Consolation a prize Redhill didn't see coming

Canadian writer Michael Redhill didn't learn he'd been named to the long list for the Man Booker Prize, one of the world's most prestigious literary awards, until a day after the official announcement, when he gothis e-mail working.

He and his family were settlinginto a new home in the south of France, where they plan to spend a year, possibly two, and had just managed to set up internet access the day after the long list of 13 nominees was announced.

Redhill said he saw the e-mails streaming in saying "congratulations" and realized "something must have happened."

"It was a real shocker," he told CBC News, more so because the book that was nominated, Consolation, had been dismissed by Toronto critics.

"Consolation was on its horse riding off into the sunset with spear wounds in its side and suddenly the church bells started tolling again," he said.

Consolation may have failed to strike a chord because it is about Toronto, a city which is "widely feared and despised," Redhill said.

"A book that celebrates the city and also speaks in love and anger about the city, is one that quite possibly shuts down readers in that city," he said.

Redhill's inspiration for Consolation was a series of photographs of Toronto taken in 1856, shot to bolster its bid to become capital of a united Canada, a bid it ultimately lost.

The photos show a city in transition, with shantytowns giving way to public buildings such as Osgoode Hall and the substantial bank buildings of the age.

Consolation shifts between a contemporary mystery involving the suicide of a geologist who is searching for some old photos and the story of a young apothecary turned photographer in early Toronto.

Redhill says he is interested in how cities and people record their history and how continual construction and rebuilding changes the character of a city and covers over its past.

"From my perspective all of that is fascinating — what lives beneath us as we carry on in our daily lives is something that has always moved me," he said.

"And I find it particularly poignant in Toronto because there is always such a rush to erase things to make things look better, to build them higher to make the city a 'world class' city."

Redhill says now he knows he's a Man Booker contender, he'll be more alert about the next announcement — the names on the short list — on Sept. 6.

In the meantime, he's keeping a blog and working on a new novel.

"I have a novel in mind that I didn't want to start in Toronto because I knew I was going to be changing landscapes," he said.

Redhill, who wrote from Toronto before moving to France, is also author of Martin Sloane and Fidelity, a collection of short fiction.