Nino Ricci
Nino Ricci and moderator Terence Byrnes, Associate Professor
University Librarian Gerald Beasley chats with Nino Ricci
Nino Ricci during the afternoon book signing in the Webster Library
- Listen to the podcast of the lecture
Twenty-two years ago, in the then-Norris Building on Drummond Street, Concordia creative writing student Nino Ricci presented his MA thesis to his advisor, Associate Professor Terence Byrnes, and other thesis committee members.
At the inaugural "Up Close and Personal" event April 23, Byrnes recounted that the committee spent more time discussing how to get the thesis published than critiquing it. The thesis ultimately became the bestselling book, Lives of the Saints (1990), which launched Ricci's writing career, garnered several literary prizes and was turned into a 2004 CTV movie starring Sophia Loren.
These were among the many tidbits revealed by Ricci, MA 87, and moderator Byrnes at the public discussion held in Concordia's J.A. De Sève Cinema. A crowd of about 110 literary enthusiasts heard Ricci speak about his writing process, especially when it came to his recent novel, The Origin of Species (Random House), winner of the 2008 Governor General's Literary Award for English fiction.
Ricci disclosed that while readers note that he and his novels' main characters often share similarities, there are always striking differences. For example, the protagonist of The Origin of Species, Alex Fratarcangeli, hails from Leamington, Ont., and is a creative writing graduate student at Concordia in the mid '80s—which was also true for Ricci. But Alex was a PhD student who experienced life-altering moments in the Galapagos Islands and Sweden, "and I didn't have any pivotal events to blame my own melancholy," Ricci related. "There's always a complex relationship between the writer and the character but it's dangerous not to create a distance between the two."
While at Concordia, Ricci's courses were split between creative writing and literary theory. He said that while it was trendy for students in the '80s to disparage the idea of narrative in fiction, he discovered the folly of moving away from story in his own writing. He credited his advisor, Byrnes, for pointing this out. "I had taken a vacation in the land of theory but I came back to narrative. I owe a lot of that to you," he said, turning to Byrnes.
Ricci also touched on his process for conducting research and the dangers of over-researching, "which can paralyze you. It's important to do just enough research to feel confident to enter the story. I remember spending many hours in the awful Concordia library [in the Norris Building]." The J.W. McConnell Building, which houses the J.A. De Sève Cinema and the Howard Webster Library, opened in 1992, four years after Ricci left Montreal.
Earlier in the afternoon in the library, Ricci signed copies of The Origin of Species and his other, newly released book, Extraordinary Canadians: Pierre Elliott Trudeau (Penguin Canada, 2009), which is part of an 18-volume series by 18 writers on 20 national figures. After the public discussion, Ricci also remained to sign books and meet his admirers.
