Jack Rabinovitch, founder of the Scotiabank Giller Prize, joined the throng of publishers, journalists and agents who jammed the telephone lines to Kentville, N.S., on Thursday, begging tiny Gaspereau Press to outsource the production of Johanna Skibsrud's prize-winning but scarce debut novel, The Sentimentalists.
"Here you have a group of young people who have to decide if they're printers or publishers," Rabinovitch said, adding that he discussed the issue with Gaspereau co-owner Gary Dunfield and received his assurance that a solution to the production bottleneck is imminent. "I would like to see the books out," he said.
Gaspereau is hand-printing 1,000 copies a week of The Sentimentalists, which since winning the Giller Prize on Tuesday has vaulted past Keith Richards's Life and George W. Bush's Decision Points to the top of the Amazon.ca bestseller list. Demand for the book is sufficient to justify the production of about 1,000 copies a day, according to industry sources. Although it is unavailable in print form at any Indigo or Chapters chain store, electronic copies readable by that company's Kobo e-reader are also selling briskly.
"When I spoke to Gary Dunfield, he assured me that they had spoken to the author and that they hoped to resolve the matter," Rabinovitch said. "He's given me the assurance and he promised to get back to me tomorrow [Friday] night."
However, Dunfield played down the suggestion that any new deal is imminent. "I think at this point we're deciding early next week," he said from Kentville, declining to reveal any details of a potential new plan - or even if one exists. He told The Canadian Press that he and his business partner, Andrew Steeves, were considering "three or four options" to speed up the production of The Sentimentalists. "There will be an announcement," he said. "I promised Jack I would let him know."
The situation has touched off a hot debate between those who commend Gaspereau for sticking to its non-commercial principles and others who accuse it of sabotaging its own author's best interests. The company has already rebuffed approaches from at least two established publishers to bring out The Sentimentalists in a larger edition that could be distributed to stores in time for the Christmas shopping season.
Meanwhile, as it attempts to mediate that dispute, the Giller's founding family is simultaneously dealing with the conduct of competition juror Ali Smith, a British novelist who ruffled feathers by connecting Skibsrud with the same London literary agency of which she is a client, helping the author arrange for British publication of her book even before it emerged as a finalist in the annual competition.
"It's not so much a conflict as it is poor judgment," said Giller organizer Elana Rabinovitch, Jack's daughter.
She said she discussed the matter with Smith on Thursday morning as her father worked the phone lines to Kentville. The former juror explained that she shared many other books with agent Tracy Bohan, "which was the problem, Elana said. "But I don't think anything nefarious took place."
Neither Smith nor Bohan was available for comment.
Potential jurors are asked not to discuss any of the books before the final presentation, according to Elana. "But this is a point we may have to drive home a little more with jurors," she said.
She expressed confidence that the contretemps will do little to undermine the Giller's reputation as Canada's most influential literary prize. "There are a lot more important things going on in the world today than the appearance of a conflict with a literary prize," she said, "especially when that conflict turns out to be not a conflict but a case of poor judgment."
Smith's faux pas marked the second time in as many years that a British Giller juror has appeared to misbehave: Victoria Glendinning publicly discussed her judging experience before the announcement of last year's winner, The Bishop's Man by Linden MacIntyre.
But the Giller organizers plan no change to the policy of appointing a majority of foreign judges to the three-person panel. "It hasn't made us sit down and re-evaluate the strategy of pushing the boundaries of the prize with international jurors," Elana Rabinovitch said. "That's not in the cards."