Gaston to read from The Order of Good Cheer

By Lawrence Powell

The Spectator

NovaNewsNow.com

How you respond to what life throws at you may be the best way to look at Bill Gaston’s latest book “The Order of Good Cheer” (House of Anansi Press Inc., Toronto). The celebrated author marries the story of Samuel de Champlain in 1607 with the modern day life of Andy Winslow, a grain-mill worker in Prince Rupert – as far west as you can get in Canada.

Though separated by 400 years, and an entire continent, Gaston makes the case that with the human spirit as common denominator, life is not so different from age to age.

On July 19, Gaston will be at ARTsPLACE (396 St. George Street) in Annapolis Royal for a 4 p.m. reading from his book.

Following is a question and answer interview The Spectator conducted with the author:

SPECTATOR: Two stories separated by 400 years, but told side by side – was this difficult to accomplish or is it simply that life, regardless of era, still has the same trials and hardships and people draw on the same sorts of courage, strength, and innovation to deal with it?

GASTON: That was my intention, namely to suggest that even a colonist's life has parallels with our lives now. We all suffer from periods of boredom, loneliness, uncertainty, and claustrophobia, we are doomed by our mortality, and (with) today's new and mutating diseases we are threatened by what might be seen as modern forms of scurvy. Now, I don't want to make this sound like a depressing book -- it isn't! The point is that we have also similar reasons to give thanks, and to celebrate.

SPECTATOR: What initially drew you to the Order of Good Cheer?

GASTON: I've always found it a wonderful story. And I've always loved food and drink. I also think it captures some essential spirit of the Maritimes. But basically, I think it's a mark of genius to be faced with hardship and to respond by having a great big party. It's a perfect metaphor for that marvelous human quality, that we can actually decide how to respond to life, how to feel. We can wallow, or we can celebrate.

SPECTATOR: Have you visited Annapolis Royal and the Habitation at Port Royal?

GASTON: I've lived in both Halifax and Fredericton, and so I've been to Annapolis Royal several times over the years, and about six or so years ago I spent a couple of weeks there, anonymously, just hiking around and absorbing whatever it is we writers try to absorb. And of course I did specific research, spending lots of time at L'Habitation, asking stupid questions, and getting lots of good detail and lore from the helpful (and very entertaining) people there.

I walked up North Mountain, and went out to the gut to see where they sailed in, and where they no doubt stared out wistfully from, and I sat out on the beach at night--all attempts to get a feel for the place, especially those parts of the landscape that haven't changed as much. Lots of the research I used came from a couple of lesser-known books I picked up at the little bookshop down the road from the site. And I took lots of pictures to thumbtack to my wall, to keep the place alive as I wrote. At the same time, whenever I needed to invent something, I didn't hesitate. It's fiction, and I never let facts get in the way of a good story. But in this case, luckily, the real story is a good one.

SPECTATOR: The Order of Good Cheer was created and so named to keep very lonely, scared, and isolated people in good spirits. We live in a different age but it seems that diversion (plays, music etc.) from hardship worked then. Does it work now?

GASTON: I don't see much difference in this regard. If anything, "diversions" are so numerous and earth-shattering and mind-numbing and easily-got now, compared to then. The global takeover by the screen is almost complete, sadly. But there is still enlightening entertainment, as compared to escapist entertainment, as compared to degraded entertainment. And I think too that any entertainment that truly involves people (what's called "interactive" now) -- like group singing and live theatre and spontaneous poetry -- are of the healthy, enlightening kind, and that's what The Order of Good Cheer was all about.

SPECTATOR: Are you a person with a sense of optimism?

GASTON: Yes, I am. Maybe I'm naive. But despite the slightly apocalyptic nature of the book and its concerns about the environment and all the rest, I don't think its message is pessimistic.

SPECTATOR: Does the isolation of Prince Rupert make it ideal for this story?

GASTON: The isolation, yes, but there are other factors that made it perfect, from my standpoint. The constant rain and grey weather gave it the effect of always being under a ceiling, and of being claustrophobic. There's a mood of depression there, both from the weather and from the gloomy economic situation. The population has shrunk from 20 thousand to 12 thousand in the last 10 years. Also, in choosing a place on the opposite side of the continent, I wanted to in this way include the entire continent in this story. Also, Europeans living on the west coast is the logical extension of what Champlain was doing in Annapolis Royal -- his settlement has gone as far west as possible. And very little has changed. In fact, reaching China is still the ultimate goal! Prince Rupert was established as a port to ship goods to China, and the market still hasn't opened up.

Bill Gaston is the author of several acclaimed story collections and novels. His story collection Mount Appetite was a finalist for the 2002 Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. The novel Sointula was a finalist for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. Gargoyles was a finalist for the 2006 Governor General’s Literary Award and the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. In 2002 Gaston was the inaugural winner of the Timothy Findley Award. He lives in Victoria, B.C.