To Me You Seem Giant
by Greg Rhyno
Find at your local bookstore
978-1-988732-00-8 | 2017 September | 264 Pages
ABOUT THIS BOOK
• Longlisted for the 2018 ReLit Awards!
• Finalist for the Trade Fiction Award at the 2018 Alberta Book Publishing Awards!
It’s 1994 and Pete Curtis is pretty much done with Thunder Bay, Ontario. He’s graduating high school and playing drums in a band that’s ready to hit the road. Even though his parents, teachers, and new girlfriend seem a little underwhelmed, Pete knows he’s on the verge of indie rock greatness.
Fast-forward ten years, Pete finds himself stuck teaching high school in the hometown he longed to escape, while his best friend and former bandmate is a bona fide rock star.
Greg Rhyno's debut novel is full of catchy hooks, compelling voices, and duelling time signatures. Told in two alternating decades, To Me You Seem Giant is a raucous and evocative story about trying to live in the present when you can’t escape your past.
“An engrossing and masterful debut, To Me You Seem Giant reads like a love letter: to the Canadian music scene, to the 1990s, and to the city of Thunder Bay.”
~ Amy Jones, author of We’re All in This Together
“Rhyno knows of what he writes: the fervor of indie rock adolescence, the convolutions of adulthood, and the heartache in plumbing the past. A poignant and truthful novel, delivered with grace and panache.”
~ Rob Benvie, musician and author of Maintenance
“For a novel that's a lot of fun, Rhyno's book is ultimately kind of uncool. Uncool in a good way, though. In the end, it's a love song to adulthood, about the journey from disorder to order, an acknowledgement that you can leave behind a lot of the bad of your youth and still bring all the good music with you.”
~ Andrew Hood, Bookshelf
“To Me You Seem Giant is a smartly observed journey about how to move forward.”
~ Michael Sobota, The Chronicle-Journal
“A brooding tenor—combined with a lifelong love for music that manifests itself in new ways as he ages—lends Pete’s character a believable continuity.”
~ Becky Robertson, Quill & Quire
“To Me You Seem Giant is ultimately a touching and hopeful reminder of the need to confront the demons of your past in order to move on.”
~ Alexander Kosoris, The Walleye
“Underneath the layers of rock and roll is a compelling tale of lost loves, backstabbing bandmates and wondering where it all went wrong.”
~ Steven Sandor, Avenue Edmonton
“... a truly Canadian story that I think anyone who came of age in the 90s will really enjoy.”
~ Worn Pages and Ink Blog
“Rhyno mixes in enough wit and self-deprecation with the troubles of youth and ennui of adulthood to make the story freshly entertaining, and the encyclopedic list of 1990s-era cultural artefacts provides a warm nostalgia for anyone who grew up in that unique historical moment.”
~ William Best, Canadian Literature
“... each character was drawn so empathetically I felt like they were friends of mine by the end of the book; I was sad to close the last page on them.”
~ Anne Logan, I've Read This
By the time I get up on the roof, Soda’s already polished off two bottles of Crystal and he’s working on his third. I don’t actually need to see him to know this. While I worked my way from the dumpster lid to the first-floor addition to the terrifying second-floor lintel, I could hear the empties completing their journey to the teachers’ parking lot. Mortality Reminders, Soda calls them.
He doesn’t turn around when I find him. Instead, he slides another bottle out of the case, twists off the cap, and sets it beside him. It stands at attention while Soda dangles his feet over the edge and tries to light a smoke behind the shield of his jeans jacket. I get a wave of vertigo just watching. I keep a safe distance and reach down for the beer.
“Sodapop,” I say.
“Ponyboy,” he mumbles, cigarette bouncing up and down.
Up this high, there’s a sting in the air and it doesn’t feel like summer anymore. I guess in about a week it won’t be. I tuck my hair behind my ears but a few mutinous strands escape and flap in my face. For a minute or so, we drink in silence and survey the view. Down and to the east I can make out the aging chain-link fence that circles the student parking lot across the street. It’s empty except for Trevor Shewchuck’s Fiesta, which rotted there all summer because he’s too cheap to have it towed, and because there’s no one left at school to care. Beyond that, the city becomes a dotting of streetlights, the red-brown roofs of bungalows and wartime houses, and the unfathomable blackness of the lake.
You know that song Neil Young sings about a town in North Ontario and how all his changes happened there? I always wanted that song to be about Thunder Bay, but it’s not. Thunder Bay isn’t the kind of place you write a song about.
“I can’t wait to get out of here,” I say.
I know it sounds a little rehearsed, like the kind of thing people say standing on rooftops in movies, but it’s the truth. Soda nods. He doesn’t say anything.
The Tragically Hip - “Looking for a Place to Happen”
Sloan - “The Rest of My Life”
Hayden - “In September”
Joel Plaskett Emergency - “Come On, Teacher”
Thrush Hermit - “French Inhale”
Broken Social Scene - “Almost Crimes”
Superfriendz - “Rescue Us from Boredom”
The New Pornographers - “The Laws Have Changed”
Killjoys - “Today I Hate Everyone”
Sam Roberts - “Where Have All the Good People Gone?”
Odds - “It Falls Apart”
Metric - “Combat Baby”
Lowest of the Low - “Salesmen, Cheats, and Liars”
Death from Above 1979 - “Romantic Rights”
Zumpano - “The Party Rages On”
Constantines - “Nighttime/Anytime (It's Alright)”
Sloan - “Worried Now”
Arcade Fire - “Rebellion (Lies)”
The Gandharvas - “The First Day of Spring”
Feist - “Let It Die”
Eric's Trip - “June”
Jim Guthrie - “Time is a Force”
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