Adjunct Gilmour?

I'd never heard of David Gilmour before his unfortunate descent into toward-dead-white-maleness (or would that merely be a transnational voyage through middle-aged Caucasia of the heterogametic sex?), but by now, of course, I have of course been subject to numerous notifications of his indecency, idiocy, sexism, racism, homophobia, and more.

And I've chimed in with my own two cents, too. Under one facebook update, I wrote, "word on the street is that Hemingway, Mailer, and fifty Dirty Realists are gonna go after this guy hard for not being mentioned in the interview. . ." The poet who originally posted was kind enough to give me a "like" for that.

But, also, of course, curiosity did indeed get the better of this cat, and so I searched for him where they can hopefully, or unfortunately, find us all, in this case Amazon's Canadian store. Low and behold, it does seem as if negative publicity effectively sells books.

According to amazon.ca, as of this writing, Gilmour's book rankings are 261 overall in Canada, 21 in literary fiction, and I look once more to see he is already sliding to 339 and 29, so ignorance, or honesty?, alone does not keep us at the top. He also has a couple one-star reviews from his new "fans," both published originally at the wider-webbing Amazon.com site.

It is what it is. For at least fifteen seconds, that is.

Also, now that it's established that he is a mere "instructor," just like so many of us who do assign the Kincaids and Walkers and Paleys and Jins and Krasikovs and more, the sad truth is that Mr. Gilmour is possibly in need of additional funds in this late stage of his life.

Impossible in Canada, the land of universal health coverage?

So in this sad way, it could just be, from north of the border, another bleak story about the writing life, career earnings, and contingent employment.

Okay, now I'll just sit back and wait for someone to prove Gilmour is a man of means by posting a photo of the Canadian literary giant climbing into his rugged manly man's 4 x 4 V8 made-tough pick-up truck after another hard day of boxing with the bull in Marcel Proust.