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An Inspiring Leader Takes the Stage

Justin Trudeau, now Prime Minister of Canada, found inspiration on an early morning paddle on the Bow River in Calgary before the debate.

I am filled with hope today. Why? I feel inspired.
What exactly is inspiration? I started to think about this when an old friend signed a note to me by saying, stay inspired. It is a daily quest, to be sure. Without going out and looking for it, I can come up empty. The blank page, now the white screen, gets the better of me, and no work gets done on either my novel in progress, Four Stanley Cups and a Funeral, or on my website. When this happens, I have not let anyone down, save myself. However, without self-respect where are we?

Inspiration seems to be gaining in popularity if you look at my Facebook page. Twitter runs hot and cold, but there are no shortages of inspirational tidbits there too. There are days when no platitudes seem to work, and I have to try harder. Others, like today, see me out in the thick woods marveling at the fall colors and circling ravens of Windy Bay. Why is there a spring in my step? Good news and glad tidings are sweeping down like a clean, north wind from Canada.

Whether you missed the election drama, or followed it day by day, last night, a victory occurred for a political party with a dynamic young leader. However, that is not all that took place. A contentious battle veered down the dark alley of the politics of discrimination. Divide and conquer was the failed strategy of the ruling, Conservative Party. Canadians rejected it soundly. That gives me hope.

We all know better. We all had grandmothers who taught us good manners. We all had grandfathers who introduced us to right and wrong. We know what is called hate speech when we hear it. So why do we keep sinking into this abyss? It is the advice of political strategists. They feel it works. I am hopeful today that some may feel that it does not. It could backfire. It could come back to bite you

My grandfather told me that his father raised him on one simple statement from the Bible: “Yea as you sew, so shall ye reap.”
It is that simple. The man dispensing this advice was a new-age poet and journalist about one hundred years ahead of his time. He taught yoga classes and was a vegetarian. He believed in peace, and he worked to move his country beyond narrow-minded Victorian divisions to a model “free from discrimination of race, class, color or creed.” John Oliver said that the pervasive feeling in Canada of an election lasting seventy-eight days being way too long, was “absolutely adorable.” In this country, we still have a long, long way to go. What becomes tedious is not the exchange of ideas, it is what my grandmother would have called the unpleasantness. Do we really need this as part of the fabric of democracy, or is it rather a stain on our collective soul? Should we not look to leaders who provide inspiration? I am not all that interested in a person’s fears. Why would I even want to hear about them? Why should I be afraid? Why should I cast a vote because of my fears?

I looked up antonyms for the word inspire: Bore, deaden, depress, discourage, dishearten, and here is the best one of all- lull. Lull into a stupor comes to mind.

According to Webster’s, inspiration drives us to create. That is why it is worth seeking. That is why it is a hallmark of true leadership.

The sky is a bright blue today. The sun is glistening in the bay. The leaves are shimmering on the trees. Inspiration is everywhere. When our time to vote comes at last, I want to feel a sense of hope. I want to feel as if we have turned a corner. I want to feel that we are serving the better angels of our nature. We still have a long way to go. It will be a tough portage.

Enduring Love

Just in time to take the boats out of the water, Roy MacGregor’s Canoe Country: The Making of Canada, arrived on my doorstep. The glorious fall we have enjoyed on Windy Bay is more lovely than ever. Rain, sweet, heavenly rain, has made our parched woods practically sing with joy. Sitting on our deck with the last rays of summer keeping me warm, I was deliriously happy reading one of my favorite authors. Since there is so much to do this time of year in the garden, I had to ration my reading time, but the book got the better of me, and I took to picking it up at every break. Thanks to Roy MacGregor, my Christmas shopping is going to be a snap. Every canoe lover on my list will unwrap this treasure. Books written about canoes are few and far between, but we tend to see the same ones in homes of our friends.

The book, infused with passion, also carries a wealth of historical information.
From the back cover:

“The canoe made Canada. No canoe, no exploration of this second-largest country on earth. No canoe, no fur trade to open up the colony-then-country to commerce and settlement. No dugout, no birchbark canoe, no kayak, no umiak, then perhaps no survival for the for the various Aboriginal peoples who first inhabited this largely inhospitable and often frozen territory.”

Since I was lucky enough to spend my summers canoeing, and traveling on long canoe trips, I can attest to how utterly bonded the traveler becomes with his craft. When you think of the simplicity of the vessel, the adaptability of the voyageur, the mastery of the skills required to endure the journey, it is a wonder. The canoe is much more than a means to an end; it is a thing of inestimable beauty.

MacGregor writes of the transition from birchbark to cedar strip with chilling accuracy. It was gratifying to me to read that his research was thorough, and all credit due was given to David Thompson. As in all inventions, necessity brought us this development. As Thompson traveled west, he found birchbark to be scarce. Hence the cedar strip which while disputed seems to have been created out here in the northwest.

From Page 194:

“Thompson’s assignment from his superiors at the North West Trading Company, fourteen years later, was to cross the Continental Divide and establish trade with native tribes west of the Rockies. He and his party passed the winter of 1807 to 1808 at “Kootenae House,” the trading post they had built by a creek that ran into the Columbia.”

From Thompson’s journals, edited by Sean T. Peake and featured on page 204:

“We had to turn out thoughts to some other material, and Cedar wood being the lightest and most pliable for a canoe, we split out thin boards of Cedar wood of about six inches in breadth and builded a Canoe of twenty-five feet in length by fifty inches in breadth, of the same form of a common Canoe, which proved to be equally light and much stronger than Birch Rind.”

Beyond the practical and natural, there is also something mystical about a journey by canoe. I am not making preposterous claims alone here; I have heard this voiced so many times and have read enough accounts to consider it a common experience. It begins as a child when you set off in high spirits and boundless enthusiasm only to hit a wall in about say, twenty minutes, where you suddenly feel that old, are we there yet, impatience. There is a bit of a breakdown that occurs. You can’t get out, you can’t get comfortable, your knees hurt, you are hungry, and you are thirsty, and we have to do this for the next eight hours? One has to learn patience, and one has to learn to be calm, and one has to pass the time in silly conversations or find a song where everyone knows the words, or surely you think you will run mad. After time, the canoe becomes quiet. Words are not needed now, and only the next bend, the next portage or thoughts of a warm fire and a good meal are all that seem to be on your mind. What happened to all the cares, the concerns, the endless thought patterns? They start to slip away, and the contemplation of whirlpools around the dip of your paddle take center stage.

From Page 93 where the journals of Susanna Moodie are quoted:

“She claims to have felt a magic spell upon our spirits. Every object was new to us. We felt as if we were the first discoverers of every beautiful flower and stately tree that attracted our attention, and we gave names to fantastic rocks and fairy isles.”

What used to transport me into the stratosphere of my highly excitable teen years was the knowledge that I had everything I needed. By the second week of canoeing, I did not want to return to civilization. I reveled in the simplicity of our world, and I could not get enough of exploration. I have been a happy wanderer, and I hope Canadians and Americans who love the outdoors will cherish this book.

Pictured below is the author on a canoe trip in Ontario, Canada.

In This Corner

As the smoke filled Windy Bay on Lake Coeur d’ Alene this week, allergies, the likes of which I have not yet experienced, came along with it. It soon became clear that going outside made the condition about a thousand times worse, and that my best bet was to stay indoors with the doors shut. Along with the continuing work on my novel in progress, I sought escape in the pages of Vendetta: Bobby Kennedy Versus Jimmy Hoffa, by James Neff. While fiction fills most of my days, I switch to non-fiction often. I am drawn to history and the history of the sixties and seventies, has always been of particular fascination. For one thing, the period is dramatic, and for another, I have been intrigued by the players.

Going back to why Vendetta became the recipient of my one-click shopping on Amazon, I liked the idea that it was written by the Pulitzer Prize winning investigations editor of the Seattle Times. Reading the reviews, I was struck by the fact that Neff chose to give a balanced approach to the subject. Never in a million years did I imagine I would have one scintilla of empathy for Jimmy Hoffa. My knowledge of him was somewhat limited, and I thought of him as a thug who harassed the Kennedy home at Hickory Hill by having his teamsters drive by the house at all hours.

Robert F. Kennedy, on the other hand, always had my affection and admiration. Having read his own words, as well as the accounts of others, I never accepted the negative adjectives applied to him. Authors have sometimes launched into the tales of the good Bobby, or the bad Bobby, but Neff resisted that trap. Who among us could not be described in those terms? Robert Kennedy and His Times, by Arthur Schlesinger, Robert Kennedy: His Life by Evan Thomas, and Robert Kennedy in His Own Words: The Unpublished Recollections of the Kennedy Years, and last, but certainly not least, Thirteen Days, by Robert F. Kennedy, are among my personal favorites. Vendetta is written with careful attention to detail, and an absolutely thorough look at the motives that drove both men. So reading of Hoffa’s tough upbringing, his ability to connect with people, and his drive to pull himself and his family up by the bootstraps, humanizes him. Seeing the full weight of the Justice Department, absolutely determined to get him, made me cringe a little. On the other hand, his heavy hand was patently evident, and I, too, thought justice would be in order. Reading this book, reminded me of a boxing match with Kennedy in one corner and Hoffa in another.

It is almost incomprehensible to me to learn that J. Edgar Hoover had an almost hands off approach to organized crime. He was interested in pursuing communists, and the mafia, in retrospect, looked back those times as golden. Picturing the characters swirling around the courtrooms and halls of F.B.I headquarters, I felt I could almost smell the cigarette smoke, and that the picture in my mind seemed black and white. Yet the reader knows the clock is ticking. Time waits for no man. Suddenly it is November in 1963, and we all know what happens next. We know that Hoover will deliver the news to R.F.K. in a chilling and entirely dispassionate tone. President Kennedy once said that in politics one does not have friends, just allies.

We are so inundated by tales of good guys and bad guys that a balanced account is almost foreign. We live in a time where the news of the day is so unbalanced that as a nation, we are living in dueling realities. Therefore, Neff is to be admired for his account of a man of privilege setting out to do some good in this old world against a guy who wanted more out of life than the world he saw around him.

The review that sold me on this book came from Erik Larson:

“From the violence of its gripping opening to the sorrow of its close, this is an astonishing and eye-opening account of the vendetta- obsessive, intigue-filled, hatred-tinged-that pitted Robert F. Kennedy against Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa, and nearly consumed them both. Amazing stuff, really-a triumph of investigation and revelation.”

The Trough Between the Waves

When we watch surf competitions on television, we see the waves from a distance. Despite great advances in technology to bring us ever closer, we cannot see what the surfer sees when looking up. A great writer can take the reader by the hand. Therefore, if you pick up Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, by William Finnegan, be prepared to see the sport in a new and piercing light.

Having married a surfer, and having just crossed the thirty-seven- year mark, I can report that most people have the wrong idea about this breed. Based on silly movies, whose makers insisted on dopey characters, the mettle of the man who accepts the challenge of surfing had not been fully articulated. Not until now. If you love a surfer, you simply must give that person this book.

William Finnegan, a staff writer at The New Yorker, and esteemed journalist, has created a memoir that I venture to state will never be surpassed. The time he covers, from his youth in Southern California, to Hawaii and then to the spots around the world that where the best breaks can be found, will not come again. With the Beach Boys and the Gidget movies, even girls growing up in Toronto, Ontario, were pea green with envy about the surf culture of California.

It was a different story when I tried to take up the sport myself. A wave of four feet in height appeared enormous from the trough and been thrashed by one feels like an entirely bad idea once you are under the overhead washing machine. I decided to stick with my love of swimming and remain close to shore. I learned a lot about the culture in my salad days while I hung out on the beaches of San Diego and listened to tales of daring. Having grown up surrounded by the world of hockey, I knew about toughness, I knew about courage, and I knew all too much about hero worship. The flaky, airhead hapless teen, so often featured as part of the culture, bore no bearing on the guys I knew. To me, they were every bit as gutsy, fearless and brilliant as any men I had ever met. Hockey players, off-ice, in my experience, at least, were full of fun, gallant, sweet, kind and nice. Surfers were mercurial, often silent, cold and distant. We could jolly them along, and our friends were full of wonderful humor, but I noticed the younger surfers, the ‘grommets’ who followed them around were too afraid to say a word.

We listened to endless descriptions of breaks, rights, lefts, gnarly, mushy waves, closed out waves, glassy days, and every nuanced condition at Scripps, Wind and Sea or Blacks in La Jolla. I enjoyed every minute of these tales because the ocean is a dangerous mistress. Nothing, and I mean nothing, would come between these guys and their first love. This is the world Finnegan describes with such expertise and beauty that I felt transported. A big wave rider, he impressed me to my toes. I could picture every wave perfectly, and the line he constantly pushed between the wave that could kill you and the wave that could make you weep makes this the best adventure story I have ever read.

I could gush on and on, and readers will have to forgive my fangirling here. Ever since I first saw those big wave surfers on Wide World of Sports, all those years ago in Toronto, I have known that surfers are men of exceptional courage. Mid-way through Barbarian Days, I knew we were going to hit surfer depression land at any moment. It is present in every surf movie, for the time will come when decisions have to be made, and comprises will be required. Dilemmas common to all risk-takers will be staring them in the face. The balance is as tricky as the ride itself, yet it can be done. As a reader, we pull for Finnegan through every phase of his life.

From Page 360

“The takeoff was huge, clean open face, not breaking exceptionally hard, and the wall seemed to hold up reasonably, with no catastrophic sections, all the way down the point. Eventually, Peter caught a wave. With a shout, he jumped to his feet, rode over the ledge, and disappeared for what felt like a very long time. I thought I saw his track once down the line, but I wasn’t sure. Then he came flying over the shoulder far, far inside with arms raised. He came back raving. It was doable, he said. It was insane. I moved over, into the lineup, heart thudding, and caught a couple. The takeoffs were giddy, almost nauseating, but not overly steep. The rides were long and swooping, the blue walls like great stretched canvasses. Each of my rides ended with a safe, gliding pullout somewhere down on the boat ramp. I was very glad I was on my gun…”

People smiled when I said I was dating a surfer. Some of my friends said with disdain, “Oh Liz.” Lots of people thought our marriage would flame out. Everyone waited for me to return to my senses. Not so my grandfather, the consummate hockey man, a war hero who judged everyone by their toughness. He had utter contempt for a lot of the men my sisters and cousins dated. My husband came through unscathed. It was decided all at once. He passed.

Hero worship, plain and simple. Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life tops every chart I have to top. Take this book to the beach.

How Did I Get Here?

Do you ever ask yourself that question? This query need not be existential in theory; I refer rather to one’s geographical location. Windy Bay, Lake Coeur d’Alene is our present home.

When I reached the age of seven, I was sent Canoe Lake, in Algonquin Park, Ontario to attend summer camp for the month of July. I had been waiting desperately for the big event. My older siblings had all gone off ahead of me, and I could not wait for my turn. While my mother fretted about me being so young my father had utmost confidence in me. As a camper in training, I swam my three hundred yard requirement with him in the cold waters of Lake Joseph where we kept our summer home. On my first day at camp, I dove in confidently, assuring everyone in sundry that I could do it. In fact, I had already done it that morning at the crack of dawn. I took to camp like a duck to water and loved every minute. The first night, the camp director’s husband, Dr. Harry Ebbs, came to talk to us, and give us a bedtime story. He wanted to tell us about trees. He took us out- a little gaggle of girls in baby doll pajamas with flannel robes wrapped around us and flip flops on our feet, for a brief walk in the woods. He had something to show us. We looked at a beautiful assortment of saplings of birch and fir, protected by buildings on three sides. Next, we walked the length of the island to see an amazing pine jutting straight out over the water with roots clutching to the bare rock. Which trees had the greatest chance of survival, he asked? We thought the protected ones would fare the best, and all chimed in that the trees behind the lodge would have the best chance. He surprised us all by telling us that we were wrong. The dramatic pine, bent by storms and seeming to be facing the greatest of challenges would fare the best. Why? He told us that the saplings were vulnerable because of their protection. They did not have to develop deep roots. A squall could topple them, but the tree that fought for every square inch of its territory had developed the roots to endure. He then added that our parents had sent us to camp in order to develop our roots.

A few nights later we trooped into the lodge, a great building designed for dramatic events, to see a film about the voyageurs, the hearty fur traders who explored the lakes and rivers of Canada. My hair stood on end. They sang as they paddled, and this old film re-enacting their journeys featured a map showing us how far they traveled. The next day we went out to learn how to weave, and I endeavored to make a voyageur belt, a long affair that wrapped around the waist twice and ended in a fringe. Perhaps it was the sight of me in that belt that I would not take off, or perhaps it was my love of camp, or perhaps it was something in my nature that led my dad to call me la fille du bois. We did not speak French in our home, so he explained that it meant girl of the woods.

Years later, when living in Sacramento, California and contemplating our future, we planned a trip north to visit relatives in British Colombia. I had often begged to drive through Idaho as I had been curious after reading Ernest Hemingway. A more direct route was always favored until a fortuitous offer of free accommodation near Rathdrum changed the route. Looking at a map in my father-in-law’s fantastic atlas, I saw the French names of the lakes in North Idaho. That prickly, funny feeling crept across my scalp and into my heart. I knew there could only be one reason: the voyageurs. So we drove up with our kids in the backseat of the old Subaru station wagon full of excitement. We were heading north from Moscow when I saw a sign depicting a boat launch.

“Turn!” I yelled. “Turn! This must be Lake Coeur d’Alene!” We drove down to Sun Up Bay. “It’s great!” I screamed. When we got back in the car, we carried along the upper part of the road until we came to a stop sign. We could not proceed, due to its designation as private. We stopped to admire the view which by the strangest of all co-incidences, is where we live right now.

More years later, I took an interesting journey with ancestry.com following the line of my paternal grandfather, James Gaudette, a man I never had the privilege of knowing. I was astounded to learn that records kept leading me back in time all the way to 1635 when the family arrived in Port Royal, the first settlement in Acadia, now Nova Scotia.

This summer I read Peter Stark’s, Astoria. Once again, I thrilled over tales of the voyageurs. Peter Stark maintains that many of them had been trapping all through the eighteenth century, originating from Port Royal. Sources of the River, Tracking David Thompson Across North America, by Jack Nisbet, is another excellent tale of unbelievable tenacity in the face of boundless wilderness. It was on that first trip to North Idaho that I read a roadside marker depicting Thompson’s journey. Perplexed, I thought, this can’t be the same David Thompson. I knew him from the old camp movie, for it was he who first mapped Canoe Lake and Lake Joseph in Ontario. Yet it was. I often tell people that it is possible to travel from Montreal to Lake Coeur d’ Alene by canoe and portage. I get a very blank and confused expression in return. David Hackett Fischer’s, Champlain’s Dream, is a detailed and masterfully written book depicting the founding of French Canada. He, too, was a great explorer. In reading Astoria, I learned of John Jacob Astor’s failed attempt at founding a colony in the Pacific Northwest. The idea was to establish a sea route from New York, to Hawaii, to Astoria, in what is now Oregon, to China and from there to London, and again to New York. The overland route from New York to Astoria would be established through the United States. The grand scheme became an epic and legendary disaster. Why do some colonies flourish while others fail? What was the difference between Port Royal, and Jamestown or Astoria? It is a fascinating question well worth exploring. In Astoria, terrible decisions were made on the overland route. The leaders kept going back to Astor’s dictates while the men of the Northwest Trading Company, the voyageurs used their instincts and ability to rely on the wisdom of the ages. Gleaned from the natives who had been here since time immemorial, they learned established canoe routes, and questioned dictates to boldly go where no man had gone before.

How did I get here? Perhaps I followed my heart. I could have followed it right to Lake Coeur d’ Alene. Was it my destiny? That I cannot answer. I do know this, however. I have never been sorry. Not for one single minute. Our children grew to love and cherish this land. Every time I call the Coeur d’ Alene Casino, I am greeted with these words: Welcome Home.

No Need to Flinch at Atticus Finch

Comments and discussions are flying around everywhere regarding the release of Harper Lee’s long lost manuscript. One of America’s most cherished literary characters, Atticus Finch is now seen in a different light. The image so indelibly imprinted in our minds is the elegant and thoughtful Gregory Peck, sitting on the porch in a rocking chair, portraying the southern gentleman as a kind and intelligent father. In Go Set a Watchman, we may begin reading with that image in mind, but it fades within the first few pages. Another man begins to emerge: thoughtful, yes, judicious, yes, elegant- maybe not so much. What we do see is a very real portrait of a man seen not through the eyes of a young girl, but as a fully fleshed human being, caught up in the changing times. It is surprising to see him clinging to old ways of thinking, and it is slightly horrifying to our modern sensibility. Advance copies given to members of the press yielded the news that our beloved Atticus Finch was a racist.

Having traveled in Jim Crow’s south in my youth, I have a picture of what life looked like back then. We took frequent train trips from Toronto down to Florida. You had the white south and the “colored” south, clearly divided. It was as if each place had two different cultures, living side by side, but with one having the best of everything and the other, out on the fringes. You would see blacks lining up for the bus in maids uniforms, or in overalls with mechanics rags in the back pocket, but rarely in any other roles. One clearly served the other, and for the most part relationships seemed to be jovial. The courtesy delivered on both sides of the great divide was clearly evident to me. Somehow I got the idea, probably from my grandmother, and mother and father that the whole subject was off limits and in polite society, the great divide was not discussed. Efforts should be made to be extra courteous at all times, given the difficulties of the whole history and structure. That is the very crux of the matter that Scout attacks in Go Set a Watchman. Having lived in New York and returning to her hometown, she is no longer willing to hush up.

Going back to what I learned from my parents was more in keeping with the Finch household that Scout thought was the one in which she lived. Every chance should be given to helping people improve their lives. I was never given the impression that intelligence, or certainly athletic ability was in any way inferior. It was more that time and circumstance had created this unfortunate situation, and that change was inevitable. So reading Go Set a Watchman had me pulling for the grown- up Scout to whom I felt so endeared. Harper Lee has an astonishing voice. Not publishing this novel had nothing to do with Lee’s talent as a writer; it had everything to do with its content. What I came away with is an understanding of the craft of writing a novel. Any writer has freely flowing ideas, and things he or she wants to say. Issues, statements, and a desire to create change can keep many a person typing away late into the night. She found the characters, she found her voice, she ripped the scab off polite society in the south and exposed a great deal of fear and ignorance. The story that became To Kill a Mockingbird is embedded here. You see that she did get to have her say, but in a totally different way. I found I was in awe of her editor. Why Lee did not continue writing more books is a mystery. How she had the courage to begin again after hearing she needed to go back to the drawing board is a great testament to her character. Any writer who reads this may well fish out those buried manuscripts and look at them in a new light. Is there one aspect that can be salvaged? What drew me to the character in the first place, and how do I focus on that more fully? Go Set a Watchman may detail a very universal experience in the lives of young women. There is the father you saw at nine, the man with the answers, the work ethic, the discipline and the good judgment versus the flawed human being you confronted later in life. The girls who went from climbing trees and playing with the neighborhood boys to the teen who was criticized every single day in order to make a lady of her often do have something to say. I loved Lee’s brashness, her intelligent voice, her saucy wit and her guts to challenge the archaic social mores.

With events in Charleston unfolding as they have in the last while, perhaps this long- buried story has emerged at just the right time.

Taking a Look at Sarah Waters and The Paying Guests

Like most readers, if I thoroughly enjoy an author’s work, I am usually keen to read their subsequent novels. Because I was engrossed in The Little Stranger, which I read it a few years ago, it was with that particular anticipatory glee that I cracked open The Paying Guests. Sarah Waters writes comfortable, homey stories with very adept description making the reader at home in the parlor with her characters. You almost feel as if it is you who dropped round for tea, or came clamoring to the front doorstep having just heard the news- whatever that news may be. She writes of families and groups where you have the odd sensation of feeling you are one of them. It seems so natural and so friendly; I would not hasten to call it a device. Is it not the goal of any story to draw you in? This she manages with alarming dexterity. At first, a sleepy house in a fine neighborhood inhabited by a widow and her unmarried daughter would not inspire most readers to pick this up, unless you happen to be a certain type who absolutely loves this kind of cozy British drama. That was all the impetus I needed.

It would take more than tea and biscuits to keep the story going. When we learn that the two women are to take in boarders, I was prepared to read about all sorts of petty conflicts, judgments and disapproval cropping up everywhere, but that alone would not have been enough either. What keeps the story moving very quickly through 564 pages, is a knack for getting the reader more and more deeply involved. In The Little Stranger, the author had the same effect on me. The tale got darker, the characters in much greater peril, the family in more trouble, until I simply had to know what had brought them so far off course. In both books, it is as if the reader starts at the top of a staircase and then just keeps going consistently down, until you fear for these characters so much that you cannot close the book and go to sleep. They all set out innocently enough, with good food in their bellies, good clothes on their backs, good values and intentions all in place, their standing in good order, but piece by piece, it starts to go south and then keeps right on going. You begin to fear that they are associating with the wrong sort, as they would say in England, and that they are in danger of getting in over their heads. Disgrace, scandal, and being the object of gossip, all being a fate to be avoided at all costs, seems to dog Waters’ characters from start to finish. Reading this book brought me back to the days when I would sit in my grandmother’s living room hearing her recount various stories of people she had known, who seemingly through no fault of their own, had gotten mixed up with someone who had done nothing but drag her friend down, and may be leading them to a bad end. You hear these stories, and you file them somewhere in your mind, not to resurface until you dive into a tale like The Paying Guests, and it all comes back. The warnings were there… but she deliberately went back… and why she wouldn’t listen… and on and on until the unfortunate circumstance can no longer be changed. It is for this reason that Water’s novels become thrillers, although they would not be categorized as such.

As I usually read reviews of books after I have finished them and have formed my own opinions, I was happy to learn that others agreed with my assessment.

“Brings to mind the dark and ominous atmosphere of Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca. . . . Waters’ skillful mastery of detail and atmosphere brings the suspenseful tale to life.”

—Winnipeg Free Press

“Waters is so confident – and, line by line, her writing so beautiful, precise and polished – that she sweeps all before her. . . . [I was] helplessly pulled along by the magnetic storytelling. Twice in the last few pages I shouted aloud – though whether in joy or horror I will not tell you. Sarah Waters skilfully keeps you guessing to the end.”

—Tracy Chevalier, in The Guardian

“Waters’s page-turning prose conceals great subtlety. Acutely sensitive to social nuance, she keeps us constantly alert to the pain and passion churning under the “false, bright” surface of gentility. From a novelist who has been shortlisted for the Booker three times, this is a winner.”

—Intelligent Life magazine (The Economist)

The weather is delightful these days here at Windy Bay. Last Sunday, I lounged on our floating dock in a comfortable chair, getting up from time to time for a swim, and thought that I was actually in “beach read” mode. Reading hour after hour, on a beautiful afternoon, with no thoughts of putting the book down until I reached the end, is my idea of heaven. If it were a rainy afternoon, I would have had the kettle on and be every bit as deliriously happy. A good story teller will have that effect.

Home Sweet Home

The Old Mill, Toronto

According to James Scott Bell, in his book entitled, “Plot and Structure,” the power inherent in describing the world in which your characters inhabit is paramount. He uses this example from Dennis Lehane’s “Mystic River.”

“After work that night Jimmy Marcus had a beer with his brother-in-law, Kevin Savage, at the Warren Tap, the two of them sitting at the window and watching some kids play hockey. There were six kids and they were fighting in the dark, their faces gone featureless with it. The Warren Tap was tucked away on a side street in the old stockyard district.”

In a few short sentences, we know exactly where we are; we can picture it. No back story is necessary here.

A character does not exist outside of a culture. If you describe a traveler, you must identify, not only where they came from, but also the strange new world in which they find themselves. If you are writing about a period in history, the clothes, the method of transportation, or the way the enter a building, will give necessary clues.

Taken to fiction, it means the place and culture of which you are the most familiar, your first home, must now be examined with a new eye. In order to understand the essence of a place, the best way to grasp its meaning can be found in peeling back the layers of civilization. Who was there first? Who was driven out and by whom? Who fought for this land? Who won and who lost? Is a suburb built on what was once farmland and if so, what remnants of that rural community still exist? Is there an Inn that was once a Blacksmith’s Forge, or a Mill? It may still be the focal point of the region.

I used to describe the neighborhood of my youth as a typical, Leave it to Beaver suburb in the west end of Toronto. That may have sufficed for conversation, but in order to create the setting for a novel, it had to be fleshed out more fully and put through the writer’s lens.

We lived on the banks of a river called the Humber. In 1615, the explorer Etienne Brule, traveling with Champlain, became the first European to enter the happy hunting grounds that once were home to the Seneca tribe. A plaque outside an old mill, now converted to a restaurant, and Inn, commemorates this event. As a child, it would give me chills to think about it. 1615! What was our world like then?

More research led me to new discoveries about my former home. The Seneca tribe inhabited those shores for over five thousand years. Then in the 1920’s, a development company bought a vast track of land and created a neighborhood with a theme. Anglia pars, anglia procal. A little bit of England, far from England. They set out to duplicate a setting reminiscent of a fine borough in London. Winding streets, stone houses, leaded paned windows, oh we looked English all right. Did we in any way take on this sensibility? We did indeed, until more groups came and great diversity toppled this little enclave. The buildings remain, remarkably and beautifully preserved; now the inhabitants are different. Nothing stays exactly the same, yet the character of the place is unchanged, immovable and stalwart. As a writer, a place can be the fabric from which we cut the cloth of our characters. The style of the setting, sets the tone, and puts the characters on their initial footing.

Where do they go from there? Do they want to stay, or are they desperate to get out? If they do want to remain, will they be able to ride all the changes in store? Very few of us in modern times live in the places we inhabited in our youth. Given this, the coating of nostalgia can be draped over the past, and we can look at it from a distance and through rose colored glasses. If home is where the heart is, does the allegiance we feel for our first home remain with us forever, or do we shed it as a reptile leaves it skin? If so, do we not still see the outline of the former inhabitant if we happen upon that skin?

While I am not sure who said it first, the old adage of write what you know is apt. If your character is set in a place entirely foreign, then read as much as you can of its history. If writing fantasy, a place still needs its nouns. It needs something indigenous. It must have its rocks and trees.

” Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration.” Charles Dickens

The Art of Journal Writing

My first journal, begun in the summer between the fifth and sixth grade, sits on my desk as a reminder of my love of writing. I loved that little blue plastic book with its tiny lock. To record my private thoughts, with no worries about uninvited readers, seemed like total bliss at the time. However, as I apparently come from a long line of hackers, it took the spies in my midst all of two seconds to pry their way into my deepest secrets, only to repeat them for general entertainment at the dinner table. Nevertheless, I plodded on, writing diaries and journals through most of my life. I can be sporadic, missing a year or two here and there, but I am happy to say that I can at least fill a modest bookshelf with my efforts. Lest you think they would make for interesting reading, a record of my time as a teen, then a young wife and a mother, followed by the trials of middle age, I can only attest to the fact that, they are nothing short of pure drivel. How did this happen? I tended to use my diaries and journals as a place in which to beef. The stings and arrows of life that tended to swirl around in my mind, distracting me from my goals, were a nuisance, and so I found a way to expunge them. I have had to make it very clear to my husband and children that they are for my eyes only and in no way a record of my happy, family life. My complaints, when read in bulk, are totally depressing to me now. Why did I not record the cute things the kids said, my thoughts about life, my dreams or my aspirations? I can only confess that they record an inner relationship I have with myself where I like to process things slowly.

In the past, I have thoroughly enjoyed well-written journals and have spent weeks and even months reading volume after volume. The top three on the hit parade are as follows: Virginia Woolf, Noel Coward, and Lucy Maud Montgomery. Virginia Woolf, like me, set down many frustrations. The unwanted criticisms, the interruptions from writing, and the stings of patronizing male reviewers are all preserved for prosperity. My admiration for her as a writer could never be overstated. Her brilliant work, A Room of One’s Own, tells us flat out, what we, as women, will have to carve out for ourselves if we are to have any chance at all. To know that anyone would disturb her clear and acknowledged genius, over a question regarding lunch, made me want to chase her housekeeper around the yard brandishing a rolling pin. Her ups and downs, pain and sorrow, small moments of triumph, gave me a clear picture of the path, the road and the way a writer must take. Her bouts of depression and sad end did not deter me either, as it was clear from the start that she suffered from a malady that had no cure in her day. Describing her struggles, in the light of her illness, afforded an even greater level of inspiration. Her courage astounded me.

By contrast, Noel Coward had a much more exciting life of glamor and parties in London, but he had his endless frustrations as well. In reading his journals, I found much to delight in. The obstacles in his life had a similar ring and can be summarized in one word: interference. Again, I was shocked that anyone would dare think they had a better way to say a line or to put on a play than he did. I wanted to shoo them out the backstage door. I also loved his take on critics which would be summarized by, “Insulting review in The Times.” I gained an understanding that opinions that some people seem to value, are often nothing short of hostility, for whatever reason, and the greatest minds in our midst, those who crafted works of pure genius, seem to have a great ability to not listen to any negativity of any kind.

The third and best grouping I did not read until a few years ago, and when I did, I became so involved in them, it changed the way I go about my daily life. For some strange reason, I read the journals of Lucy Maud Montgomery, in reverse order. I understood her life from her last days to those preceding The Great War and predating the creation of her most famous work, namely, Anne of Green Gables. It gives me chills to this day to think of her sitting at the kitchen table, in a simple farmhouse on Prince Edward Island, warmed by the fire in the cook stove, with pencil and notebook in front of her, and no idea of the future ahead, in the process of composing the greatest selling book of all time. Her novel was rejected, and stuffed in a hat box, shelved in a closet, and all but forgotten until a spring cleaning project had her take a second look. Astonished to rediscover it with the understanding that it was quite good, she vowed to try again, and the rest is history.

In many phases of my life, I have turned to reading journals when I am stuck and casting about for ideas. This often leads me back to keeping a journal once again. As I scribble away, getting things off my chest and out of the way, sometimes new ideas begin to take hold. When we see a published group of diaries, we are looking at entries that have been recopied and reworked. Some editing and piecing together form the finished look, and no doubt a lot of what is mundane and downright petty is discarded.

From the Selected Journals of Lucy Maud Montgomery

The first entry:

1890

Monday, Jan. 20

“Mollie and I have made a decidedly startling discovery about some of our little personal affairs. I am not going to write it down because it is a dead secret. We have refused to tell Nate what it is but we have hinted just enough to fire his curiosity to the blazing point.”

Love the Idea

When writing about Anna Karenina recently, I remembered a passage from Sophia Tolstoy’s diaries. I only had to type a few words into Google, and voila, there it was. I copied it into my blog post, but something else stayed with me. What lingered was this:

“Yesterday L.N went to his table, pointed at his notebook and said “Oh how I long to finish this novel (Anna Karenina) and start something new. My ideas are quite clear now. If a work is to be really good there must be one fundamental idea in that one loves. I love the idea of family; in War and Peace I loved the idea of the people because of the 1812 war; and now I see clearly that in my next book I shall love the idea of the Russian peoples powers of expansion.”

His great novels had to do with being in love with an idea. Authors are commonly asked this question: How did you come up with the idea for your book? It speaks to the heart of the matter. We all have tons of ideas; we may even have notebooks full of concepts for novels. Once decided upon, our love for the idea must remain in the forefront of our minds for years.

When my father died, I did not want him to go. I didn’t want to forget about him either. I wanted to cling to everything I could remember about him and keep it in my mind forever. It is this idea I am currently in love with, bringing my father back to life. Folly? Yes, no doubt. Can a person we loved appear as a character whom the reader can picture? Can I recreate a certain time in my life, 1961 to 1971, to be exact? Can my interpretation of the sixties rekindle memories for others? Can I bring readers into my story? As I have other family members I am missing now who have gone on to join my Dad, I am in love with remembering them too: I am in love with this idea of family, just as Tolstoy was when he wrote Anna Karenina. Even though I am not in possession of his talent, not within a country mile of it, in fact, I still persist. Why? The answer is simple: love. I have a love for my Dad, for my Mom, for my sister and brother, who are all up in heaven now. I have a love for my old neighborhood, for my old home, for my grandparents and aunts and uncles. I have a love for my city and my country. There is no end to my love. Being in love with an idea, can fill up a lot of pages. The one fundamental idea of my story can be boiled down to the old adage that blood is thicker than water.

Where does it come from, this love? Does it spring from the same wellspring of our most universal emotion, or is it more academic than that?

If you write a novel and get on a talk show, someone will ask you how you came up with the idea for your story. You will have to think back to that first spark and be able to elaborate. If your face lights up and your speech becomes more animated, so much the better. Enthusiasm is infectious: people see it and want to have that same feeling. Readers want to be in love with ideas too. When I gaze at the picture above, knowing I was the baby stuffed into the snowsuit, I see us all as a fun loving, keen and zestful bunch with good times, too numerous to count, just around the corner. When this picture was taken the Queen was beginning her reign and we were part of suburban life, in the post war years, in Toronto. The future looked bright and rosy back then. We were on the dawn of a new era, marked by hope. We all had our parts to play and we certainly played them.

How does this story end? Stay tuned…

Elizabeth Smythe Brinton

Author: The Craft of Writing, The Business of Writing, and the Literary Life.