instead, the relationship is renewed with subtle vibrancy, coming off the page and drawing us in with the feelings and emotions we know to be true to the situation. Norman has that deep well to draw from:

“The supreme question about a work of art is out of how deep a life does it spring. Paintings of Moreau are paintings of ideas. The deepest poetry of Shelley, the words of Hamlet bring our mind into contact with the eternal wisdom; Plato’s world of ideas. All the rest is the speculation of schoolboys for schoolboys.” —James Joyce, Ulysses

Norman adheres to this Joycean ethic without seeming as though he is trying to. His books about average, flawed people are indeed, “paintings of ideas;” word paintings, cut carefully with dialogue, imagery, word craft and the caring of a fully-invested artist.

Sometimes the characters may at first appear bleak or we find they are placed on stoney emotional ground. But unfailingly, they evolve at a pace well controlled—never contrived. Feelings furrow the ground, turning aside our first inclinations towards the character and revealing the core individual Norman has created. By allowing the characters to emerge more fully, the reader is brought along without effort or disbelief.

Families behave like families do: there is a hint of dysfunction and imperfection, even if the core is based on love and respect. Friendships have rough spots. Cars don’t always start when you need them to. If there was a rocket ship or a superhero or a cataclysmic event in a Norman book, it would sputter or flutter or remind you of butter—this author is simply not tempted by overkill and literary hyperbole. Rather than depend on mighty but unlikely events or personalities, Norman’s stories move along in less imposing circumstances and arrive where they should, after a satisfying and trying struggle. The author leaves the reader—and often the main character—worse for wear, but better for the experience.

People fall in love. They become ill. Some recover and others die. Dreams die too, though somehow we know that among those dreams, even those belonging to characters we first believed to be weak or ignoble, might be given a second chance.

A Gift of Scars: Gritty, untarnished realism with the deftly applied fictional touch of an observant and world-wise writer. At times darkly shaded, in the end, Scars leaves us with the feeling that perseverance, emotional honesty and the ability to keep striving despite our despair will serve us well.

In Bingo at the Legion, we think we have happened upon a quotidian gathering of “ordinary folks.” While this is not untrue, the underpinning fact is that there are no ordinary lives and that life is both fickle and generous. We know from watching Brenna, Grady, and Jasper that past missteps can be retaken and it is within our scope to alter what fate has given us no matter how unlikely it seems.

The lessons available through these enjoyable contes de vie are provided with a delicate touch—no authorial overburden. The characters become known to us and real in our minds. When we reach the tightly written conclusions, we may be surprised but never shocked or taken outside of the story. The characters reveal what we have been skillfully led to see in them.

The perfect Christmastime getaway? Travel to Lake Dauphin and back via Bingo at the Legion, Oz Destiny, Not My Dog, A Gift of Scars, and Lovely Way to Burn. https://greggnormanauthor.com/books/

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A writer whom I’ve connected with often on the internet — but not yet in person — is Gregg Norman. He’s an interesting guy and like me, comes to fiction as more of a “second act” but in Gregg’s case he absolutely hit the prose trail running hard and fast, lean and loping.

Gregg and wife Jenine reside in western Manitoba and like Janice and I, they spend a lot of time staring out at open water, or seasonally adjusted, an expanse of snow-covered ice.

I invited him to answer a couple of questions and provide writing from his recent work. Here goes:

MJT — “What has shaped and influenced your writing? Life experiences, places, reading, movies, people?”

Gregg —

I was a bookish type as a child though I grew up in a virtually bookless home. I credit my love of the written word to a wonderful librarian in my hometown and some inspirational English teachers and professors in high school and at university. I read voraciously and eclectically. Beyond all that the biggest influence on me as a writer is my wife, Jenine, who is intimately involved in many aspects of the creation of my novels and who believes in what I do (which puts her at the top of my list of morale supporters).

MJT — “In reading your work, I get a sense of Elmore Leonard’s idea that the ‘writing should disappear.’ Is this intentional or is that just a part of your natural style? Would you care to illustrate with an excerpt?”

Gregg —

Elmore Leonard was a wise man. He said, “If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.” I think that is good advice. A writer needs to know when and how to stay out of his own way. The idea is for the writer to be hidden in the background, out of sight. Tell the story, paint the picture, but keep out of it. My style is fairly spartan, I think. I try to resist the urge to write run on or complex sentences or to use too many adjectives.

Excerpt from “A Gift of Scars” —

The line of pot-beaters advanced quickly to close the gate. They cast aside their sticks and tin and took up bats and clubs and ax handles. One man carried a knobbed shillelagh, another a golf club, while others wielded hoes or shovels. They entered the pen, spread themselves out among the carpet of rabbits and started killing. The killers were tentative at first, feinting this way and that at the moving mass of animals. Then they swung their weapons with deliberate aim, encouraged by the skulls crushed, backs broken, eyes popped and guts oozing out between legs still kicking. They settled to their work quickly enough, killing methodically and with grim satisfaction.

One man swung a piece of lumber studded through with nails to which the rabbits became impaled, the better to confirm his kills as he flung them away and counted them aloud. Another man was stomping and crushing rabbits with both booted feet while swinging an ax handle in each hand, his arms and legs jerking wildly like the dancing of some mad marionette.

Excerpt from “Oz Destiny” —

Keeping her eyes downcast, she slowly removed her hat and leaned to set it on the ground. Then, with movements slow and easy, she toed off her boots and slipped out of her horsehide jacket and trousers. She wore a man’s undershirt and drawers and she removed these too. She stood naked with her head down, eyes averted. The stallion arched his neck and took a step toward her. By inches she turned away from him, lowered herself to her hands and knees, and bent her head to the ground, presenting herself to him.

Jesus, Rat rasped, I can’t believe what I’m seeing.

Neither can I, Oz said in a hoarse whisper.

I’m not sure I want to see what might happen next.

Then quit watching.

I can’t, dammit!

The stallion came forward haltingly, a few paces at a time, snorting and skittering in sidelong steps. At a distance of ten yards, he lowered his head, sniffed and blew twin clouds of dust below his muzzle. He lifted one front hoof as if he might advance further, but then abruptly whirled and charged off at a gallop to harry his mares into flight away down the valley until they were just dust and the dying sound of hoofbeats.

While they watched her dress and begin to climb back toward them, Oz and Rat shared an uneasy silence until Rat finally said, She’s completely gone in the head.

I’m not so sure of that, Oz said thoughtfully.

All I can say is it’s a helluva way to try to catch a wild horse.

She wasn’t trying to catch one.

No?

She was trying to be one.

~ ~ ~

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