Apologia - Process

- Vincent Lam is clearly a successful Canadian author, as demonstrated through his Giller Prize win
- However, Lam is also respected internationally (see international reviews from Europe, Australia and the United States)
- Lam was nominated for an American short story prize (made the shortlist)
- Bloodletting touches on many universal themes, but portrays them in a fresh light
- Focuses on an industry that Canada is renowned for (medical)
- Distinctly Canadian settings and descriptions (Toronto streets, Canadian winters)

- “It has something - and that something is authenticity and drama and a feel of gritty real life.” - Margaret Atwood (CBC Arts)

- “Actually it does, because being a writer makes me listen for story. And if you can do that, you can get the diagnosis about 95 per cent of the time. But I'm probably more gifted as a writer. Being a diagnostician just requires a lot of work.” - Vincent Lam (Macleans)

- “Lam excels at this kind of steady accumulation of truths, a tangling of action and incident that renders judgment of the characters difficult, and futile besides.” (NY Times)

- “This is a rigorously balanced assessment of the achievements and limitations of modern medicine, as well as an atlas of suffering, survival and failure. Emotionally complex and layered, with a preternaturally surefooted negotiation of the human mind and heart, Lam's insanely gripping book is also illuminated by shafts of radiant, beautiful prose. Like all great fiction, it is both the absolute truth and a vehicle for taking us to a place we've never been before. Read it.” (Time Magazine)

- Lam is able to present all of his characters in different situations, which ultimately reveals different character traits. He possesses the ability to completely contradict an already perceived idea about a character simply by manipulating them into a different situation.

- Though educational, enlightening, heavy and heartbreaking, Lam has not forgotten that readers need to be entertained. Dispersed moments of comedy heighten the tone of the overall product, and allows the reader to continually engage with the text.

- Lam expresses masterful views on the mental condition, social norms, phycological ideas.

- Lam writes about what he knows - medicine. This creates a wholly honesty and convincing tale. Each character is a real person in the eyes of the reader, created only through vivid description, proving Lam’s mastery of the craft.

- Each of the stories are so vivid and articulate they become as real as our own lives.

- Lam unravels the inner workers of a doctor - someone we all come in contact with regularly, yet rarely contemplate the turmoil of their profession. Lam stops the reader from taking physicians for granted, and forces his audience to acknowledge them as more than just healers, but as people.

- Everyday life is molded into something far more astronomical. Lam heightens in seemingly unimportant moments we all experience and shines a light on their profound effects on who we are as people.

- Lam makes the ordinary extraordinary.

- This is his first book, yet he has already garnered much attention. It is clearly a sign of things to come.

- “Few first books are fortunate enough to receive both high praise and big awards, but Vincent Lam's Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures deserves the attention.” (PEHM)