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Small-town trouble from three sets of eyes

Author Mary Lawson virtually brings her new book to a STARFest-sponsored event June 5.

DETAILS

Mary Lawson, in conversation with host Fran Kimmel via Zoom

A STARFest presentation

Saturday, June 5 from 1 to 2:30 p.m.

Please register by visiting sapl.libcal.com/event/3608824. Admission is free, though donations to STARFest are appreciated.

Call 780-459-1530 or visit sapl.ca for more information.

If you haven’t picked up a Mary Lawson book, it’s time. Her newest work A Town Called Solace continues in her steady path that she started with Crow Lake, her award-winning first novel from 2002.

The British author writes about people navigating through tricky, troubled personal situations like no one else.

Lawson, a distant relative of Anne of Green Gables writer Lucy Maud Montgomery, has a psychology degree and knows how to use it. Though she focuses her work on employee behaviour in the workplace, it must serve her writing about real people and the emotional depths of their lives.

If it doesn’t, at least she has close ties with those who can offer some notes.

“I only have a first degree. I've worked in (the) industry; my sister, however, is a clinical psychologist. I refer to her a lot, she and my husband (her partner, British psychologist Richard Mobbs) are my first readers always on all my books, and are very much involved.”

“I consulted my sister, and then largely ignored her advice,” she said.

Lawson’s first novel in a decade is true to form. A Town Called Solace features a family in crisis in a northern Ontario town. She smartly shifts the viewpoints between characters so that the hard truth can come out for the reader.

It all starts when the teenaged Rose goes missing. She wasn’t one to follow the rules in the best of times but still her disappearance shakes the family. Clara, her younger sister, stays on constant watch at the window, waiting for her return.

That’s when Liam rolls into town. He’s in his 30s, newly divorced, and freshly out of work, as he moves in next door. Clara keeps her eyes on him, too. The house is owned by Mrs. Orchard, and the young girl is tending her neighbour’s cat while its owner is in the hospital.

We see the events transpire from the eyes of Clara, Mrs. Orchard, and the new neighbour Liam, all while the trouble of Rose continues on in the background. There’s more to things in small-town life, and having multiple perspectives sure can be elucidating.

"It is about the relationship between the three characters and how that develops, and really how the past colours the present. The central question in my mind as I was writing it was how possible is it for us to escape our past, particularly if you had a really traumatic childhood? How much can you expect to get away from it?"

For the author, writing provides an endless source of joy, one that takes her away from the troubles of the world and allows her to peer into the human condition to examine it, toy with it a little bit, and make sure events unfold as they should.

“Writing is always an escape. It's very like reading, actually, in that you enter another world. When you’re writing, it's more so,” she said.

“I don't have any idea what the book is about when I start, far less how it will end. I start with character. All the books are character-driven. The characters evolve as the circumstances of the story evolve, as they come to know and affect each other. I find it really absorbing and … I want to say that it is a total escape and that it relaxes me. It does. It gives me a focus.”

“We’re thrilled to have an author of Mary Lawson’s stature at STARFest,” offered interim STARFest director Michelle Steinhusen. "We know her conversation with audience favourite Fran Kimmel will be engaging and fascinating."


Scott Hayes, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

About the Author: Scott Hayes, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Ecology and Environment Reporter at the Fitzhugh Newspaper since July 2022 under Local Journalism Initiative funding provided by News Media Canada.
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