Kilworthy Tanner by Jean Marc Ah-sen (Vehicule Press, 2024) tells the story of Jonno—a ner’er-do-well and perpetually up-and-coming writer who becomes enthralled with the established, acclaimed, controversial, and already married but not monogamous author Kilworthy Tanner. What follows is a titillating metafiction that mirrors a literary world replete with “grasping, unprincipled” egos.
There’s much to love about this book, including Jonno’s narration, which teases and bites and soothes and is tender and playful. We are tickled to have Jean join us for this Power Q & A to talk about how he created his protagonist’s distinct voice.
Kilworthy Tanner by Jean Marc Ah-sen.
Q: We have to know: what was the inspiration for Jonno’s language? It’s simultaneously highfaultin and grubby and, should anyone feel compelled to speak his words aloud, it’s also just plain delightful to wrap your tongue around.
A: I started to have the impression that my style was becoming too defined for my liking, and that it was starting to ossify. Something written with a more conversational patter, while still being intensely voice-driven, felt like a good way to break out of this pigeonhole.
Jonno's narrative voice was modelled after autobiographies and novels pulling back the curtain on cryptic scene-affiliations - what Dee Dee Ramones's Lobotomy did for the early days of punk, or what Jean-Patrick Manchette's Nada did for post-1968 revolutionary fervour, were inspirations on writing group dynamics. I'm not sure if I was successful on these fronts, but I think that it is better to fail spectacularly than to toe an unremarkable line, stylistically speaking.
More about Kilworthy Tanner:
A madcap, witty account of an aspiring author’s relationship with an infamous and provocative mentor.
Fresh-faced Jonno is looking to make a splash in the literary scene when he encounters celebrated novelist Kilworthy Tanner at a party. Having sold first editions of her works to Toronto’s book dealers, he’s immediately star-struck and more than a little surprised when she takes an interest in him. Could this be the break he’s after? It’s not long before the controlling and aloof Kilworthy is casually letting young Jonno move in with her, and they begin co-authoring sensational and unruly fictions together. But who’ll get the credit for these collaborations, and why does he constantly feel like he must fend off rival authors? Fuelled by outrageousness and hell-bent on literary self-annihilation, Kilworthy Tanner is Jonno’s tell-all ‘pseudobiography’ of their entanglement, and he doesn’t withhold any details of the sexual degeneracy, prodigious drug use, and vendettas of the era.
Jean Marc Ah-sen. (Photo credit Justin Legace.)
More about Jean Marc Ah-sen:
Jean Marc Ah-Sen is the author of Grand Menteur, In the Beggarly Style of Imitation, and Kilworthy Tanner. His work has appeared in Literary Hub, The Walrus, The Globe and Mail, and elsewhere. The National Post has hailed his writing as an “inventive escape from the conventional.”