Last Saturday, Frankie McMillan’s The Father Of Octopus Wrestling (Canterbury University Press) was launched at Scorpio Bookshop here in Christchurch.

The event featured a great turnout and an Octopus cake — with a very nice introduction by Catherine Montgomery, the publisher at CUP, and the official launch speech by fellow-author, Tracy Farr, who really seemed to “grok” Frankie’s work. It was particularly nice to have Catherine Montgomery cite my July 8 post on Frankie’s prior book, My Mother and the Hungarians, with respect to Frankie’s “slantwise” and “subversive” voice, together with quotes from Lloyd Jones and Steve Braunias.

The Octopus cake with books behind…

Despite not feeling terribly well, Frankie still managed to give a creditable author’s speech and to read two of the “short fictions” from the new book — before “dealing” to the Octopus cake. 😀

Tracy Farr giving the launch speech

It’s been ages since I’ve been to a launch, or any literary event for that matter, but this one was lively, fun, and we all got to share Frankie’s pleasure in so beautiful a book, which really is exquisite — book as objet d’art as well as story. 🙂 And although I’ve only had a sneak-peek so far, what wonderful stories they are!

Frankie prepares to deal to the Octopus. 🙂