March3
In this exclusive interview with Evadne Macedo, author of The 29th Day, John Bemrose speaks about his two novels, The Island Walkers and The Last Woman and how he writes poetry, novels and short stories.
The Island Walkers was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize (2004) and nominated for the Giller Prize (2003). In addition to his novels, John Bemrose has published two collections of poetry: Imagining Horses and Going Under. John Bemrose has also written various reviews and articles as a freelance arts journalist (his articles have appeared in the Globe & Mail, MacLean’s and other publications).
1. Something that you accomplished in both The Island Walkers and The Last Woman (and that I have tried to do in The 29th Day) is to bring poetry and beauty into even the most ugly situations. I have seen this done well in Dancer in The Dark (a tragic film musical set in a factory, starring Björk) or books like Kim Echlin’s The Disappeared and June Hutton’s Underground. For example, in The Last Woman, I quite liked your description of clear-cut logging: “In the distance, windshields glint where machines chew at the remaining bush. Clanking treads float their music in the heat. A road has been cut down the centre of the clear-cut, and along this a truck is advancing toward him, dragging behind a rising hill of dust.” Can you talk about the extent to which poetry informs your way of seeing life, such that it becomes infused into your fiction writing. Who would you say has influenced your particular style of poetic prose? Do you find it difficult to separate poetry from your prose and to focus on the narrative? Are there any books or guides you would recommend for poets writing novels?
I fell in love with poetry early on. My mother, who was a poet herself, used to recite Keats and the other Romantics to me when I was very young. Poetry was the first kind of literature I read as a teenager, and the first kind I tried to write. In fact, I published two books of poetry long before I published a novel, and as you say its presence is evident in my novels. The biggest influence in this regard was D.H. Lawrence, whose sensuous apprehension of the natural world attracted me from the beginning. In fact, I don’t believe a love of poetry and of the natural world can be separated. The ‘poetic prose’ of my fiction is virtually all tied to evocations of landscape and the effects of light, and to an entwining of these with the thoughts and moods of my characters. I want to show how intimately our being is involved with the natural world, not just physically, but psychically. I think this is perfectly compatible with maintaining narrative drive, as Lawrence showed. I don’t think of the ‘poetic’ aspects of my novels as separate in any way from the story. They are just an integral part of how things are. And this is something a writer must feel instinctively. It can’t be taught.
I fell in love with poetry early on. My mother, who was a poet herself, used to recite Keats and the other Romantics to me when I was very young. Poetry was the first kind of literature I read as a teenager, and the first kind I tried to write. In fact, I published two books of poetry long before I published a novel, and as you say its presence is evident in my novels. The biggest influence in this regard was D.H. Lawrence, whose sensuous apprehension of the natural world attracted me from the beginning. In fact, I don’t believe a love of poetry and of the natural world can be separated. The ‘poetic prose’ of my fiction is virtually all tied to evocations of landscape and the effects of light, and to an entwining of these with the thoughts and moods of my characters. I want to show how intimately our being is involved with the natural world, not just physically, but psychically. I think this is perfectly compatible with maintaining narrative drive, as Lawrence showed. I don’t think of the ‘poetic’ aspects of my novels as separate in any way from the story. They are just an integral part of how things are. And this is something a writer must feel instinctively. It can’t be taught.
2. When we met at The Café Florentin in early February, we spoke about the complexity of The Last Woman and I was intrigued by your description of the layers within it and your comparisons to The Island Walkers - can you repeat that here? Having read The Last Woman, my appreciation of it was heightened by Steven Hayward’s Globe & Mail review which captured the essence of this novel. Please describe the similarities and differences, as you see them, between The Island Walkers and The Last Woman.
The Island Walkers is more conventionally structured. It starts at a given point in time, in the mid-Sixties, and follows the life of the Walker family over the course of a year. Occassionally it is interrupted by flashbacks, but its progress is largely linear, straightforward. I think of it as a horizontal novel, as a journey is horizontal over the surface of the earth. On the other hand, The Last Woman is a vertical novel, with layers of present and past stacked on top of one another. I think of these layers as transparent. When you are in one layer, you can look down and see the layers of the past below it. This effect is enhanced by the fact that the novel has one main setting, a cottage lake in northern Ontario. The Scott family cottage, called Inverness, is present in all of the layers. So when the characters are having a dinner, say, on its screened porch, you can look into the past and see (or recall) earlier dinners in earlier decades, in the same place. You can also see the three main characters– the story is a love triangle –at different times in their lives. We do not really leave the past behind. Our whole lives are, in a sense, eternally present. I wanted to give the reader a glimpse of this.
3. As I noted in my recent blog posting, while waiting for reader feedback on my final version of The 29th Day, I am reading writing guides. The one I have found most practical in helping me understand the technicalities behind what I have done (or what I would like to do) in my writing, is The Art and Craft of Storytelling by Nancy Lamb. When I read The Island Walkers, I could not help but see it as a superb demonstration of the techniques Nancy Lamb wrote about – such as the need to alternate plots and sub-plots; or the need to make a promise to the reader at the beginning of the book that tells what the book will be about. I thought you did this particularly well, even in describing the setting on page 2: “On the edge of this neighbourhood, you will find a forest of sorts, sumacs and scrub maple forming a patch of wilderness in the heart of town. Much of this wilderness, curiously, has a cement floor, littered with broken liquor and wine bottles that glint in the dimming light, the blackened remains of bonfires. You might make other interesting discoveries: rusted, nondescript bits of machinery, a few soot-stained bricks. It seems, almost, that by some scarcely imaginable act of violence, an entire building – a vast complex of buildings – has been torn up and carried away.” What was your approach to developing this novel and how did you manage to showcase your craft as a writer this way in your first novel?
To take your last question first, I would hope I did the exact opposite of “showcasing my craft,” in The Island Walkers. Craft should be invisible– though of course people interested in craft will make an effort to notice it. Language, even ‘poetic’ language, needs to be transparent to the story, to the reality it evokes. This is as true for the writer as for the reader. As a writer, I live primarily with my characters. My attention to language, structure, technique and so on, though of course intense, is in a sense secondary — a means to an end.
As for my “approach to developing this novel,” it was far more instinctive than otherwise. When I began, I had a vague sense of the story, I had one or two events in mind, and a few characters. I had a sense of an opening mood. I knew roughly how I wanted the novel to end. But how I would get to the end– how the story would play out, chapter by chapter –I had no idea. I learned, through trial and error, that writing a novel is an act of faith. I learned that if I could write one chapter, the next one would suggest itself. It was like moving through a mist. I learned to trust that, if I walked forward, the mist would clear just enough for me to see what my next few steps would be.
4. The Island Walkers is marvellous in that it makes the reader keenly aware of the impacts of class and poverty on the main character, Alfred and his son Joe. I also think that you have captured the subtle pressures and allegiances of union membership so well. Please describe the impetus for this novel and what research or life experiences have enabled you to get inside your characters’ world.
The novel came out of my boyhood experiences in Paris Ontario, which supplied its setting and the memories and feelings that inhabit its depths. I did very little research– it was all there in my head. The union aspect was inspired by a wildcat strike in Penman’s Knitting Mills in 1949. The new union was crushed, an event which impacted painfully on most families in town, including my own. It made people wary of ever attempting to start a union again. I was aware of this fear as I grew up, and I wondered what would have happened if the mill workers had taken another shot at unionizing. This became the narrative seed for The Island Walkers, which opens in 1965. When a union organizer comes to town, all the old wounds are opened, and my hero, Alf Walker, is in the thick of things– drawn in several directions at once.
As for class, the Walker family is an odd mix because the parents, Alf and Margaret, have come from the working class and middle class respectively. This same split existed in my own family (in fact it exists in me) so when I evoke the class divisions in the town, I have a visceral sense of what they mean. Canadians like to pretend they live in a classless society, but the fact of class has infiltrated much of what we think and do.
Of course the novel is about a great deal more than class and unions. It contains several love stories, and in fact I would say these are the main focus of the book. Young romance, grownup love, the love of parents for their children and vice versa — all the varieties of love that can be found in any human community– and of which like everyone I have had my own experiences.
5. Kim Moritsugu told me she is like Dorothy Parker, who said, “I hate writing. I love having written” — sentiments that I am sure are shared by many writers. What I like most about writing fiction or poetry is the chance to play with words, putting them together in unexpected ways. As a new writer, I enjoy experimenting with the power of words and trying to make readers to think, feel or do something (many early readers “criticize” The 29th Day for keeping them up late … my end of chapter hooks being the “problem”!). I also enjoy reading (and creating) scenes where the tension builds to a surprising climax for the reader (see question #2 in my interview with Terry Fallis). What is your approach to writing and what do you enjoy about it?
Writing is an enjoyable struggle, enjoyable because– as you suggest– of the sheer, tactile joy of playing with words, of making and unmaking and trying again. You’re struggling to capture the truth you keep glimpsing in your head– that keeps retreating ahead of you, though now and then you might get close. Writing tests one’s powers to the limit. When I leave my work for the day, for all the exhaustion and worry, there is a satisfying sense of having used myself– of having gone all out, of doing what I’m meant to do. After writing– and after a hour or so to wind down– I’m far more able to enjoy the simple domestic tasks of the day. I think I’m also easier to get along with. If I haven’t written for a week or two, I can get pretty testy.
6. At the October 26, 2009 Humber Writers’ Circle, Miriam Toews spoke of the importance of having someone in your life who believes that writing is a legitimate use of your time. The first person to see potential in me as a writer was award-winning author, Terry Fallis – I wrote The 29th Day because of his support and he continues to shape my development as a writer in tangible ways. When did you first start to feel that writing was the right occupation for you? Have you been mentored or encouraged by someone? If so, in what ways was this helpful to you? Have you had a chance to mentor any other authors?
Writing has felt like the right occupation from the beginning– even when I was writing badly and feeling discouraged. I kept coming back to it because it felt like ‘home.’ It has mattered terrifically that my family has been supportive, especially my wife Cathleen, who not only believes in the work but has accepted that we will never be rich because of it. She is also my first reader, when I feel a book is done. While I’m still engaged in a book I show it to no one. Perhaps this is a mistake: but it is the way I am, it seems. After my family reads a manuscript, it goes to my fiction editor, Ellen Seligman, at McClelland and Stewart, who has helped me a great deal. We don’t always see eye to eye, but she challenges me in a way that is all to the good– she makes me think deeper, and from fresh angles. I’m a better writer because of her. As for mentoring younger writers, I haven’t done much in an intensive, ongoing way. But I have spoken with quite a few, I hope helpfully.
7. What are the practicalities behind your writing? Where and how do you like to write? Do you keep notes in a notebook? If so, at what point do you transfer them to a computer? Do you write on a laptop or a desktop? Do you hide yourself away in a quiet room or write at cafés? And the biggest question of all: Do you use a Mac or a PC?
I write five days a week on an iMac desktop, in a room in my house overlooking a schoolyard, where all the passions known to man are present in embryonic form. The cries of the children don’t bother me in the least. It seems a natural sound, like birds singing. I make no notes– too lazy for that. But I find the more you trust your memory the more it does for you.
8. How would you define success in the field of fiction writing? How does this compare from the field of journalism? Which kind of writing do you find most satisfying – short stories, non-fiction articles, poetry or novels? Which is the most challenging?
Novels are the most challenging. They are difficult, perhaps impossible, finally, to get entirely ‘inside’ you– to feel their whole weight and shape. In the end, you can never see the whole beast. You release it to the world and wonder, really, what you’ve done. I’m writing short stories just now, and finding the shorter length a pleasure. Stories are more manageable, you can sense the whole of them more easily, and their length makes them seem more natural– something a person might tell in an hour or two. And how lovely to know that in a month or six weeks you’ll be finished, ready to start another one. I’ve always been attracted to beginnings.
What is success? Earning money and reknown are important but secondary forms of success. The real success is knowing that your craft is growing richer, that it has led you to a more sophisticated understanding of life, that now and then you have made something beautiful.
9. My first novel, The 29th Day, is set in Toronto, but I anticipate that my second novel, Viral Hatred, will be more global in nature because of the subject-matter. Kim Moritsugu set all four of her novels in Canada, and I notice that you have done the same with your two. I have heard Canadian literature being criticized as too “regional”- the implication being that Canadian authors tend to set novels in Canada and thereby limit their appeal in markets outside Canada. On the other hand, if Canadian writers do not produce literature about us, and for us, it is certain that no one else will. Do you have any advice for aspiring novelists like myself on how to deal with this dilemma?
All novelists should address the subjects that grow out of their own guts– the things they are most deeply attracted to. Otherwise the book won’t be much good, even though it might have some short-lived commercial success. It will just be a shallow product of calculating craft and ambition, without vision or staying power. I find the pressure to be more ‘international’ silly. The greatest of all North American novelists, William Faulkner, spent his life writing about a parochial corner of Mississippi.
10. I’ve asked other authors, such as Pasha Malla, Terry Fallis, Kim Moritsugu about the links they see between their writing and social justice or the ways in which their writing can achieve positive social change or challenge stereotypes. Margaret Atwood recently won the World Economic Forum’s Chrystal Award 2010 which honours artists who aim to improve the world through their art. Both of your novels touch on social issues such as the dynamics of unionization/collecive rights, poverty, class, clear-cutting, addictions and land claims – what were your aims in raising these topics? I noticed in your interview with Sheelagh Rogers, that you were able to elaborate on some the thoughts that underly your examination of these issues in these novels and your attempt to reflect a common humanity. Have you been satisfied with your ability to link these novels to further opportunities to raise awareness of these kinds of issues or contribute to other forms of positive action? To what extent are people interested in hearing more about these issues? Have you been able to raise awareness of these issues through your media interviews or book readings?
It might sound odd, but when I write about union struggles, or clearcutting, or native poverty, I’m not primarily interested in promoting certain social issues, or in changing people’s behaviour in a certain direction. I’m interested in presenting problems, and at a fairly deep level. In The Island Walkers, I present unions as an example of people acting collectively, and the difficulties that entails. The corporation the union faces is also a collective entity, with different aims. The family is another form of collective. My hero, Alf Walker, is an individual who belongs to all these collectivities, and like all of us must make his way among them as best as he can, somehow creating a compromise between his own desires and those of the groups. This is a challenge we all face.
In The Last Woman, similar tensions are pursued. Another theme I’ve explored in this novel is the willfulness of our dominant culture– its tendency to take and do what it wants, under the rubric of freedom. It causes damage in the process– to the land, to the land’s original inhabitants, and ultimately to itself. This willfulness has its home in individuals. One of my characters, Ann, senses it in her husband, Richard– in his subtle, relentless coercion of others. But near the end of the novel she recognizes this same tendency in herself.
12. In your interview with Sheelagh Rogers, you said the ”sacred duty” of a novelist is to bridge the gaps between people. You said that it is important to stretch beyond first hand knowledge into someone else’s world; that this is what makes a book fiction rather than a memoir. Your analysis strikes me as rather similar to one I was trying to draw out in my questions for Pasha Malla and Kim Moritsugu relating to the ultimate question of “voice” and racial limits that may be placed on authors using a voice other than one linked to their own culture. Can you comment further on this?
Along with film, fiction is the great bridging art– it can show us the lives of people very different from ourselves and rouse our sympathy for them, which is surely a good thing. Unlike film, fiction can also take you inside a person, into his or her unmediated thoughts, fears, and passions. We become the character we are reading about. For the writer, this imposes huge responsibility– he or she is in effect carrying the soul, imaginatively speaking, of another human being. Now what if this human being is quite different from the writer– of a different sex, age, race or culture? Should he shy away from trying to inhabit such a character? It all depends on his knowledge, his nerve, his empathy, his talent, his ability to find the common human thread. And to discover whether he has all this, he has to try. I think writers must allow themselves to try anything, and that any piece of writing that is good, no matter whom it is written by, or what the subject is, should be published. Then let the debate begin as to whether he has got it right. Readers, both black and white, are still debating whether Faulkner got his black characters right, and the divisions in this debate are not along strict racial lines. Such discussions are salubrious in themselves, and can increase our knowledge of who we are.
13. To what extent have you reflected your own views in the sentiments Joe expresses on page 159 of The Island Walkers: “He remembered the iron wistfulness of her voice, the sun falling across their scattered books, remembered how the inside of his foot had accidentally brushed hers. Remembered too, the strange wave of sadness that had overwhelmed him, when she’d revealed her ambition: as if giving your life to poetry were some heroic but ultimately doomed act, like setting off to cross the Atlantic in a boat too small.”
Yes, Joe is thinking of Anna here, the young poet he has fallen in love with. I think Joe’s reaction reflects a common modern attitude that poetry is not very important, certainly not a serious calling, inherently dooming the poet to a kind of marginalization, and, in a sense, failure in life. Like anyone who’s written poetry, I’ve felt this attitude around me, and in low moments, have been tempted to adopt it. But then another poem comes– a joy like none other– and you think that being a poet’s the finest thing going.
A good poem– I mean one that takes the top of your head off– is an incredible achievement, and should be widely celebrated. I like to think there are societies where it still is. And perhaps I’m looking at the matter too narrowly. One could argue that pop songs are a kind of poetry– of lyric expression. In this sense, Canada with all its great singer-songwriters must be one of the most poetic nations on earth.
14. Do you have any final words of advice or encouragement for aspiring writers?
Write and read in equal measure, obsessively.
This interview was originally posted by Evadne Macedo at http://books.macedo.ca on March 3, 2010. Follow Evadne Macedo on Twitter.
John Bemrose’s Upcoming Appearances:
John Bemrose will be making three appearances in the Toronto Public Library system. He’ll be reading from his new novel, The Last Woman, and speaking about books and the writing life.
- March 4, Taylor Memorial Library, 1440 Kingston Road (at Warden) 7pm.
- March 31, Beaches Library, 2161 Queen Street East (at Lee), 7pm.
- April 15, Richview Library, 1806 Islington Ave (north of Eglinton) 2pm
For more information about John Bemrose, see:
When you visit http://books.macedo.ca, see also Evadne Macedo’s previous interviews and profiles:
- Pasha Malla: The Withdrawal Method (The 2009 Trillium Award; The Danuta Gleed Literary Award) (February 17, 2010)
- Kim Moritsugu: The Restoration of Emily; The Glenwood Treasure; Old Flames and Looks Perfect (February 3, 2010)
- Terry Fallis: The Best Laid Plans (January 20, 2010)
- June Hutton: Underground (January 6, 2010)
- Thomas Trofimuk: The 52nd Poem, Doubting Yourself to the Boneand Waiting for Columbus (December 16, 2009)
- Gina Buonaguro & Janice Kirk: Ciao Bella and The Sidewalk Artist(December 9, 2009),
- Don LePan: Animals (December 2, 2009)
- Ray Robertson: David (November 25, 2009)
- Deborah Willis: Vanishing and Other Stories (GG Finalist) (November 19, 2009)
- Joy Fielding: Still Life & many other novels (November 14, 2009)
Check back for upcoming interviews with:
- Anar Ali (Baby Khaki’s Wings)
- Priscila Uppal (poet-in-residence at the Olympics and is currently poet-in-residence at the Paralympics; author of poetry collections (Successful Tragedies: Poems 1998 – 2010, Ontological Necessities, Live Coverage, Pretending to Die, Confessions of a Fertility Expert, How to Draw Blood from a Stone) and two novels (The Divine Economy of Salvation and To Whom it May Concern). Priscila Uppal is a professor at York University and her academic book, We Are What We Mourn: The Contemporary English-Canadian Elegy, is forthcoming from McGill-Queen’s University Press (pending funding approval).
- Kristen den Hartog, author of three novels (Water Wings, Origin of Haloes, The Perpetual Ending), and a non-fiction book (The Occupied Garden which was co-written with Tracy Kasaboski))
- Sarah Sheard, psychotherapist and author of three novels (Almost Japanese, The Swing Era: a Novel, The Hypnotist: a Novel)
