Two weeks before 1982 was to be published, Jian Ghomeshi was worried about how his first book would be received.
“I was shitting bricks. I had no idea how it would be accepted,” Ghomeshi said.
Ghomeshi was in Ottawa Oct. 27 to promote his first autobiography, 1982, at the Ottawa Writers Festival. Published Sept. 18 by Penguin Books, the host of CBC’s daily radio show Q said he did not intend to write an autobiography, but felt that 1982 was an important year in his life.
“I felt that me being 14 and wanting to be [David] Bowie was very much a story I could tell,” he said.
In light of his desire to always perform, a bad reception was particularly worrisome for Ghomeshi.
“I’m kind of a natural-born performer and I’ve always performed. It’s hard even when I’m just doing a talk to not want to perform somehow,” he said.
“I’m very hard on myself when I feel like I didn’t give a good time.”
Ghomeshi said that his past creative endeavours — playing in a band that released nine albums and writing a daily show — is “nothing quite like writing a book.”
“You’re in solitude for a year, and writing something, which in this case is quite personal that involves my parents and others. The stakes are really high.”
When the critiques did come out, however, Ghomeshi tried to ignore the inconstructive criticism, especially a “really bad” one in the National Post.
“I don’t think the guy read the book. I really think he read the beginning, and he was just taking me down because I’ve done too well for him or something.”
Criticism aside, Ghomeshi said his favourite part of 1982 is the part where he recounts his performance in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
“They give me a shirt to wear in the Shakespeare play because they ran out of cool outfits the other actors were wearing, and I’m wearing tights and this huge shirt that was too big on me,” Ghomeshi said.
“I’m this skinny guy and the shirt is like a mini-dress and so I already look like a transvestite or something, and I think I’m okay, people are laughing because I’m doing well, maybe they’re not noticing [the outfit].”
Ghomeshi said he knew what everyone was laughing at when his father finally came up to him and asked him why he was wearing a dress.
After 1982, and perhaps in 10 years, Ghomeshi joked that he sees himself in “a ditch somewhere, with a long beard, the smell of alcohol on my breath, [and] tire tracks on the side of my jeans.”
He said his “adventures happen very fast,” but he wants to stay in Canada, because to him it’s home.
When he’s abroad he misses “the CBC, Tim Hortons, the people who see the world from a Canadian perspective.”
“I miss the clash of cultures that creates what Canada is.”
