Peter Geye reading with Joseph Boyden at the Charles W. Stockey Centre

Fall – cool nights and early mornings, lovely warm days – and in the world of publishing and bookselling it is the season when most of the years new books are released, when literary awards are celebrated and literary readings take place. In Parry Sound we begin the season with a reading at the Charles W. Stockey Centre by Joseph Boyden and Peter Geye on Thursday 19 September at 7:30 pm, followed by a reading by Noah Richler on Wednesday 16 October. The season wraps up as usual with the International Festival of Authors on Wednesday 23 October with readings by Lewis DeSoto, Alexander Maksik, Nicole Lundrigan and Janet E. Cameron.

Joseph Boyden’s new book The Orenda was published this week – it is one of the best books you’ll read this year. I will write more about Joseph Boyden and The Orenda next week. Today I want to talk about Peter Geye, who will join Joseph on the stage, and about Peter’s books Safe From the Sea and The Lighthouse Road.

Peter Geye is a young writer who grew up in Minnesota, although he left to do his Master of Fine Arts Degree at the University of New Orleans where Joseph Boyden was his teacher. When you look at a map of the Great Lakes – Duluth, Minnesota on the far end of Lake Superior, and Georgian Bay you’ll understand that the sense of the water – the lake –is central to his novels, in the same way that it is to Joseph Boyden. We share the same wilderness of the not too distant past, the importance of the lake for transportation and logging, and the fact that the lake somehow becomes part of who we are when we live on a the shore of a great body of water – Lake Superior or Georgian Bay. The landscape of Safe from the Sea and The Lighthouse Road is not too dissimilar to our own – we feel that we know the geography of this place. Both novels could have been taking place right here. Safe From the Sea is set in our own time. It is the story of a young couple, Noah and Natalie, and Noah’s father Olaf Torr. Olaf is unwell, how unwell Noah is not sure but he has come home to see his father. Theirs has been a difficult relationship and they have seldom seen each other in recent years. For Noah and for Olaf this becomes a time to finally talk, before Olaf dies, to put the past in perspective. Both men have matured and both men want reconciliation before it is too late.

Olaf Torr was a man who made his living, and spent his life, on the Great Lakes freighters, on boats moving ore across the lakes. He was a natural sailor, of Norwegian ancestry, and he loved the boats. After surviving the sinking of a ship he worked on, with only two other men, Olaf became a legend among his peers - the man who lived when the Ragnarok went down.

Peter Geye writes about a man who knows the seas, a man who understands celestial navigation, a man with a natural ability to read the weather. Olaf is a man who knew what was coming, and that the captain should have made the decision to retreat sooner than he did, “we knew it was going to be a mean day, but it would’ve taken more than we saw to keep us in port.” Many ships have done the same without the consequences that met the Ragnarok. And like the Ragnarok those that foundered, with loss of life, are the ones we remember.

As Olaf tells his story there is a reference to a poet from Pointe au Baril and a wood engraver from Duluth, “the woodcut showed three abstract figures clutching the icy gunwales of the life boat in portentous, black, fine-lined seas”. Years ago Alan Stein printed a little chap book about the Asia, a ship that went down in Georgian Bay, with small wood engravings – one that could have been the one described in this novel. An uncanny coincidence – when I asked Peter Geye about it he told me that he knows nothing about Pointe au Baril, he simply looked at a map and liked the name!

Safe From the Sea is such a beautiful book to read, each word and sentence carefully crafted – as the blurb by Joseph Boyden on the front of this books says “a tautly written gem”, and it truly is.

Peter Geye’s second novel, The Lighthouse Road, while still on the shore of Lake Superior takes us into the past. We begin in 1896, with a young woman, recently arrived from Norway to work in the lumber camps. She is about to give birth, to a child she names Odd Einar for his grandfather, who will be at the centre of the novel - it is his story. We are in Gunflint, on the shores of Lake Superior, a town full of eccentric characters. There are the men who work in the lumber camps – and others who bring alcohol across the lake from Canada. There is Hosea Grimm, a self taught pharmacist and healer – and his so-called daughter, Rebakah. This is a town full of people who might be considered misfits, but living in a place remote enough from “civilization” that they can make their own strange way in the world. We follow Odd through his childhood and adolescence into the 1920’s when is he is a young man working on the water, building boats, with a desire for independence.

From the 1890’s to the 1950’s we are immersed in another time, with a rich cast of fascinating characters we travel through times of great change, completely captivated by The Lighthouse Road. Again, this is the story that could just as much have taken place in Parry Sound and on Georgian Bay.

Don’t miss the opportunity to meet Peter Geye as he reads from his work, and shares the stage with Joseph Boyden. I guarantee this will be an evening not to be missed.

Tanis Rideout at the Stockey Centre 15 May

Above All Things by Tanis Rideout The 2013 Reading Series presented by Parry Sound Books and The Charles W. Stockey Centre continues on Wednesday 15 May with a reading by Tanis Rideout.

Discovering a first novel that turns out to be a wonderful book is one of the best things about being a bookseller. Joseph Boyden called Above All Things by Tanis Rideout “simply breathtaking,” and I completely agree.

Published last summer, Above All Things garnered some rave reviews and now that it is in paperback I am sure it will be found in the hands of readers on a lot of docks this summer.

For those who enjoyed The Paris Wife, and loved Loving Frank this novel is for you. Like Frank Lloyd-Wright and Ernest Hemingway, George Mallory was a man whose passion for the woman he loves is over-shadowed by his passion for his work. In the case of George Mallory his passion becomes obsession – his obsession to be the first to summit Mount Everest.

George Mallory is most famous for his final attempt at the climb to the top of Everest – and it is much debated as to whether or not he accomplished his dream. I have to admit that I knew nothing about this man, nor do I have any great interest in mountain climbing – but the story of George Mallory, his wife, Ruth, and their lives captivated me from the first page.

We meet George and Ruth in the years immediately following the First World War, as we read about the great love they share. They meet, fall in love, have children and settle in rural England. George climbs mountains, his love and his livelihood. He is a member of an earlier, failed, attempt to summit Mount Everest, and is often away from home climbing with his companions. Ruth accepts his absences, believing that when he has fulfilled his dreams he will return to her and remain at home. From the beginning we know that George loves Ruth with all of his heart – but there is this passage, “He remembered the first time he saw her. He felt the pull of her even then” – the reader can be forgiven for believing that he is thinking about Ruth – but he is not, he is thinking about Mount Everest.

When George once again decides to take part in an expedition to summit Mount Everest Ruth is not pleased, she begs him to stay at home with her and the children. But, she must accept his promise that this is the last time, and he will return successful, his fortune will be made and his reputation as the first to succeed where all others have failed.

Chapters alternate between Ruth’s life at home, where her friends are members of the Bloomsbury group, writers and painters and great thinkers of the day, and George as he prepares for and then leaves for his final attempt, sure of his success.

This expedition has been long in the planning, the climbers and support in place. There are local guides and men who will transport cameras and other goods as the climbers ascend. They are experienced climbers who are prepared for the hardships that will face them in the cold desperate conditions they know they will encounter. They now know that they must use oxygen to climb higher than they were able to on their earlier attempt.

At home Ruth spends her days with her young children, reassuring them that their father will return safely. Encouraged by her friends, she prepares for a dinner party. With a nod to Virginia Woolf, we follow the day as we did Clarissa Dalloway. Ruth regrets that her husband left without her full support, she makes lists of the things she should have said as she waits each day for news of the climbers and their progress, fearing that George will be lost. She wonders how she will tell her children if he dies, as she wishes with all of her heart that he will return.

George has left on this expedition knowing he needs to succeed, that he must be proud of his accomplishment, he cannot fail or he will always be a failure to his wife and family – and to the world. You may already know if George Mallory returns – or not – and if he was – or was not – the first to reach the top of Mount Everest, but regardless, you will be enthralled by Above All Things from beginning to end.

We are very pleased to bring Tanis Rideout to Parry Sound and to introduce her to a Stockey Centre audience. Listening to an author read from their own work, and telling us about the story behind the story, always makes for an interesting evening and adds to the experience of reading the book.

Annabel Lyon at the International Festival of Authors Parry Sound

Annabel Lyon will read from her book The Sweet Girl in Parry Sound on Monday 29 October at the Charles W. Stockey Centre for the Performing Arts, along with authors Ned Beauman, Susan Swan and Miranda Hill. This review was written by Gillian Holden a member the International Festival of Authors, Parry Sound committee, presenters of this event.

The Golden Mean, written by Annabel Lyon, is a remarkable first novel. It is told in the voice of the ancient philosopher Aristotle, presenting his perceptions of events experienced, and opinions about people with whom he comes into contact. Lyon provides extensive and detailed information about the customs, foods and ways of life of the Macedonians and ancient Greeks, all woven smoothly into the story of the relationship between Aristotle and Alexander the Great.

The story opens as Aristotle and his first wife (married at ages 37 and 15 respectively) reach Pella, the capital of Macedon, en route to Athens where Aristotle plans to study and teach. However, their journey is postponed indefinitely, as they are waylaid in Pella by King Philip, father of the thirteen year old Alexander. Philip's wish is to detain Aristotle so he can become another of Alexander's tutors. As the years pass, Aristotle's desire to continue on to Athens is thwarted more than once. Politics and war, falling out of and then back into, the king's favour all conspire to prevent him from following his chosen path.

A common theme in the novel is the suggestion that Aristotle suffered from depression, or perhaps experienced bipolar disorder. Early on he refers to it as a sickness with no name, diagnosis, or treatment. Another thread that weaves through the story is the fascination Aristotle has with dissection. He regularly dissects the bodies of all kinds of creatures, maintains collections of living and dead specimens, and performs dissections while some are still alive. The scene in which he dissects a fallen Theban on the battlefield is utterly engrossing and darkly comic. Knowing that his time is limited, Aristotle has colleagues running to fetch wax tablets so that he may draw what he sees before the Thebans come to collect their fallen comrade for the funeral pyre. Even Alexander, who first invited Aristotle to the battle, becomes completely lost in the process.

Finally, as the novel draws to a close, Aristotle and his small family (second wife, common-law, daughter and son) set out on the journey to Athens where he will realize his dream of directing the Lyceum, his own school.

This is where Lyon's second novel about this famous man begins. Titled The Sweet Girl, it is told in the voice of Pythia, Aristotle's daughter by his first wife. She has been born into a world in which her choices are extremely limited, yet her father educates her himself, and allows her to argue with the philosophers who comprise his group of colleagues.

Unfortunately the family is forced to flee Athens when Greek sentiment turns against Macedonians. They travel to a garrison town near Aristotle's birthplace and after a brief period of happiness, Pythia's world collapses following the death of her father at age 61. She is only 16 and not equipped to run a household and rule over the family servants and slaves who, in short order, resort to leading lives of debauchery, robbing the household of its stores and selling Pythia's jewelry to finance their new tastes in meat and wine. Moreover, her first love, a boy given a home and education by her father, betrays her.

Pythia becomes apprenticed to a midwife, a period in her life in which she gains a great deal of knowledge about sex, pregnancy and childbirth. She then resorts to prostitution in order to survive, becoming the 'daughter' of a madam in the village, who had befriended her soon after the family's arrival. Ultimately, Pythia is saved from this lifestyle by the arrival of her first cousin, a man 28 years older, who has been betrothed to her through her father's will.

Reading these two books, I was struck by the juxtaposition between father and daughter, the choices each is allowed and how those choices affect their respective lives. As a girl, Pythia is extremely limited in options – midwifery, prostitution or marriage, even though she is highly educated (has read all of her father's books) and well connected. Aristotle, on the other hand, has access to the world of great thinkers and the permission of society to pursue his learning in science and philosophy.

Lyon convincingly writes both books in the first person, and draws her readers deep into the lives of both father and daughter. The portrayal of ancient life, with its daily details and mores, is vivid. This is a fine pair of highly readable, extremely informative and thought provoking novels.

Don’t miss the International Festival of Authors Parry Sound, Monday 29 October at 7:30 pm. There are a limited number of tickets available for those who wish to attend a reception with the authors prior to the readings. Contact Parry Sound Books for tickets and more information.

Miranda Hill will read from her book Sleeping Funny in Parry Sound on Monday 29 October at the Charles W. Stockey Centre for the Performing Arts.

Miranda Hill will read from her book Sleeping Funny in Parry Sound on Monday 29 October at the Charles W. Stockey Centre for the Performing Arts. I always think of a book of short stories as a box of chocolates – one without a guide. Open it up, chose one, and get a delicious surprise. Miranda Hill, mother of five children, holding a MFA in Creative Writing, presents us with a collection of stories meant to please and excite. In her own words, “…In every story, the same concern. Those disparate characters, in different settings and costumes and time periods and styles, all facing the same questions: Who am I? How did I get this way? And most importantly: Is it too late to change? The very interrogations I put to myself, every day I was writing this book.”

The collection opens with Variance, set in a close-knit community of young families in a big city neighbourhood, much like the one where I lived many years ago when my own children were young. Her tale of mothers and children, husbands and wives, took me back to that time. As Miranda Hill moves her characters through their days of concerns for the welfare of their children, and their, sometimes jealous, observations of their neighbours, we see shadows of ourselves. When a new family moves into the neighbourhood, bringing unwelcome changes, not only does the streetscape alter, but so do perceptions, family dynamics, and marriages.

Sleeping Funny is the closing story and the book’s title. When asked about her title, Miranda Hill explains, “Why Sleeping Funny? Because every one of the nine stories in the collection are touched by something a little odd, a little otherworldly—even though the situations are often quite recognizable. I think of the stories occurring in a kind of dream hangover, that sense that something was going on while you slept that you just can't shake come morning, and that hovers over your day.”

Sleeping Funny is a first book, but Miranda Hill has been writing for many years. Winner of the 2011 Writers’ Trust / McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize, she said, “Winning the Journey Prize was the largest, and most public acknowledgement my work had received. But more than the money, or remembering the moment my name was called, I treasure the fact that my name and the title of my story will sit forever in the back pages of subsequent Journey Prize anthologies, side-by-side with the names of writers I admire — those I know about already, and those whose work is still to come. It’s a great privilege to be part of that tradition. How lucky I am — how lucky all we writers and readers are — that the Writers’ Trust makes it possible.”

Miranda Hill will join Susan Swan, Ned Beauman and Annabel Lyon to read from their most recent books at the International Festival of Authors, Parry Sound, on Monday 29 October at 7:30 pm. There are a limited number of tickets available for those who wish to attend a reception with the authors prior to the readings. Contact Parry Sound Books for tickets and more information.

Please note that last week’s review was written not by me – as the heading indicated – but by Stevan McCallum, a member of the International Festival of Authors Parry Sound committee working to bring these authors to our town – my apologies to Steve!

Ned Beauman – Teleportation Accident – in Parry Sound 29 October 2012

One of the Best New British Writers comes to Parry Sound - here is a review by Stevan McCallum, one of the International Festival of Authors Parry Sound committee members Ned Beauman, who was named one of the Best New British Writers in 2011 by BBC 2’s Culture Show will join authors Susan Swan, Annabel Lyon and Miranda Hill as the International Festival of Authors makes a stop in Parry Sound on Monday 29 October, at the Charles W. Stockey Centre.

Ned Beauman’s second novel “The Teleportation Accident” unfolds across a decade of Egon Loeser’s outrageous, privileged world, where his social life is miserable and often uncomfortably hilarious. As the title should suggest, the story is a series of episodes in a variety of places, where characters fatefully re-appear to complicate Loeser’s life. The only constants, aside from the protagonist, are the events of the 1930s unraveling in the background. Loeser muddles his way through a life where, “the two subjects most hostile to his sense of a man’s life as an essentially steady, comprehensible and Newtonian-mechanical undertaking were accidents and women.”

Loeser is a Berlin stage designer who has modeled a Teleportation Device for an important Berlin stage production which history has doomed it to fail. Repeatedly. And, the enduring quality of his character, making him a lovable-loser, is his inability to become an immoral being. He tries hard to make the wrong choices, but finds himself only ever close to acting out the transgressions so many around him commit.

Beauman’s success in this novel is bringing intelligence to the farce and offering wit without being elitist. In one of the more outrageous moments, Loeser befriends an American confidence man living in 1930 Paris. The confidence man names many of the literary jet-set that could be living in Paris during this time. The reader, like the mark, finds the logic plausible and is reasonably convinced that Fitzgerald or Hemingway is just around the corner, in the next bar. It would be easy to be duped by Beauman’s 1934 Paris unless one is perfectly confident in his or her knowledge of the history. Fortunately, the events turn so utterly absurd (in Paris, the ruse involves lychee-fruit passed-off as monkey parts for a age-defying, non-intrusive surgery on two women) readers need not worry about being too gullible to draw a line.

And therein lies one of the humbling aspects of reading this novel: keeping up with what is real. One caveat of reading historical fiction must surely be approaching the book with a healthy skepticism: a reader mustn’t take the events or characters as fact. It is packed with references to literature, history and culture. Many events ring true and others are plausible. I often felt it necessary to resist the urge to read the book with a laptop or smartphone nearby to verify some of the content. Loeser and his contemporaries reference books, literary movements and historical events. Did Germans really read Berlin Alexanderplatz in the 1930s? (According to Wikipedia, yes!). Was there a writer from Devon called Rupert Rackenham? (No, since he has no entry in the above source).

While the slapstick and farce allow us to laugh because it’s not happening to us, the challenge, I suppose, with dark comedy is finding the appropriate line where an audience’s level of discomfort and their sense of humour intersect. “The Teleportation Accident” appears to have found the appropriate line for his dark comic moments, but decides to operate on either side of it. Undoubtedly, some readers will find the private discussions and thoughts of Loesner and other male characters offensive--though not without some merit.

Stevan McCallum is currently teaching English at Parry Sound High School. His ideal novel would be co-authored by Margaret Atwood and Nick Hornby.