By Hamutal Dotan

Left to right: Jay McInerney, David Rakoff, Miriam Toews, Calvin Trillin. Photo by Hamutal Dotan/Torontoist.

Book readings are, in a certain way, transgressive. In bridging the usual remove between author and audience, and in reinstantiating the written word as performance, they breach the boundaries which usually govern our experience as readers. Book readings rely on that transgressive quality for their success: a good book reading is one in which listeners feel genuinely connected to the author they are hearing, and in which the performance conveys something more than whatever is contained in the written work alone.
The inaugural edition of the Open House Festival, held this past weekend, was a raging success as measured by the quality of the work and the authors assembled, and by its attempt to satisfy a real hunger for more substantive, ambitious literary events among Toronto’s book-loving populace. As the near- and maximum-capacity crowds demonstrated, we want and need more occasions like this. But, as measured by its attempt to create a rapport between that populace and the writers who took the podium, Open House fell, regrettably, far short of the mark. We spent most of Saturday and some of Sunday at various Open House readings, and kept bumping up against the same sense of disappointment. We really, really wanted to love this new festival, with its promise to “bring together the very best writers and thinkers from Canada and around the world for a unique program of readings and discussions that will provoke, entertain and enlighten.” But it simply didn’t want to love us back.
We’re incredibly glad that Open House now exists—plans are already underway for next year’s edition, and we truly hope that it will become an annual fixture. With just a few small but crucial adjustments, it will be able to fulfill its tremendously exciting potential. Those tweaks matter though. Events like this, when they work, trade on a sense of intimacy—this is how a reading differs from reading, by creating a kind of connection (between author and audience, and among a community of readers) which the written word alone cannot. As soon as Open House learns how to foster that feeling, it will become, as it aspires to be, extraordinary.
And now, a reading-by-reading play-by-play for all the book lovers in the (Torontoist) house…

Stuart McLean at last year’s Hillside Festival. Photo by ProdigyBoy.

Saturday, 12 p.m.: Stuart McLean, Ann-Marie MacDonald, Christian Lander

BY KAREN AAGAARD
There are three kinds of authors in this world—that is, three kinds of authors who’ll stand in front of a packed house, and read aloud from one of their works. The first is the affable, well-spoken, self-deprecating sort who goes out of his or her way to connect with the riff-raff (you know, the people who paid money to hear them speak). More often than not, these sorts spend a good portion of their “talking time” introducing their selected passage, and giving audience members—even those with little-to-no prior knowledge of their works—a reason to care. The second type of author is a little less banter-y, and a little more Grandpa-y. (A few jokes, an eyebrow arch, an anecdote or two—and then blam! the reading begins, and you’d better not still be wrestling with your sister.) The third kind of author simply stands at the podium, thumbs through their book to find the spot they’d earmarked on the car ride over, and launches into their reading without so much as a “hello, how are ya.”
At Saturday’s first reading of the day we have the opportunity to observe these three types of authors in action. Lander, the now-infamous brain behind the blog Stuff White People Like, and author of the book with the same name, supplements his reading with a half-dozen knee-slappers and even tells the story of how his blog—and his book deal—came to be (“It started as a joke for my friend Miles.”). Ann-Marie MacDonald, who notes that she is here “in the place of Rex Murphy,” prefaces her reading with a story about a dream she’d had the previous night: it involved meeting Sydney Crosby and finding her nanny in bed with Anne of Green Gables. (Did somebody say Canadian content?) Stuart McLean, arguably the best reader of the bunch, eschews any sort of introduction, and begins his narration immediately. Given his The Vinyl Cafe notoriety, perhaps he felt as though an unscripted aside would be unnecessary. To be honest, though, we’d hoped for a little more off-the-cuff Stewie (he is a first-rate storyteller, after all), and a little less of the guy we hear every Saturday morning on the CBC. But that’s just us.

Elizabeth Hay at a reading earlier this year. Photo by Giul.

Saturday, 4 p.m.: Wayson Choy, Elizabeth Hay, Zoë Heller, Nino Ricci

BY SARAH NICOLE PRICKETT
It is a dark and stormy afternoon. We straggle into the back row of folding chairs, behind pews and pews of mostly greying heads, feeling like latecomers to mass. But the sermon being delivered currently by Wayson Choy is one the audience actually wants—and paid $15 each—not only to hear, but also to feel and see. We believe it’s called an “experience,” but in a long hall, it feels more like a lecture. Readings should happen in the round, amid an eager cluster of chairs; better yet, on the ground, everyone cross-legged and feeling communal. It’s hard to imagine the sober crowd digging that, though. Perhaps a little sponsor beer would loosen the mood? And what about food, the easiest way to feel as though you’re partaking in something? Maybe we’re just spoiled journalists, but when we heard “Open House,” we envisioned a punch bowl, maybe a pig or two in blankets. No luck. Given the recyclable cups circulating, there’s probably free coffee, somewhere. Great. There’s also free coffee at McDonald’s. A sandwich board tells us the event is sponsored by Metro, but said sponsorship hadn’t extended so much as a finger of ham-and-havarti.
The woman doing introductions with all the gusto of a nearly-retired librarian says to friends, at the break, that she’s surprised at how nearly full the room is. Well, so are we, considering the marketing campaign at work here. What marketing campaign, you ask? Yeah, exactly. It’s not as though there’s nothing to promote; the line-up is more than solid, it’s stellar, with Canada’s best cozying up to bright international talents. If Open House is to live up to its name, it needs alcohol, better invites, and a more mix-happy crowd. More like a book club, less like a library, please?

Jay McInerney. Photo by Hamutal Dotan/Torontoist.

Saturday, 8 p.m.: Jay McInerney, David Rakoff, Miriam Toews, Calvin Trillin

BY HAMUTAL DOTAN
First thought: wow, these are awfully high ceilings. No wonder it’s so echo-y in here. Then: must crane neck, can’t see a damn thing. Okay, time to stop being such cranks. After all, we love Rakoff’s incisiveness and dream of being half as good as Trillin when we grow up. We try to settle into our seats. McInerney gives us the requisite insider-y thrill, gratifying our voyeuristic impulses with a vignette about Plimpton in the good-ole Paris Review days, then proceeding to point out the autobiographical bits of a story featuring endless amounts of “Bolivian marching powder.” Rakoff’s material is likewise entertaining, but likewise entirely predictable. It all feels a little…safe, like we’re watching a performer on the hundredth night of his show: the emotions are a well-rehearsed shadow of their formerly fresh selves. When Trillin’s turn comes we realize (as always) that we’re in the hands of a master. He knows how to work the crowd, and we finally start to relax a bit. There’s love in his voice when he tells us about Alice, and real warmth when he cracks wise about Canadian gentility. We just wish the acoustics allowed us to hear more than every other of his no-doubt wise and witty words.