>>FEATURE
VINCENT LAM
Monday, January 15
John Dutton Theatre (W.R. Castell Central Library)
Vincent Lam is the kind of writer other writers love to hate. Years ago when I was just starting out, a poet remarked to me, "I can’t stand people who say, ‘when I’m done being a doctor, I’m going to write my novel.’ As if writers could say, ‘when I’m done being a writer, I’ll take up brain surgery.’" I remembered this particular anecdote upon hearing trickles of negative reaction from the literary community about newbie author Vincent Lam’s recent Giller win for Bloodetting and Miraculous Cures. But Lam did something even more incredible than pen a sharp collection of linked stories from his Physician’s Retirement Complex. At the tender age of 32, Dr. Lam is unafraid to occupy both the writer and doctor position simultaneously and successfully. A full-time emergency room physician in a busy Toronto hospital, a non-fiction author and father of a two-year-old, he somehow found the time to pen a Giller prize on the first try. Now the book has been optioned for a TV series. Of course I hate him! Except that, speaking with Lam over the phone from his home in Toronto, my vitriolic jealousy subsides quickly. He speaks calmly with assuredness, yet humbly and eloquently about the recent extraordinary occurrences in his complex professional life.
Describe the moment you found out you’d won the Giller. What went through your mind?
I was really quite shocked, I didn’t really expect to win the Giller. A lot of things in life we imagine in advance – people prepare for their weddings, for example, or social appointments. But really I didn’t anticipate it. It was a strange kind of dual self-experience. I felt as if I were watching myself win a prize.
What has been the reaction you’ve received from your medical colleagues about the book? Is there ever a sense that you’ve betrayed the secrets of the profession or have doctor-readers expressed excitement about literature that resonates with their daily lives?
The reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. It’s been a lot of fun for my colleagues, both physicians and nurses, because it was an unusual thing to have one of their colleagues involved in the arts in this way. A lot of people end up feeling "that is our story and I’m glad that someone is telling it." All I can say is that everyone in the book is both faulted and virtuous at different points.
Do you get recognized by patients or people coming by the hospital to meet you?
I do get recognized and it varies from day to day. It’s a bit random. Some days two or three patients in a row will recognize me, a couple of occasions by sheer coincidence, I’ve seen patients who have had my books with them for the wait in the waiting room.
Tell me about your chance encounter with Margaret Atwood on a boat and how that affected your career.
I continue to work occasionally as a ship doctor, so I was going to the Arctic to work as a doctor with no knowledge that Margaret was going to be on the boat. Margaret was the ship writer and would bring people who are cultural or literary personalities to add a certain kind of richness to the trip. We cruised around the Arctic for a couple of weeks and towards the end of the trip (and at this point the book was about halfway done), I sheepishly asked Margaret if she would look at my collection and she agreed. I realize now what a ridiculous request it was. Now I do have more of an appreciation for it. Perhaps because we’d been hanging around for a few weeks or maybe just out of a whim of the moment, she agreed to, but she asked me what it was I wanted – did I want her to look at it and tell me good things or the truth. So I said, "uh, well, tell me the truth," and she said, "are you sure?" So I said "yes." Some time later after the trip, I sent her some passages from the collection and she ended up speaking very kindly about them. She’s certainly been a great supporter and friend since then.
When people ask what you do, do you say writer or doctor? Do you feel more one than the other?
I would say both equally. Just today, one of my medical friends, entirely in jest, said, "Oh, in fact, we don’t even really think about you as a doctor anymore, we think of you as a writer. I wonder why that writer is walking around with a stethoscope?" |
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