McFetridge: “Writing Crime Fiction Is Also a Good Way to Deal With the Huge Amounts of Hypocrisy I See Every Day”

As part of January Magazine’s “Author Snapshot” series, Canadian novelist John McFetridge (Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere) responds to somewhat fewer than 20 questions having to do with his reading preferences, how his writing process has changed with the growth of his children, and his movie-loving past. Right up front, editor Linda L. Richards provides a good synopsis of McFetridge’s place in the crime fiction sphere:

Though The Toronto Star recently described John McFetridge as Canada’s answer to Elmore Leonard, in some ways that doesn’t even begin to cover it. If anything, McFetridge’s voice is colder, starker than Leonard’s, something likely due to the fact that this made-in-Canada author wears his nationality like a Hudson’s Bay blanket. McFetridge is one of a new breed of Canadian crime fictionists, building neo noir that seems touched by both the humor and self-consciousness of life north of the 48th.

Publishers Weekly called McFetridge’s most recent book, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, a “noir love song to Toronto,” while in an early review for Quill & Quire, Sarah Weinman also chose the Leonard comparison, saying that “both writers seamlessly mix the police procedural with perp procedural to underscore the parallel lives of members of the opposing teams. But where Leonard tends to favour Hollywood-homicide banter, McFetridge keep the quips to a minimum, preferring punch to panache. As a result, the only time his prose gets purple is when fists are flying.”

You can read the whole piece here.