Russell Smith (1) (1963–)

The stories in Russell Smith's collection, Confidence, continue mining the vein he has carved out for himself through four novels and an earlier collection of stories, skewering the social and artistic pretensions of a mostly abhorrent class of upwardly mobile, conceited, self-absorbed young professional. Moreover, they do so with a degree of exuberance that suggests the author remains enthusiastically engaged in this particular brand of social satire more than two decades into his writing show more career.

Smith’s characters are envious and dissatisfied, morally compromised or living through some sort of relationship or emotional turmoil, usually self-inflicted. Life has brought them to a point where it seems that a big opportunity is just around the corner. But when they gaze at the darkened streets through an alcohol- or drug-induced haze from the back seat of a taxi, or survey the view from their bar stool or their seat in a restaurant, what they see are others who have more money, nicer possessions, cuter girlfriends (or boyfriends) and better prospects. In Smith’s fiction, social encounters do not take place innocently. Conversations between men and women carry more than a hint of sexual calculation. When two men talk, you can be sure a negotiation is taking place. The stories are fluent in the language of casual drug use. People getting high is the rule rather than the exception. The laughs are frequent, because Smith’s characters are self-medicating in order to dull the sting of failure. When forced to make an impression they can puff themselves up and appear cool. But reality lands with a thud in the morning light. What they want and what they get are often two very different things. Paradoxically, nobody is very sure of themselves. Confidence, it turns out, is a scarce commodity in the world depicted here.

These stories bristle with dramatic energy. We may not like Russell Smith's characters. We may not hope that they succeed, and in fact might actively root for them to fail. But there's no denying that Smith is a master when it comes to writing dialogue and setting a scene. Highly entertaining. show less

How Insensitive, as it follows the travails of a young man in the big city, wandering drunkenly from one party to the next, meeting models, and so on, all in the early 1990s, reminded me strongly of Jay McInerney. Except that, I hasten to add, it reminded me of Jay McInerney when Jay McInerney was good. That is, the McInerney of Bright Lights, Big City, not the disappointing McInerney of Brightness Falls and then The Good Life.

I hasten to that particular clarification because, unlike the show more later McInerney, whose pages are clogged with exposition and whose prose is often simply mundane, Russell Smith’s sentences crackle along. His dialogue is good and he never succumbs to the urge to go back and explain things for the sake of the dopey reader. How Insensitive is sharp and funny, and its nomination for the GG was well deserved.

So I find myself wondering why McInerney became a big success, while Smith remains, in the class photo of Canadian novelists, in the second row, behind Atwood and Ondaatje and all the other popular kids, but in front of Whatshername and Whothehellisthat. It’s certainly not for lack of a good book. show less

It's not a fantastic book but it's a solid read, maybe a bit above average. It follows James Willing, who isn't a great character but again, solid, and his "journey" through city life, writing for magazines or what have you about things he doesn't seem to care about. Reminds me of Glamorama but I'm not even entirely sure why. Maybe it's the writing style or just the general atmosphere of celebrity worship in it. The writing style is good, but I think the book was supposed to be funnier than show more it is. Didn't really make me feel anything much by the end either, but nice satire of the "elite" class who listens to classical music and claims faux-intelligence. I enjoyed that aspect quite a bit. show less

I picked up this book not as much for the content but because I was intrigued with the author’s reason for writing it. It is definitely erotica, so for those offended by gratuitous sexual descriptions, don’t even pick it up. Mr. Smith, a self-confessed man about town, did a little impromptu survey and found women thought words could be as erotic as touch … hence he gathered favourite fantasy stories from ladies of his acquaintance and combined them into one character whose adventures show more form the book … very successfully in my opinion. Because “women don’t want to read erotica written by a male author” this book was originally published under a female pseudonym. It was worth the read (blushing – I cannot deny that I enjoyed the book), but I enjoyed the “back story” just as much. show less