Lisa Moore

Lisa Moore captivated the audience, reading from her novel Caught on 7 May. Talking to us very openly about her life and her writing - her boundless energy and enthusiasm enchanted us all.

Lisa Moore Wednesday 7 May 2014 at the Charles W. Stockey Centre

LISA MOORE AT THE STOCKEY CENTRE WEDNESDAY 7 MAY

It is often said about Irish writers that there must be something in the water – and the more I have come to know writers and musicians from Newfoundland I’d say the same about Newfoundlanders. They have grown up in homes with a rich culture of music and storytelling and have absorbed it from their earliest days. Those who have the talent and perseverance to become writers and musicians have a wealth of story to make their own.

I first met Lisa Moore when she came to Parry Sound to read from her novel February in 2010. She stayed with us, we got along well and have stayed in touch since then. February won the Canada Reads competition last year and readers across the country who were not previously familiar with her work are all reading February.

When Caught was published last year I knew I wanted Lisa Moore to come back to Parry Sound to read to us again.

Lisa Moore was recently awarded The Writers' Trust Engel Findley Award “given to a mid-career writer in recognition of a remarkable body of work, and in anticipation of future contributions to Canadian literature. Writers are judged on their body of work – no less than three works of literary merit which are predominantly fiction – rather than a single book. All Canadian writers are considered and no age or gender restrictions apply.” For a writer as accomplished as Lisa Moore this is not only a financial award but confirmation that she is judged by her peers to be producing work of importance.

Caught is, again, a stellar novel – but so very different from February. It is the mark of a very fine writer that she can write two so completely different sorts of novels, both in style and content, and still bring us characters that become so very real.

We come to very much care about Slaney, a young man on the run desperate not to be caught and returned to prison. It was while attending Memorial University in Newfoundland that Slaney and his friend Hearn cook up a plan to get rich. Just bring a boatload of Marijuana in from Columbia, make a million dollars, and they’ll be set for life. Sounds too easy – and of course it is. They are caught and it is Slaney who does the time.

Case solved – well, perhaps not. There are questions never quite answered to the satisfaction of the police. As Slaney makes his way across the country we learn about his past, the woman he loved and loves still although she did not wait for him.

Really, Slaney is a good guy, one who honestly cares for other people and helps those in need. He mostly trusts others – although his instinct not to trust occasionally, almost, comes to his rescue. The story is all so plausible, you just want it all to work out for this guy – even as you ask yourself how such a smart guy could sometimes be so stupid.

Lisa Moore is not only a writer but also a painter and a playwright and one of the most alive people I know. There is such an integrity and intensity about everything she does from writing to cooking to conversation – she lives in the moment with an inspiring enthusiasm for life. I could picture her careening across the country with Slaney – ready for the next wave that life throws at them.

I am so pleased that she has washed up on the shores of Georgian Bay and will be at the Charles W. Stockey Centre to read to us from her novel Caught on Wednesday 7 May at 7:30 pm. Come along for the ride!

Linda Spalding

Linda Spalding at the Charles W. Stockey Centre on 16 April

It was snowing - the sort of blizzard we might expect in the dead of winter - when I went to bed the night of April 15. Linda Spalding was booked to read at the Stockey Centre the next day – I had visions of having to postpone her reading because of the weather – but luckily the day dawned sunny, the snow melted and we had an enthusiastic audience in the hall on Wednesday evening.

I had not met Linda until she arrived here, we chatted over dinner and I was charmed by her friendliness and her readiness to talk about anything and everything. We took a break for the reading, then talked all evening.

Linda read from her novel The Purchase, winner of the 2013 Governor General’s Award for Fiction. She also talked about the story behind the story, such a rich family history just waiting for her to mine it for her novel. The expression “truth is stranger than fiction” comes to mind as Linda told us that in reality her ancestor had seven children – her editor told her it was too many for readers to keep track of so poor Daniel had to lose a couple of children for his transition from fact to fiction.

We were treated to an evening of delight in the written word by an author who charmed the audience and excited us all with her enthusiasm for her subject and her life as a writer. Literary readings are all about getting the words off the page and having the author share her story – Linda Spalding gave us that and more.

Linda Spalding 16 April 2014

Another year, and as spring returns, another Annual Reading Series begins. This year featuring authors Linda Spalding, Lisa Moore, Shyam Selvadurai and Nancy Richler, all Canadian writers of award-winning novels.

We begin the series with Linda Spalding on Wednesday 16 April at the Charles W. Stockey Centre at 7:30 pm.

Linda Spalding’s most recent book, The Purchase was awarded the 2012 Governor General’s Award for English Language Fiction, and was nominated for the Rogers Writer’s Trust Award.

The Purchase is one of the best books I have ever read. There was not a moment that my attention was not completely captured by her words and her story. There were times when I had to close the book, take a breath, and go on – not wanting it to end, but wanting to know what would happen next.

Linda Spalding has created characters that become real to the reader, based on her own ancestors, and set them in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s, a time of slavery and war between Canada and the United States. There have been many, many novels written about slavery, and many of them excellent, but I’m not sure that there is another that captures the brutally of that experience, and yet is so sensitively written. It is slavery that is at the heart of this novel, and we read about what it must have been like to live in that world, for both slaves and owners - most especially for Daniel Dickenson and the slave he inadvertently purchases.

Daniel leaves his Quaker community after marrying his housemaid – his solution to caring for his children when he is suddenly widowed. Shunned by his family and his neighbours Daniel heads south. His intention is to become a farmer where land is cheap. I found Daniel to be an idealistic man, but a man who has neither imagination nor true compassion for those around him.  A man who claims to have a deep belief in a good God, but who cannot find it in his heart to forgive his own family members when they transgress. Although he has a deep sympathy for the slaves and cannot in good conscience own another human being, he somehow is never able to actually do them any good. 

As much as Daniel’s plight is the beginning of the story, and always at it’s centre, I could not bring myself to care as much about him as I did about his young second wife, Ruth, his children and his unfortunate slaves. Daniel has taken his grieving children so far away from their family and all they had ever known, to a place barren of comfort. His young wife is but a child, raised in an orphanage she is, at first, hardly able to care for herself let alone five children. Ruth plays a secondary part in the novel, to her step-daughter, Mary, the eldest of Daniel’s children, but she ultimately becomes the most capable of them all, and if not for her they might all have perished.

The lonely Mary befriends the young slave purchased by Daniel, their friendship, a love as pure as only the love of children can be. But the reader knows that no matter how innocent or idealistic, there can be no future in a friendship between those with white skin and those with black in Virginia at this time. There may have been slaves that were well treated by their owners, some living almost like family, but there could be no love.

At it’s simplest The Purchase is a work of historical fiction, but no matter how much history Linda Spalding has crammed into this novel it never feels that anything but the characters and their plight are of the most importance. The relationships established at the beginning of the novel will continue to haunt their descendants as we follow them through future generations.

Linda Spalding is an editor of Brick, a Journal of Reviews, and the author of several earlier works of fiction and non-fiction. She lives in Toronto with her husband, the equally talented writer, Michael Ondaatje. Don’t miss the opportunity to hear her read from The Purchase on Wednesday 16 April at the Charles W. Stockey Centre.

2014 Reading Series

Please learn about our upcoming 2014 Reading Series. The four dates this season are Wednesday, April 16th, Wednesday, May 7th, Wednesday, September 17th, and Wednesday, October 15th. Tickets can be purchased either in person at Parry Sound Books or the Charles W. Stockey Centre, or online here.