Nathaniel G. Moore

Nathaniel G. Moore is a Canadian novelist and journalist.

In spring 2007, Moore released Let’s Pretend We Never Met with Toronto’s Pedlar Press. The book’s central theme was the interactions between the dead Latin poet Catullus and the author himself. Jacqueline Turner of The Georgia Straight wrote, “Moore metaphrastically transforms so many literary genres into poetry and works so thoroughly through the most everyday of concepts (love, that is) that the breadth of the work is breathtaking."^[1] In an Arc Poetry Journal review, critic Harold Rhenisch wrote, “It’s all brilliant and witty and dense and difficult, and like that other academic language poet, the cover girl of American poetry, Jorie Graham, it’s rushed. Intellectually, this poetry is brilliantly conceived.”^[2] Rhenisch concludes, “To read Let’s Pretend We Never Met is like looking at one of Pollack’s pieces with a magnifying glass. The intent may be a sense of the renewal of history and its fresh embodiment in the present, but the result is a clear statement about the impossibility of the task. What is left after the book has asplashed its paint around is the noise – visual, acoustic, and personal of the city. The portrait of the human body here is one of so inured to life in a dehumanizing architecture that it has become not Eliot’s pattern of nerves cast on a creen but the screen and projector itself.”^[2]

In spring 2008, Moore co-edited Toronto Noir, a collection of noir-inspired literary short stories from an eclectic mix of Toronto writers. It was the first Canadian-focused in the Noir series published by Brooklyn’s Akashic Books.

In fall 2009, Moore released his debut novel Wrong Bar with Tightrope Books. Wrong Bar was shortlisted for the ReLit Award for Novel in August 2010.^[3] In a review of Wrong Bar, Edward Brown of The Globe & Mail compares Moore's writing to Hunter S. Thompson and William S. Burroughs.^[4] Mark Medley of National Post also likens Moore to Burroughs, "as if cut-up technician William S. Burroughs joined MySpace."^[5]

Savage 1986-2011 was published in November 2013 by Vancouver literary publisher Anvil Press. The novel, Moore's first in four years, is described as "a family novel about the blurred lines between child and adult roles, economic turbulence, the ever-changing landscape of interior heroism." According to Moore, the book was inspired by everything from the twelve labours of Hercules to Gore Vidal's The City and the Pillar. The book is divided into twenty four chapters named after New Order song titles.

In an interview with Quillblog in November 2011, Moore stated the book "chronicles the 'middle class implosion' of his own family, set between February 1986 – when Moore first saw Savage on television – and the wrestler’s death in May 2011."^[6] Excerpts of the novel have appeared in SubTerrain, Joyland,Taddle Creek and Lies With Occasional Truth.

A short film was made and released online to support the release of Savage 1986-2011. It was edited by artist and poet Paule Kelly-Rhéaume and featured old VHS clips from the author's teen years and a contemporary interview conducted by Toronto author Spencer Gordon.^[7]

Savage 1986-2011 won the 2014 ReLit Award for best novel.^[8] His next book, The Chelsea Papers, is forthcoming with Anvil Press and is Moore's first collection of short stories.

Moore has contributed work to several newspapers, magazines and literary journals, such as The Globe & Mail, National Post, Quill & Quire, Verbicide, This Magazine and The Antigonish Review. He is currently a columnist for Open Book: Toronto.

Bibliography

• Wrong Bar (Tightrope Books, 2009)
• Pastels Are Pretty Much the Polar Opposite of Chalk (DC Books, 2009)
• Toronto Noir (Akashic Books, 2008) as co-editor
• Let's Pretend We Never Met (Pedlar Press, 2007)
• Bowlbrawl (Conundrum Press, 2005)
• Savage 1986-2011 (Anvil Press, 2013)
• The Chelsea Papers (Anvil Press, forthcoming)

References

External links

• Nathaniel G. Moore's blog