Betty Jane Hegerat

I’m not writing these days, not even playing with old stories, haven’t sent anything out in ages.  But suddenly today, it seems time to get something “out there”.  And because this one has never been out anywhere, here’s  Aunt Jewel  just because.

The woman behind the desk tells Barbara that Jewel has moved up to the second floor. She says it with a lilt, as though Jewel strode out of her room and punched that elevator button all on her own. Barbara has been in enough care facilities to know that upward mobility is about loss of mobility. Why hasn’t someone in the family told them Jewel is losing it?

Jewel, sitting in a chair at the window, might have seen Barbara park her car, walk up to the door. But it’s obvious she doesn’t recognize her.

Gary’s wife. Your nephew Gary?

Of course she knows Gary. No loss of voice precipitated the move upstairs. Jewel sounds as testy as ever, the spinster teacher, the family’s legendary lesbian. Nonsense, Gary always insisted. Gossip. Just because she never married. Maybe she wanted to be a history professor instead of a housewife. Some people, Barbara reminded him, do both. She herself has been a teacher and a mother. Not in Jewel’s day, he said. Gossip.

Choice pieces of Jewel’s furniture from home followed her to the care facility, followed her upstairs. Dark mahogany desk still waxed to a shine, pens in a brass cup, small stack of envelopes neatly squared on a leather-cornered blotter.

Jewel interrupts Barbara’s snoopy scan of the room to ask what brings her by on a day when anyone who’s able should be out in the sun. Would she like a cup of tea? The offer seems to use up all her energy and she melts back into her chair.

A bit of family news, Barbara says. She doesn’t know if anyone has told Jewel that their  Kaitlyn is getting married next month. To her roommate at Ryerson. Kaitlyn and Diana.

She wants to say, like you and Henrietta, but Barbara never knew Henrietta. Henrietta (Jewel called her “Hank”, this Barbara gleaned from Gary’s sister who is Barbara’s source of all she knows of Jewel and Henrietta/Hank)) is part of the legend of Jewel the lesbian, how they roomed together at McGill. Stayed close after they graduated in spite of the miles between them, the teaching positions, Jewel in Edmonton, Henrietta in Montreal. Visits back and forth at Christmas, and every summer vacation together; a new picture of the two of them in London, Rome, Madrid in Jewel’s Christmas cards each year. Until suddenly no Henrietta, no more mention of Hank. None, and no one dared to ask. She’d bite your head off, Gary’s sister told Barbara. Briefly, rumours of another woman, another professor colleague, but only Jewel’s smart solo presence at family functions ever after.

The old woman in the chair was likely described as handsome in her youth, still is, hair cut Prince Valiant style across a broad forehead, tweed skirt and pale pink sweater, leather walking shoes solid on the floor. Only the deep-set hoods of her eyes droop, and only for a second until she peers out from under the lids to say she hadn’t heard this was now possible. For girls to marry girls.

The law just passed, Barbara tells Jewel, as breathless as though she hauled a tablet carved with Bill C-38  to the top of the mountain herself.

Is that so? Jewel closes her eyes. Her chin sags. Now Barbara sees the drip-drip stains on the sweater, the snag in the hem of the skirt, wonders who looks after Jewel’s clothes, the personal touch. There are no grown daughters, just gossipy nieces, slightly afraid of this aged aunt.

A woman in floral print uniform glides into the room, eyes flashing into every corner. This is the one who should be watching the smoker out front. You have company, she chirps, plants a hand on Jewel’s shoulder. Jewel’s eyes open. She knows she has company, she says. Just when Barbara has decided that now the news has been shared, she can leave, the nurse shifts a chair into position, beckons Barbara into it, facing Jewel, their knees touching. There you go.

You’ll be getting an invitation to the wedding, Gary will be happy to pick you up, Barbara tells Aunt Jewel.

Gary is going to be furious.

I do not go out these day, Jewel says, clear voice, clear eyes, clear as can be. But a minute later, she sighs and drifts away again.

Sounds of squeaky feet in the hallway, a rattling cart, whine of something hydraulic, a lift for someone else who’s up here because they’re down? Barbara leans back, waits. Fidgets, leans forward, elbows on her knees, chin in her hands. Now she sighs. It must be the air in this place.

Why did I come, you’re probably wondering? she asks out loud. Not a twitch from Jewel. Oh, I don’t know. Another sigh. I’m good with this wedding, and the relationship. Things are so different these days. So open. Not like it was for you and Henrietta, this she whispers to herself, oh she hopes it was a whisper.

Jewel’s head bobs up a notch, her mouth opens, a soft snore escapes. Barbara nods. It’s a good thing, that it’s all open now, don’t you think? I’m fine with it. Only… It’s like when I sing inside my head, you know? I’m Joan Baez, in my mind. But I’ve never been able to carry a tune. In real life, when the song pours out of my mouth I’m off-key. When I try to tell people about this wedding…and I see the way they smile, I can’t sing the song I want to sing. I sound warped. Why is that?

Jewel stirs, her tongue working against her teeth. Barbara reaches for a knotted hand, surprised by the softness of the skin. She strokes the map of veins with her fingertips. I’m sorry, she tells Jewel. I shouldn’t have come. I can’t seem to get any of this right. She gently releases the hand to rest in the folds of tweed across Jewel’s knees.

When Barbara has moved the chair she was sitting in back against the wall, and turns to say goodbye, Jewel’s eyes are open wide and clear. “Henrietta got married, you know. To a man.” Hands clenching the wooden arms of the chair, she pulls up straight, her head high. “Oh, don’t look so sad. It was long ago. It ran its course.”

There’s more clatter in the hall and Barbara knows that any minute there will be a tray with tea and biscuits.

Jewel thanks Barbara for stopping by.

Outside, the same woman is sitting in the smoking chair, but this time there is a woman in the chair beside her. She has a bouquet of flowers across her knees. Flowers. Barbara walks away thinking that she should have brought flowers.

Yesterday I had an email from a friend who just finished reading The Boy. She said she’d stayed up late, googling photos of Robert Raymond Cook. Don’t! I told her. He’s looking for people to haunt. I was only half-joking. I was forewarned about the possibility of a haunting. When I met Jack Pecover, author of an earlier book on the Cook case, it was clear to me that he was not and will likely never be free of his quest for justice for Robert Raymond Cook. He told me that Alan Hustak, author of a book about the last hangings in every province in Canada, shared his conviction that RRC was wrongfully convicted and that the two of them had discussed pursuing a posthumous pardon for young Cook. Just recently, I heard from Aaron Coates, who wrote the play “End of the Rope” about RRC, that for him this is a story that keeps on wanting to live.
When I met with Doreen Scott, head nurse on the ward where RRC was committed for psychiatric assessment before his trial, she told me she was sure Robert Cook was speaking to me from the grave. I laughed that off, said he might be speaking to me, but it was no more than obsession of the same kind that took hold of me when I wrote fiction. That the ghost of RRC didn’t hold any greater sway over me than the fictional character, Louise, who had set the story in motion when she began whispering in my ear long before I revisited the tragic story of the Cook family. In retrospect, I know that my obsession with the Cook story was far more significant than any obsession I’ve had with fiction. Herein lies the problem when a writer of fiction turns her hand to non-fiction. The tendency, in fact the joy, of stealing and embellishing story from real life that is an artful challenge in fiction becomes an ethical dilemma in non-fiction.

Was I haunted during the writing of The Boy? Yes, indeed,I was. Am I still in the clutches of Cook’s ghost? No. I’ve spent many months granting myself release from the story. In fact, it was not Robert Raymond Cook who haunted me. It was Daisy Mae Cook, his stepmother, mother to the five small children murdered as well. And Daisy was a gentler ghost than RRC. One of my greatest struggles in writing the Cook family story was in avoiding fictionalizing their lives. Daisy remains an enigma—since the publication of The Boy several people have come forward with conflicting portraits of her. But I will leave her for good with my one lapse into imagining:

(excerpted from The Boy, Oolichan Books, 2011)
Daisy, splashed by a blood-red setting sun, leans into the window. The air in the kitchen is soupy, not even the sigh of a breeze.
She lifts a corner of waxed paper covering the plate of sandwiches, pokes at a crust of bread. Mustard has dried marigold yellow on a protruding grey bologna tongue. She re-wraps, and presses the plate to the counter. Too late for the fridge? Lock the barn door when the horse is dead?
“Mommy?”
Kathy, cheeks flushed, kitty-cat pyjamas twisted, droops in the doorway between kitchen and bedrooms. Then Linda toddles to her sister’s side, blanket trailing, thumb corked between her lips. Daisy huffs the fringe of hair off her forehead. “Back to bed, babies!”
“Thirsty!” Kathy’s toes click on the linoleum. From the living room, the voices of her brothers are muzzled by the heat. “Bobby here?” she asks.
“Not yet.” Daisy scoops one pudgy girl onto each bare arm. She waltzes slow around the kitchen, sets the fly paper spinning. Then swoops over the grey arborite table. Linda’s diaper snags on the chrome edge. Daisy lifts, then bops her around the table, one damp print at each place. Deposits her finally on Daddy’s spot. Shifts Kathy to sit beside her baby sister. Lifting the corners of her apron, she fans a breeze for two flushed, up-turned faces. Reminds herself to take off the tatty apron. Berates herself that she cares. Touches her hair, self-consciously. Relives the plucking of a coarse strand of white from the red this morning. And feels that sting all over again.
From the living room, the opening music to 77 Sunset Strip snaps its fingers. Daisy winks at Kathy. “Kookie, Kookie, lend me your comb!” she sings, tickles her fingers through the little girl’s hair. “Turn it down!” she calls to the boys. “Your dad will be here any minute.” Ray can’t stand the show. Kookie too much like Bobby, she thinks. So why isn’t Kookie in jail? And where is Ray? Where is Bobby, now that he’s been sprung?
Then loud voices in the garage, sharp as the edge of a shovel, the scuff of feet, the hard bark of a laugh, scrape of the door as it opens into the kitchen. Ray and Bobby, husband and stepson, drag the smell of grease and garbage into Daisy’s kitchen. She encircles the little girls, and calls the boys from the living room.

It’s been a week since I came home from the High Plains Bookfest in Billings, and I’ve been trying to shape a narrative in my mind. The trip, the people, the city, the events, the books; we talked about the weekend through the long nine hour drive home.  Robert, husband-chauffeur, Shirley, good friend and roadie through many of the travels involved in writing The Boy, were as delighted as I was with the trip.  No real shape has emerged, and I’ve been telling people that I’m on sabbatical from writing, so why not just list the highlights and let this be a collage:

—The Plains. I haven’t been to Montana in many years, and in fact my strongest memories are of a couple of TGIF trips across the border to Curly Bob’s bar in Sweetgrass when I was working for Alberta Social Services in Lethbridge, my first social work job back in … well, you really don’t need to know how long ago. The other memory is of a boyfriend who became a deadweight. I’d met him through a computer dating adventure (which I will write about some day) and when I tired of him I was glad that he returned to Ontario.  When he sought me out in Lethbridge the next summer, en route to San Francisco he said, I offered immediately to drive him to the border.  I dumped him at Coutts and you’ll have to wait for the rest of the story.The landscape!  I’d brought book tapes for the car but we didn’t need them.

—The people. We had just checked in at the Dude Rancher Lodge, a funky historic lodging in downtown Billings, and as though he was scripted, a lean tall cowboy meandered through with his spurs a-jingle.  Cowboys everywhere, the real deal.  And in almost equal supply, academics, and of course the folks from the library.  After my reading, a lovely man named Michael came up to tell me about the nine nations of North America.  I’d started out with my thanks to the festival organizers for including Canadians and insisted that there was no north/south literary border. But what Michael was excited to tell me was that I’d engaged him as soon as I began to speak. My voice, he said, was exactly that of his mother who could do a wicked imitation of the “Canadian accent”.  Do we really say “abooot” instead of “abowt”?  Who knew, eh? Everywhere, friendly people and a warm welcome for the Canadians. My sister Canadian on the shortlists was Adele Dueck, from Lucky Lake SK who was nominated in the Writing by Women category for her YA novel.

—Billings. We’d never been there, and knowing that the entire population of Montana would fit into Calgary, we expected just another small arid prairie city. Billings is a well-treed treasure, tucked up against the rim of a deep canyon, bordered on its other side by the Yellowstone River. Many of the historic buildings of the beautifully rejuvenated downtown, like many Calgary buildings, are of sandstone. We went for coffee on Saturday morning to a roasterie two blocks from the Dude Rancher and when we came out, were puzzled by the number of people sitting on curbs, lining the street.  A parade?  No, a friendly couple told us. There was a rodeo on in Billings that weekend, and the cattlemen’s association (NILE) had organized a cattle drive through downtown.  Fifty head were coming through. We were on our way to a reading and being Calgarians, I’m afraid fifty head was not enough to entice us to stay.

—The Events and the books. Friday afternoon was given over to the them of “Montana’s Home”, readings and presentations of which we attended two: Handraised: The Barns of Montana (the beautiful coffee table book that won the non-fiction category in which The Boy was shortlisted); Montana’s One Room Schoolhouses (another gorgeous book of photography and history traced through the tiny schoolhouses of not so long ago) that I’m predicting will be nominated for next year’s awards. Then a welcome reception and a chance to meet other authors and the festival organizers. Saturday celebrated all the nominated books with readings and discussion. I had the pleasure of reading with David Mogen, author of Honyocker Dreams: Montana Memories, a beautifully-wrought memoir, and Lael Morgan, author of  Wanton West: Madams, Money, Murder, and the Wild Women of Montana’s Frontier.  What’s not to be intrigued about with a title like that?

Saturday evening, the awards banquet and more authors and books and celebration. Tom McGuane was the keynote speaker and one of my favourite quips by this novelist, screenwriter, filmmaker was that he sometimes tells people he’s a backhoe operator, just to give himself some credibility. We also loved the food, which puzzled us in a pleasant way until we found out that it too was to celebrate “home”.  Comfort food:  meat loaf, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, pork chops in mushroom gravy. Centrepieces for the tables: piles of books, all of the books that were entered but were not finalists were there for the taking. This struck me as a bit of sad irony at first, but then I decided it was a great way to celebrate all of the entries. After the awards ceremony we had the pleasure of a party at the home of Corby Skinner, one of the festival organizers. I’m blaming Corby’s cat for my declaration this week that no author is complete without a cat. So now we have Rosie, freshly adopted from the city animal shelter. Rosie thanks you, Corby!

My only regret is that I didn’t have the opportunity to meet every writer.  What a fine celebration and what an honour to have been included.  Thank you, High Plains Book Awards and the city of Billings.  We will be back someday.

I’m off to the High Plains Literary Festival http://ci.billings.mt.us/index.aspx?NID=1407 next week, and honoured and excited by the nomination of The Boy to the non-fiction shortlist in these awards.  What a pleasure it will be to mingle with American writers, encounter books I would not otherwise have known. This is the first literary festival to which I have been invited and that fact, along with some contemplation of book awards and all of the literary trappings that go far beyond the sheer pleasure of writing compel me to write a post that will be far more personal than is within my usual comfort zone. This is not meant to be a polemic about awards and the state of publishing.  This is simply about my own experience and feelings and only thrown on the page because I feel compelled to do so, to try and make sense, and isn’t that what writing is all about?

On a landmark birthday almost 20 years ago, I decided it was time to lasso a dream I’d had since I was a teenager writing angst-ridden poetry and maudlin short stories. I was going to be a writer. Note, that this  ambition went beyond simply putting my pen to the page and telling stories. I was going to be a Writer. And I dove into thr pursuit with a zeal and an energy that amazes me now when I look back at that stage of my life—part-time work for an adoption agency, three children still under my wing, a multitude of volunteer activities.  I took writing class after writing class, acquired an addiction to writing retreats, took up the challenge of breaking into every literary magazine in the land (not successfully, of course, with a number of them still on my list), and set my sites on a novel. I was determined to have a book. That’s what it was all about, right? Books? I imagined reviews, book tours, and even dared to think about awards. I told my friends, with a laugh, that I didn’t anticipate winning book prizes, but that didn’t stop me from imagining what I’d wear to the Giller Gala. I put my shoulder to the wheel and pushed that wonky stone up the hill for eighteen years.

In 2006, after two book manuscripts went to their final reward in my desk drawer, my first novel, Running Toward Home, was published. That same year, I began the UBC Optional Residency MFA Creative Writing program and against all advice, finished it off in two years; six courses, two summer residencies, and a thesis packed into that time. Meanwhile, I taught creative writing at various venues. I graduated jwith the MFA just after my 60^th birthday in May 2008. In fall, 2008, my collection of short stories, A Crack in the Wall was published. In 2009, another novel and my UBC thesis, Delivery, was published, and in 2011, a hybrid of fiction and non-fiction, The Boy. Was I delighted with the succession of books? Of course. Was I satisfied? Of course not. I was gratified by the reader response to all of them, thrilled to be on shortlists for Alberta prizes for both Delivery and The Boy, but… at the same time I found myself sucked into the lure of winning, and vulnerable to envy and resentment.

The Boy was the most challenging story I had tackled, and tackle it I did, going deep into dark holes and plumbing fears I had never acknowledged. To be frank, six months after The Boy was published, I crashed. I was exhausted, emotionally and physically and creatively. People complimented me on all I had achieved in six years, and I insisted repeatedly that it was simply a case of almost two decades of work finally catching up. The truth is, I was too driven for my own good. I wanted more than the pleasure of writing and a reading audience, however small. I let myself be seduced by the writing life, or more accurately, the life of a successful writer. I let the literary culture define success for me, instead of finding the balance I needed between writing life and real life.

This post is the most serious writing I’ve done in a very long time. I keep telling people I’m on sabbatical, but in fact, I am embracing “not writing” with such relief that I can envision myself at the end of the year declaring that I am semi-retired. I am spending hours that were previously committed to the computer with my newly-retired husband, I go for coffee with friends and have stopped looking at my watch and thinking I need to get home to write, and my first concern these days is the people I care about and maximizing the time I have with them.

Perhaps my motivation to put all this on the page signals a return to writing, but at this point, I only want to humbly share what I’ve learned. It is possible to want something too much. It is possible to lose sight of what’s important in life. It is possible to find your way back.

So next week I am off to Billings, Montana for the sheer pleasure of making the acquaintance of writers in another place, and celebrating with them. The non-fiction prize?  I can honestly say that I will not feel anything but pleasure for whoever wins.  And now I have to plan what I will wear to that “gala”.

Last spring, when The Boy was launched, I had the pleasure of “visiting” a number of blogs  hosted by writers and readers who kindly responded to my request for places to stop in on a virtual tour with the book.

Carin Makuz, who lives in Whitby, Ontarion,  was one of several friends of Susan Toy’s who extended an invitation, and I was delighted, about a month ago, when she sent an email saying that she was re-reading The Boy, and had questions to ask.  And what fine, thoughtful questions they were. What an insightful review she’s given the book.

As always, I’ve discovered, when I meet another writer, there are connections that go beyond the craft and process and obsession we share.  When Carin read my response to her question about characters I identified with as a young reader wherein I listed Elnora from The Girl of the Limberlost, she sent me a link to a post wherein she describes her own experience with the book. From there, we went on to reminisce about Cherry Ames, and Nancy Drew, and the sets of encyclopedias that were accumulated  a few letters at a time from the grocery store and much more.

When I saw the food Carin suggested for book club meetings around The Boy,  I was amazed to see flapper pie on the menu.  How could an easterner know about flapper pie, that quintessential prairie dessert?  As it turns out, Carin didn’t know flapper pie until she found it in The Boy, Jake’s indulgence at the local coffee shop on pg. 94.

Here’s Carin’s fine review and our interview:

http://matildamagtree.wordpress.com/2012/08/02/at-eleven-with-betty-jane-hegerat-the-boy/

Carin’s post on The Girl of the Limberlost:  http://matildamagtree.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/the-book-that-started-it-all-2/

In case you don’t have one in your own family recipe archives, here’s my mom’s recipe for flapper pie:

Flapper Pie

Crust:

1 ¼ cup graham wafer crumbs

¼ cup sugar

¼ cup butter, melted

Mix, set aside 2 tbsp of crumbs, press rest into 9 inch pie plate, bake for 8 minutes at 350, cool.

Filling

¼ cup sugar

3 tbsp cornstarch

2 cups milk

2 egg yolks, lightly beaten

1 tsp vanilla

Mix sugar and cornstarch in saucepan, blend in milk, and heat slowly to boiling.  Stir a little of the hot mixture into the eggs yolks, then add yolk mixture to saucepan and continue heating on low for about 2-3 minutes or until thickened.  Remove from heat, add vanilla, cool slightly and pour into crust.

Meringue

*2 egg whites

¼ tsp cream of tartar

2 tbsps sugar

Beat egg whites with cream of tartar until soft peaks form, then gradually beat in sugar until there are stiff peaks. Spread over filling, sealing to crust. Sprinkle with remaining crumbs. Bake at 400 for about 5 minutes or until lightly browned.  Cool well before cutting.

*  my mother swore that she only used two eggs whites in the magnificent meringues that topped her pies, but I’ve never achieved anything but a poor copy.  So, I always add two extra egg whites, and then I have a pie I can call a flapper! J

In 2005, CBC radio’s Alberta Anthology ran its usual contest for poetry, fiction, non-fiction and dramatic monologue, and in celebration of Alberta’s centennial, asked for themed entries. Normally, I find it hard to write to themes, and usually end up scouring the work I have at hand, looking for some slim connection. But a true blue monarchist friend gave me the gift of a story when she invited me to come with her to catch a glimpse of HRH Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh on their visit to Calgary.

With this year’s celebration of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, it seems good timing to share the story that resulted and that was ultimately broadcast on CBC’s Alberta Anthology and included in the book published that year by Red Deer Press.

The Queen is Coming

 My mother phones at eight o’clock in the morning on March 27. “Charlie! The Queen is coming for the Centennial. I want to go to the party,” she says. “You sound sleepy, dear.”

I’ve given up reminding her that I work nights. I do data entry at a bank. Suits me well, and I’m free to ferry Ma to medical appointments and funerals – pretty much her only outings these days.

I’d cruelly hoped, when I heard about the pending royal visit on CBC radio this morning, that Ma would be having one of her bad days. That the news wouldn’t penetrate the fog.

“You know I hate crowds,” I tell her.

“You’re fifty-seven years old,” she says. “You should get over these little fears of yours.” She sighs. “This will be my last chance to see her.”

My mother’s obsession with the royal family began in 1948 when she and Princess Elizabeth were both pregnant. I was born two days after the little prince. If the royal had been a girl, I would have been named Ernest, for my father.

“The tickets are free,” she says. “All you have to do is get in line.” I imagine her head trembling as she speaks. “I hope I can find my hat.”

In Ma’s royal album, there is a picture from 1951. The two of us standing on Ninth Avenue, Ma in a dark wool coat, matching felt hat with a brim and feather. Me, buttoned into a heavy brown coat cut down from Ernest’s overcoat just a few months after he died in a streetcar accident. I’m clutching a small Union Jack in my chubby fist.

The Princess was wearing a mink coat that day, and a matching hat that hugged her head.  Ma had a milliner fashion a replica of that mink cloche hat out of a piece of fur no has ever identified. My sister, Annie, swears it’s cat. The hat has only ever been worn for royal viewings.  Four in all.

I grudgingly agree to get tickets to the Saddledome reception. But I oversleep on the morning they go up.

Ma is surprisingly cheerful. “Never mind. I’m not sure I could have endured the program. They say it will be hours long.”

“Right!” I say in jovial response.  I’ve had nightmares about chasing her runaway wheelchair down ramps. About the accidents to which this proud woman is now prone and the mortification of both of us.

“We’ll just go down to the public viewing,”  Ma says. “Maybe she’ll do a walk-about.” She’s getting excited now. “Wouldn’t it wonderful if Charles was coming?”

“Don’t know why he isn’t,” I say. “He’s fifty-seven. He probably loves riding around with his mother.”

“He’s busy,” she snaps. “He’s getting married again, you know.”

Ma loved Diana, is sour on Camilla, but says at least Charlie Windsor isn’t going to remain an old bachelor for the rest of his life. And he has those two fine sons.  I, on the other hand, allowed a childless marriage wash up on the rocks ten years ago.

The weather in the week leading up to the Queen’s arrival in Calgary is cold, grey, fiercely windy. Not the sort of climate to which a responsible man would expose his frail eighty-two year old mother.

But she insists.  My sister, Annie, insists. “For gawd sake, Chuck!” she snarls over the phone, “I offered to take her myself, but she wants you.”

I slump in my chair, thinking about the hat I retrieved from the top of the closet. . Even after my heroic attempts to fluff it up, the old relic looked like road kill. I winced when Ma settled it over her scant curls and peered into the mirror. “Oh, Charlie,” she whispered, “I look so old.”  But I, standing behind her chair, was staring at my own reflection. A fat, balding, man who would never be mistaken for a prince.

Even though it’s a morning in May, Ma is bundled into her black winter coat, feet encased in fur-lined boots, hat perched covering her freshly-permed hair. A policeman stands in the middle of Ninth Avenue, diverting traffic. Despite his shouts, I creep forward, waving my “handicapped parking” sticker. He shakes his head, but points to a loading zone around the corner.

I push Ma’s wheelchair to a curbside spot in front of the Palliser Hotel. Huddled into my windbreaker, I wish I’d worn my own winter jacket. But then, just minutes before the entourage is due, the sun breaks through. Ma twists in the chair to look up at me, her face tiny beneath the fur. “They say she never wears a hat twice.”

Suddenly there’s a limo approaching, and as it glides by, a smattering of applause from the crowd. A blur of face, a wave. Finished in seconds. Ma doesn’t blink. “That’s not her,” she says. “It’s that Clarkson woman.”

The Governor General, Ma tells me, is going ahead to stage the receiving line for the Queen and Prince Philip. It’s the way things work.

I’m eyeing the corner of Ninth and Macleod a block away, thinking that this is where the cars will slow. This is why the crowd is thickest there. For the better view.  I hope my mother doesn’t notice that I haven’t chosen the best vantage point. Haven’t even tried.

She turns again, and motions for me to listen. I crouch beside the chair. “You look at her face, Charlie. She’s so… serene. How can that be possible with all the stress the poor woman has been through?”

I choke back a snort. “She has a bit of hired help, Ma.”

“Oh, not that,” she says. “It’s the children. The way they live their lives. What a disappointment that must be.”

I feel heavy, leaning there on my haunches, the weight of my own dull life hovering over Ma and me. “I guess that’s just something that comes with being a mother,” I say.

“No dear,” she tells me softly, without taking her eyes off the street. “Elizabeth has had bad luck with her Charles. Aren’t I a lucky old woman to have raised a decent man like you?” She turns now and the smile takes twenty years from her face.

I can see cars approaching, people waving and cheering in the next block.  Too fast. They’ll be past us in a flash. I crank Ma’s chair around, bounce it off the curb and race down the street, Ma gasping and waving her arms.

“Make way!” I shout. “The Queen is coming!”  At the corner, the crowd parts to let us pop up onto the sidewalk just before the second limo in the procession slows, and glides past.  Under a big-brimmed white hat, a smiling face turns to Ma, a gloved hand makes an elegant salute.

Ma grabs my arm. “She smiled right into my face!”

I bend, press my cheek to hers. “Of course,” I say. “She recognized the hat.”

Yesterday I had an email from a woman who attended a presentation I did for a librarians’ regional professional development day.  She said she was compelled to read my latest book, The Boy, after hearing me speak, and went on to recommend the book to her book club. And now she was wondering if I would join the book club for a dinner meeting. Only six woman in this book club and they live in different towns, but they would be happy to come to Calgary for dinner if they could entice me to be their guest.

I sent an email to a few of my close writing friends to tell them about this offer.  Is this why we write? I asked, only somewhat facetiously, in the subject line. Yes! each one of them replied.

When The Boy was finally out of my hands, contract signed, all but a copy-edit to be done, I took the advice I would give to any other writer and moved on to the next project. Fortunately, I had the first draft of a young adult novel I’d begun in one of the UBC summer residencies, and completing that novel was the perfect distraction.  Around the time that I was ready to send out the new manuscript, The Boy was released and I was into  busy months of readings and presentations.  And then …  winter,  no project in mind, no clear sense of “what next”, but the sobering realization that there were more important things needing attention.  While I was caught up in about ten years of writing, books, completing a degree in creative writing, ridiculously, I seem to have moved  into a new demographic. And with that stage of life come the inevitable challenges and losses. People who matter, a shifting in priorities.  I’m sure that I will deal with all this through fiction sometime soon; it’s the best way I know to make sense of it all. For now, though, I’ve been relieved to be not-writing, and quite sure that the reason I’m relieved rather than fretting over my lack of creative energy, is that The Boy is enjoying a life longer than what I’d anticipated, and there is such pleasure in watching this book grow into the world.

My previous three books had the predictable life of small press books by a new author.  Variously labelled “domestic fiction”, “regional interest”, “quiet stories about ordinary lives”, their publication nevertheless thrilled me. Still, who doesn’t dream about brilliant reviews, national awards, becoming the new literary darling?  I’m old enough, cynical enough, to roll my eyes at the suggestion that there is fame and fortune in writing, and yet …  when I teach creative writing and talk about fame and fortune, I always mention that part of the fun of it all is imagining what one would wear to the Giller gala. And shouldn’t we be having fun?  But the life of all but a few celebrated books is a short one, and perhaps that’s what motivates us to write the next and the one after that.

The Boy is an odd hybrid of fiction, non-fiction, memoir, and I was nervous about how it would be reviewed.  I was nervous, too, about how it would be received in the community, because it centers on a mass murder in Alberta in 1959.  That story belongs to the towns of Stettler and Hanna and to the many citizens there who knew and cared about the murdered family. The book has been graciously received; some fine reviews, and a generous response from the community. Since January, I’ve had a steady stream of invitations to visit book clubs and libraries.  The life of The Boy has extended far beyond my expectations. Shortlisted for both the City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell book award and the Wilfred Eggleston Non-fiction award in the Alberta Book Awards.  Both of those prizes will be awarded in June, but meanwhile, to be on shortlists with the likes of Suzette Mayr and Cathy Ostlere (City of Calgary prize) and Alice Major and Andrew Nikiforuk (Alberta Book Awards list) is a prize in itself.  Last year, 2011, was an outstanding year for Alberta authors and for me, one of the pleasures of writing is the community to which we all belong.

After the minor hoopla of the book awards, I expect that The Boy will crawl up onto the shelf beside my other three books, Running Toward Home, A Crack in the Wall, and Delivery.   I’m fine with that. Why do we write?  For readers. For the little book club willing to drive to Calgary to take an author out for dinner.

A book has a life. So too does the writer have a life. Both finite, which is hardly an epiphany, but in my several months of walking and ruminating—more on life, than on books, to be honest—it’s become important to me to remember this. Being a writer is a significant part of my life, but far back of being a wife, a mother, a sister, a friend. For now, I’m not writing much at all, and I’m good with that.

One of the best writing decisions I made in the last ten years, was to apply to UBC’s optional residency MFA  Creative Writing program.  And one of the benefits of that program, was the company in which I found myself.  I was never in a class with Daniel Griffin whose collection of short stories, Stopping for Strangers, is hot off Vehicule Press.  We may have met briefly during one of the summer programs, but I’ve known his short fiction for quite some time; literary magazines, one of the three featured authors in Coming Attractions (Oberon Books 2008), twice in the Journey Prize anthology and a finalist for that prize in 2009.

A couple of months ago, I had a note from Daniel , saying that some other UBC colleagues had mentioned to him that I did a blog tour when The Boy was published last spring, and he was curious about how that had worked out.  From my perspective, talking books on blogs with great writers can only be a fine experience, and I was delighted when Daniel said he’d like to visit here.  When Stopping for Strangers dropped into my mailbox three weeks ago, I read this beautifully produced collection in about three days, and then sat back and wondered what on earth I could ask about stories so finely wrought.

If I were reviewing Stopping for Strangers, I would talk long about the clean, polished prose, the exquisitely fine brush strokes that paint the characters, the range of voice, the sense of an author moving his characters toward the cliff-edge with tender care.  To engage Daniel Griffin in this conversation, I want to talk about the possibilities of domestic realism, and how the short story form lends itself so well to snapshots that capture both the light and the dark, the positive and the negative.  About diving into the darkness, writing about flawed human beings and the duality of even the most ordinary of people.

Welcome, Daniel Griffin!  What a pleasure to be able to talk with you.

Q.(BJH)  In an interview at Book Club Buddy   you mention one of the things people have remarked about your stories is that is unusual to find domestic fiction, stories about families and relationships written by a man.  In that same interview, you invoke Raymond Carver and Kent Haruf (both favourites of my own) as writers who influenced you.  While I was reading your stories, I found myself also placing you in the American tradition of authors beginning with John Cheevers, then Richard Yates, John Updike and Richard Ford,  who have given us stories about men in crisis in the kind of domestic/suburban territory more common of women writing stories about women.  Do you see a trend in Canadian literature leading in this direction?  Are there Canadian authors who have influenced you in the same way?

A.  (DG)  One of the things about Cheever, Yates, Updike, Ford and Carver is the large number of stories they wrote over their careers.  I think you could say that Cheever and Carver are really best known for their short stories.  There are quite a few American writers of that generation who could be cited as primarily short story writers.  We’ve got Alice Munro and you can’t talk about short stories that touch on domestic life without citing her.  (She’s certainly been an influence on me, but I’d venture to say she’s been an influence on most short story writers.)

Anyway, while it’s true that many of my favourite writers aren’t Canadian and many don’t write short stories, there are a lot of Canadian writers I love and would cite as influences.  To rattle off a few and make a point: David Bergen, Madeleine Thien, Joseph Boyden, Timothy Taylor, Eden Robinson.  Each wrote one great collection of short stories then turned to the novel.

I guess I’m as curious as anyone as to what will come next from some of the short story writers we’ve been seeing on the big prize shortlists recently.  More stories or a novel?

Q. (BJH) In some of the stories in Stopping for Strangers I found myself holding my breath, because I had the sense that you were leading these characters  toward the edge of a cliff.   Or in more than one instance, putting the gun in your character’s hand. But I also get a strong sense of compassion in your portrayal of these people.  These are dark places you’ve explored.  When you begin a story, do you have a strong sense of where it is leading?  Do you ever abandon a story because it is heading into territory you simply do not want to explore?

A.  (DG) That’s an interesting question. I never know where a story is going when I start it, and as I write the first draft, I make a deliberate effort not to think of where it’s heading and what might happen.  I try to keep my mind no more than a couple steps ahead of my pen.  And so where it goes can be a surprise for me as well—a realization more than a surprise I suppose.

So how do so many of these stories skirt darkness or dive right into it?  I suppose some of it I should blame on my subconscious. As I say, the way these stories emerge is often a surprise for me–I don’t think I’m ever consciously directing them down any kind of particular path.

I’m glad you see the compassion in them.  I certainly try and write with no judgement and an open heart.  For me that’s important. More than important. Vital.  Especially when writing about characters who are unsympathetic or unappealing.  I guess for me any character that’s going to be laid out and exposed at the point of crisis deserves a compassionate and caring portrayal!

I have abandoned lots of stories, but most of them were abandoned due to DNA level problems with the story itself–something flayed I couldn’t overcome.  Most stories that I start, I finish and rewrite or polish to some extent.  With that said, I have had stories that veered into territory that disturbed me to the extent I didn’t see the appeal in spending 100 hours or whatever it was going to take to realize a finished product.

Since becoming a parent there certainly are areas I don’t want to think about or explore.  Not many, but a few.  I used to love difficult, dark and challenging films.  Shortly after our first daughter was born, I watched Requiem for a Dream and came out of the theatre telling my wife that I now understood why Disney existed: there are some things a parent just doesn’t want to think about, and some times, soft and rosy entertainment is all we need.

Q. (BJH) The short story seems to be having a resurgence in popularity in the past two or three years with some gorgeous collections appearing on the shortlists for major prizes. And yet, it seems to me that there is still the belief that short fiction is a training ground for novelists.  You have demonstrated such talent and craft in this collection, that I hope there are more short stories to come. But…  is there other work – novel, poetry, non-fiction–  that is equally compelling to you?   What’s next?

A.  (DG) I spent a lot of years writing these stories (and the stories before them that were a training ground for the pieces that appear in this collection).  By the time I was writing the last few stories in this book, I was ready for a change.  I found myself writing on a bigger canvass, the stories stretched further over time etc. And it was like my writing really wanted to do something bigger, something different.  I felt the need to change it up.  At the same time I wanted to tackle a novel. I think I’d always known I wanted to do this. In truth, I’d written a couple of novels that never really got off the ground.  I spent years working on them, but eventually abandoned both.

With all that said, I love short stories. I love writing them, I love reading them and am happy to see an increased level of attention to the short story form and, like you say, seeing some deserving collections getting nominations for the largest prizes.  That’s as it should be.

To answer your question more directly: I’m working on a novel at the moment, and figure I’m maybe a year from having it ready in some form.  I expect that over this coming year I’ll share it with some friends and fellow writers and when that happens I’ll have some decisions to make.  I’m a compulsive writer.  I write every day and really have to or I won’t be a very pleasant person for my family to live with.  And so before I pass this novel off for anyone to look at, I’ll have to figure out what I’m writing next….

Q.  (BJH)  I realize this is somewhat akin to asking if you have a favourite, child, but is there a story in this collection that has been of particular importance to you for whatever reason?

A. (DG) I’ll take the “particular importance” angle rather than favourite.  I think the earliest story in this book is “Mercedes Buyer’s Guide.”  For a while that was even a contender for a title for the book.  This story opened up new doors for me in terms of how to write a story and how to tell a story.  It was the first time I played with point of view, it was the first time I wrote from the perspective of a father (I was about to become a father myself) and I felt like in writing it I’d stumbled upon something compelling in the ordinary lives of ordinary people.  The stories in this book are quite varied and I’m not sure a reader would see any other story in here as following in the footsteps of “Mercedes”, but as a writer, I felt like it was the start of something.  For that it holds a special place in my heart.

Q. (BJH) I know you have three daughters, Daniel, and I’m always curious about what families read.  What books are your daughters’ favourites?

A. (DG) I love reading aloud to the family.  Unfortunately the kids often prefer to read alone.  Our two eldest kids have both had phases where they seem to constantly have a book glued to their hands.

Before we had kids and a TV, my wife and I read aloud to each other every night.  We  don’t do it as often now.  I think Cormac McCarthy’s The Road was the last one we read aloud to each other—talk about dark!

Anyway, I have managed to create a bit of a read aloud tradition with the kids, and we just finished reading the Harry Potter series.  I’m now reading them The Incredibly Ordinary Danny Chandelier which is a wonderful novel for young adults written by a fellow UBC MFA Grad Laura Trunkey.

More about Stopping for Strangers and Daniel Griffin at:  http://www.danielgriffin.ca/

After readings in Lacome, Stettler and Camrose earlier this month, I’m eager to take The Boy out on the road again.

Sherwood Park
Friday, October 28 7:00 PM Strathcona County Library 401 Festival Lane Sherwood Park

Tofield
Saturday, October 29 1:00 PM Tofield Public Library 5407 50 St.

The One Book, One Stettler event on October 3 was as fine a celebration as I could have imagined. In that audience of about 65 people, there were several I had interviewed for the book—Dave McNaughton, Jack Pecover, Doreen Scott, Gary Anderson—and as well, there were people I hadn’t met before who offered new information and kept the discussion going for a very long time. The library served 1950s“themed” food—hot dogs, burgers, French fries and root beer floats—and I was not the only one happy to slurp a float for nostalgia’s sake.

While I was writing The Boy there were rumours about the case that came up again and again. The most frequent was that an “uncle” had confessed to the murders on his deathbed. Another that I heard several times was that Bob Cook had fastened seven paper flowers onto the aerial on the flashy convertible in which he came back to Stettler after the murders. Cook’s defense lawyer, Dave McNaughton, had told me that the deathbed confession was myth, and when the question came up at the reading, I was glad he was there with his answer. And I was relieved to hear from someone in the audience who’d been on the sidewalk the day Cook drove back into town in the convertible, that there were paper flower on the aerial, but not seven. Not the macabre memorial bouquet that had become part of the legend. There were interesting pieces added to the story, including one about the ownership of the shotgun that was the murder weapon, but what was clear was that the Cook tragedy had a huge impact on the town of Stettler and that this story lives on 52 years later.

In Camrose the next night, I was glad to be back among old friends and family, and pleased to meet new people, again those who remembered 1959.

I’m looking forward to Sherwood Park and Tofield this week, curious about who will turn up and what they will remember.

I am not savvy at all in matters of technology.  But on the other hand, when I have a creative idea– in this case, the notion that I wanted to post audio clips of readings from The Boy on my own webpage to coincide with some blog-hopping I’ll do later in April– I will doggedly persist.  To those who are techno-smart, this will seem like small change, but I’m thrilled to be able to post a wee preview here!