Thunder Bay Public Library

Transcription

Yvonne Hunter: And now I'd like to welcome one of the inimitable voices of CBC's "As It Happens" for almost a decade. Please welcome Mary Lou Finlay. [applause] Mary Lou Finlay: Thank you. You're so composed, Yvonne. Oh, I should turn on my mic, is that what you're saying? No, I don't need to yet. I don't need it now. It gives me huge pleasure to be here tonight. I am a big fan of the library, as some of you know. As Yvonne knows. I've been here as a guest listening to some wonderful speakers, including the author that we're about to hear from again tonight. And so this is a real treat for me. To introduce somebody that you probably haven't heard of... [laughter] Louise Penny is the best-selling author, for those two or three of you in the room who may not have started the series yet, of the Inspector Gamache series, set in Three Pines, a small village so tiny it's not even on the map, south of Montreal, near the US border. The characters that she has created were an instant success. They moved into people's lives immediately, as your presence here tonight attests to. And also, the avalanche of awards that the very first book was met with. I think at least eight, but all the biggies. Louise has won every major mystery award and many others and remains now as the best, on the top of the best-seller list every time a new book comes out. I've had the pleasure of having a peek at the book and I know that you are not going to be disappointed by this number 10 in the series, "The Long Way Home". I don't think I need to take up any more of your time. I'd like to introduce, to ask Louise to join me up here. [applause] MLF: People, before we even start talking about the book, I want to congratulate you! It's been quite a year for you. The Order of Canada, to start with. [applause] Louise Penny: This is the Order of Canada pin. I wear it proudly. I'm very, very, very proud of that. MLF: When was the actual investiture? LP: Well, it hasn't happened yet. [laughter] MLF: Okay. But they give you the pin anyway? LP: I made this out of toilet paper. [laughter] They actually send it to you, and then they say we'll invite you to a ceremony anon, sometime. I'm still waiting. I'm afraid they've changed their minds, but it's too late. [laughter] MLF: And an honorary Doctor of Laws. LP: Yes. MLF: Is that the first one? LP: The first one? [laughter] Yes, it's the first one. MLF: There will be more? From Bishop's University? LP: From Bishop's University in Lennoxville, which was very moving for me because it's very close to where I live and it also happens to be the university that my father went to, after the war. So that was extremely moving for me, to be up there. And to know that he had to actually go there and I got it in 10 minutes. [laughter] MLF: Yeah. It had nothing to do with 45 years of work. [laughter] What did you say, in your speech? LP: In the speech? It was difficult to know what to say. Because, they were very clear, 10 minutes, which was perfect. They don't want anyone to go on for too long for these poor students. Because it's their day, not mine. Or at least, they think it's their day but it's... [laughter] You don't want to harangue them by all the wisdom I've learned. MLF: But they want a little wisdom. LP: They wanted a little wisdom, which was also a bit of a problem, because I had to sit down and think, "Oh gosh, what have I learned?" I decided I've learned so much more from mistakes I've made, or bad things that have happened to me. I've learned more about myself. You and I oddly enough, in the green room back there, we were talking about Gary Larson. One of my favourite cartoons of all time. I've got a t-shirt actually, with this cartoon, and I gave it to Michael, my husband, who's a scientist. It's a Gary Larson Far Side cartoon and it shows two scientists, and they're at a blackboard, and there's a whole bunch of formula on one side, and then there's a gap, and on the other side is the solution. LP: And in the gap is written, "And then a miracle occurs." [laughter] I was thinking that this is fantastic! One scientist is saying to the other, "I think you have to be a little more specific." [laughter] When I go on book tour and people say, "Well, how did you get published?" It looks to me like it's really more like "How did you get published?" [laughter] But I choose to hear "How did you get published?" And will I tell them about this Far Side. I mean, you work, you work, you work, and then a miracle occurs [chuckle] and then you get published. But I talked in this... I talked about the gap, and the fact is there was a gap that allowed the miracle to occur, and the gap was that I became an alcoholic through all sorts of things, and I won't get into it right now... MLF: Working at the CBC has that kind of... LP: That may have helped. [laughter] LP: We're just trying to wean her off right now. This is actually the intervention. MLF: They'll let me out. [laughter] LP: These are your friends, your family. We care about you. [laughter] And came to the edge and looked into the abyss, to make it a choice in life, and I did. So, I talked to the students about the abyss and what it's like, and that I hope to God they never meet the abyss. But if they do, that they... Please, dear God... Don't take it as the end of the world. It isn't. Just ask for help and know that sometimes the miracle occurs, and on the other end, honestly, no gap, no miracle. No miracle, no books. No books, no Dr. Penny. [laughter] MLF: And you saw it all clearly, right? LP: God bless the gap! [chuckle] MLF: Your gap year was very productive. Still, it was a great turning point in your life, and we're really happy that you took it. LP: Thank you. MLF: The last book, do you worry every time that the next book isn't gonna be any good because they've all been really good. LP: Well, I wasn't worried until now. [laughter] MLF: Did you ever throw any... It's good. It's really good. [laughter] Did you ever throw any out? Have you ever tossed one out? LP: I did. I tossed the first draft of the second book out. Second book was terrifying. I'm sure you've heard this before from authors. MLF: I've heard that from other authors. Yes. 'cause the first one was a huge success. LP: The first one was a success. The first one also took me 45 years to write [laughter] and then my agent, God bless her, got a publishing contract, and she said "And the next book is due in 12 months." I couldn't believe it. So, I was terrified, and so I wrote... For some people, I think fear is a catalyst. For me, it's not. Fear petrifies me. I mean, it sounds silly, of course. Petrify. But it really does. It freezes me, and very, little good comes out of my life when I am afraid. And so, I wrote this first draft in a state of great terror because I was being handed everything I've ever wanted: A publishing contract. First book was coming out. Hadn't actually come out yet, but the buzz was good, and all I really... I had to write a second book, and it had to be at least as good as the first. And I didn't know how I'd written the first book. It seemed magical to me. So, I couldn't recreate it. I didn't know how to do it. So, I wrote and I wrote and I wrote, but it wasn't good, and that was dreadful. It was a terrible feeling. MLF: Was it the same people? LP: Same people. Gamache, Three Pines, the whole thing, but I realized I was writing to try to please rather than writing the book that should really be written for the characters and their development. So, I got to the stage where I just knew it was awful, and then I went to a therapist. I'm a big fan of asking for help, so I went to a therapist. I didn't want to suffer from writer's block, as I had at one stage. And I told her what the problem was, and she said, "Well, clearly the wrong person is writing the book." Meh, that's not very helpful. [laughter] I'm not writing the check if that's going to be your advice. [laughter] LP: So, I asked her, "What do you mean?" And she said, "Well, your critic is writing the book. What you have to do is you have to thank your critic. You have to bless your critic, but you have to show the critic the door. Don't lock the door 'cause you're gonna need her later. But your creative spirit needs to write the first draft and just write, and give yourself permission to be wrong. Give yourself permission to make mistakes. Give yourself permission to write a flawed first draft, even a terribly flawed first draft. If you wanna write 10 pages on a pitcher of water, do it. It's not gonna end up in the final draft. You know that. Just write, and write from a position of joy and gratitude and awareness of how lucky you are that you get to do this, and find that again." And I could just feel the tension lift and the lashes come off of my back, and I went back. I threw away the entire first draft. MLF: Did you change the story or was it? LP: A little bit. MLF: But the outline was still there. You... LP: That's right. But I had started from the wrong place, and it just wasn't jelling. The characters weren't coming together. I threw away the whole first draft even though the deadline was fast approaching, but I knew it just wasn't right. It wasn't right for the characters. It wasn't a book I would be proud of. I threw it away, started again, and moved forward. And that second book, which was so painful to write, ended up winning the Agatha Award. MLF: Was even more awards. LP: Yes, which was amazing, but in this process though, my agent phoned up. Now, she lives in the UK, in Britain, so she's got obviously a British accent as some of you might have. So, I want you to forgive what I'm about to say, and I know it's my own... Just my own colonial ears, but every time I hear someone speak in that kind of an accent, there is... What I hear is an implied "You idiot." [laughter] MLF: She's the headmistress. LP: Yes! She is! She is the headmistress, exactly. And I always imagine her with a big cigar and a glass of martini and she's brushing ash off her bosom. [laughter] So, she called me up in the middle of writing this crappy first draft of book two, and she said, "So, Louise, how is it going?" "Well, Theresa, I'm afraid." And she said, "Oh for God's sake, it's not War and Peace you're writing." [laughter] "Oh right!" frying pan in the face. Then she called back, when she sobered up the next day. [laughter] And she said, "Okay, now here is the thing," she said, "The thing is most writers write a 1000 words a day, most crime fiction is 90 to 100,000 words, ergo it would take you a 100 days to write the book," then she hung up again. Now, this was a great gift for me because, up until this point, as I said, I thought that there was something magic, and I realized there is actually a structure. MLF: A discipline. LP: At the same time, I read Terry Fox's memoirs "Douglas Coupland" edited and came out with the book, beautiful little book. MLF: He's my hero. LP: Douglas? MLF: Terry, Terry Fox. LP: Terry Fox. I worked in Thunder Bay and I arrived there about a month after he had stopped his run and they have obviously, a marker there. It was a beautiful, beautiful book and this was done with Terry Fox's Betty, his mother's approval and their collaboration. But in the book, Terry Fox talks about how he did it and nobody was more aware than Terry Fox of what the goal was, just to run from one end of the country to the other. But he said everyday, he woke up, I got outside and he ran and he ran. He wasn't running to Victoria, he was running to the next corner and he ran to the next corner, and he ran to the next corner and he knew if he did that often enough, he would get to where he needed to go. So, that dovetailed with what my agent said of "Just run to the next corner." So everyday, I wake up now, I'm working on the next book and I don't write to the end because it would overwhelm me. I run to the next corner. I write the best 1000 words I can that day, with joy, and then I start again the next day, and I start again the next. MLF: I'm so relieved to hear you say you're working on the next book. [laughter] I was going to ask you because there are many senses in which that became a question. There were 10 books and Gamache is retired and you think, "Oh no, we should not gonna stop." [laughter] The next thing you know she'll be killing them off or something. LP: Or it gets kidnapped by aliens in the next one. [laughter] MLF: When did you finish this? LP: I finished that, I guess, about a year ago. MLF: That long huh. That's been a while. LP: Yeah. It was not quite a year but I think it was probably December or so. MLF: So you really don't remember anything about it but [laughter] which is fine 'cause we can't tell anybody anything about it anyway, can we? LP: No. Well it's difficult. MLF: Tell them too much in the mystery. LP: No. Well, that's the thing and especially with the mysteries being so intertwined. MLF: Yeah. LP: Now, it's very difficult. I really don't wanna say too much. MLF: Except that... LP: Except the alien kidnap. [laughter] MLF: That's the next one. And Peter doesn't come back. LP: That's right. What we are telling you is that, there's a certain presumption that you've read a certain and even if you haven't, we're not letting... We're not telling you who did any murders but then the character development, Clara and Peter, who are couple at one stage a few books back, Clara kicks him out finally. And with the understanding that in a year, he will come back, they'll have no contact in that time, he'll come back, they will have a dinner together, they will decide where they are in their relationship. Well, she waits for him and he never comes back, and there's no word or phone call, nothing. So, of course, she's hurt and then she's angry and then she's worried. So, eventually, she goes to Gamache and asks... And this all happens early in the first chapter... So asked for his help. Now, Gamache has found a peace that he didn't, he's never experienced before, in Three Pines. And he's in no big rush to jump in to another case. He's trying to heal. He's trying to figure things out for himself. But of course, he loves Clara and he loves the people there, he owes them and so, he agreed. And that's really the catalyst that sets them off on this journey. MLF: And this plate, we can also talk to about setting because location is so important in your books. The psychology, the relationships between people and the setting, Three Pines, of course, where everybody wants to live. And again, you take them outside and you go to the wild, north shore of the Saint Lawrence. LP: Yes. Have you ever been there? MLF: No. I've been down the south shore but not the north shore, and it sounds quite amazing. LP: Has anyone here been to the lower north shore of Quebec? Have you? Where to? Can you remember any of the villages? There is... Speaker 4: Tadoussac. LP: Tadoussac. This is beyond Tadoussac and it's beyond the Charlevoix. Yes. And I write about the Charlevoix and then... I feel like a child in a candy shop because how wonderful to have these locations to talk about. MLF: Did you go there and then decide to write or did you decide that that was gonna be your next place and then go and research. LP: That's right. Well, I decided it would be the next place. As I sat down and thought, I knew it was gonna be a journey. I wanted... I knew Peter wouldn't come back. I knew that they had to go out and try to find him. But then I had the whole world. I mean, they could, presumably, go to... MLF: He went to Scotland. LP: Tibet. Yes. So they could go anywhere... They could go anywhere in Quebec. So I decided it would be in Quebec but where in Quebec? And Charlevoix is such a magical place, in every way. Just a staggeringly beautiful. It's up the river from, or is it down river, I'm never sure which way... MLF: Down the river. LP: Down river. Thank you. MLF: Down towards the ocean. LP: That's right. Down river from Quebec City. And then further down river, right by the very end, is a place called the Lower North Shore. And when Cartier came by for the first time and he was mapping it, it was so desolate that he called it "The Land God Gave To Cain." That perfect? I managed to travel there a few times when I worked for CBC in Quebec City. And it's so beautiful, but it really is desolate and almost nothing grows because it's all stone and rock. And the people there are extraordinary so I really wanted to talk about that. So I knew that that's where they were going to go. MLF: So that was a joy to write about. It was a joy to research... To take you there... LP: It was. So about half the book is set in Three Pines and then four of them take off on this journey to try to find Peter, who's lost. But, it's really about also finding themselves, finding their own lost souls and finding a lost soul who's clearly [ringing] Oh my God. MLF: Do you have to take that? LP: Excuse me. [laughter] MLF: Is it the restaurant? [laughter] LP: No. It's my agent. It didn't never rings [laughter] Oh that reminds me. Don't let me forget to take a photograph of you lovely people, okay, before this is over, 'cause I want to send it to my publisher to prove that I showed up. [laughter] MLF: That suggests that you don't sometimes... Which is not surprising. Let me just give people a sense of what your next 10 days will be like. Tomorrow, New York city. The day after, Pittsboro, North Carolina. Ann Arbor, Michigan, the next day. Each place is another day. Omaha, Nebraska. Minneapolis, Seattle, Phoenix, Houston and Vancouver. LP: Yes. MLF: A different place every day. LP: Someone with not a great sense of geography. [laughter] MLF: That's true, too. Seattle, Texas, Vancouver. So what... How do you pack for that? LP: Well, I got smart a couple of tours back. I realized what freedom there is with a carry-on. So, I shed everything. Now, I have to say, which means that I, basically, wear much the same thing all the time. So by Vancouver, there's this cordon around me. [laughter] MLF: Well, it's a different audience there. LP: It's a different audience. You guys are lucky if you can come close. MLF: She's fresh right now. LP: Hey, I'm fresh. [laughter] MLF: What is it with North Carolina? LP: I love North Carolina. MLF: But, do you have a special connection there? LP: Not at all. MLF: Because there are always, always rave reviews in the Richmond Times and the Charlottesville. And it's on the tour I noticed. They're crazy about you there. LP: Well, I was there last year for the first time to this particular village. It was so pretty that I said I want to return. So they're sending me back there. My publisher, Andrew Martin, is actually coming down too, and he's going to be doing what you're doing. He's going to be Mary Lou Finley. MLF: Oh, lucky him. LP: Yeah. MLF: But I thought you might have some family connection or something. LP: No, no. I don't. It's been really wonderful to me to see how the Americans have embraced the books and embraced Canada then and Quebec and a real curiosity. And it was important to me that, that the books be set, unmistakably, in Canada, and, unmistakably, too, within Canada within Quebec, that there be such a keen sense of place. 'Cause I'm very proud of... I'm proud of being a Canadian. I'm deeply proud of being a Canadian. And I want there to be absolutely no doubt about it. MLF: Do you think it's lucky that you chose Quebec, though, instead of Toronto. I mean, it's a more exotic... [laughter] MLF: Well, Toronto's your home town. LP: Yeah. It is. MLF: But, it's not so exotic, perhaps? LP: It wasn't... Certainly wasn't planned. I was done because I live in Quebec, and it really is a bit of a love letter to a place where I've found a sense of home and belonging. But it turned out to be quite lucky, of course, because it is exotic. I think most Americans... Most people in the world understand that there is French, but I think they vague beyond that. And that I could make it clear that the French fact in Quebec isn't a whim and it's not marginalized, it is very present. MLF: You have become through this meteoric... LP: That is true. MLF: When was the first book published? LP: Ten years ago. We were celebrating Ten years of Armand Gamache. [applause] MLF: One a year. So happy. A meteoric, I was going to say rise, but in fact, you were a success right from the start. But now you're an industry. You have a guided tour going on in Quebec City from "Bury Your Dead." You have Hovey Manor has special hotel visits for people. LP: Oh, Hovey Manor! MLF: You have a virtual book club. It's amazing that you find time to write 'cause you have to keep an eye on all these things. LP: I haven't actually written a book in many years now. [laughter] MLF: You now have someone else write the books. LP: Yes. My therapist is good at writing. [laughter] MLF: She sounds like she knows what she's doing. [laughter] LP: Do you know these things that you've... And thank you for mentioning them. The "Bury Your Dead" tour, for instance, in Quebec City, I have nothing to do with that. Well, they were very nice, they came to me and they said, "Would you mind?" And I said theoretically, "No." But I'm very protective of the characters. I'm very protective of the books. And I don't want you to go to Quebec City and put down $30 and end up with something second rate. So I said, "Yes, but I'll come to Quebec City. We'll sit down. We'll talk. We'll go over the route." I wanna make sure that they understood the books. MLF: It takes time. LP: That's right. And that they really... It came from a place of industry. Of course, they wanna make money. I think that's fantastic. But also from a place of respect for the books and the characters. And I hear that it's fantastic, so I gave them the seal of approval, the same with Hovey. But honestly, I don't get anything out of it except pleasure. MLF: And is there a TV series in the works or not? LP: No, no. There was a one... A film was made of "Still Life" but that was all. MLF: Okay. So you haven't heard whether there's gonna be... LP: No. I'm not in any big rush to repeat the... It's just difficult, that's all. It's just painful. And I don't think you'll find very many authors who don't feel the same way. MLF: They don't necessarily see the characters the way you do. They have to change the story. LP: And it is obviously, it's a different medium. So it needs to be their film and it's my book. It's just very difficult for me to separate from the two. MLF: It's funny, I've talked to people about what they see because when a beloved character comes on the screen, many people will say, "Oh, it's not how I pictured them at all." Other people would say, "It's exactly how I pictured them." But when we get right down to it, we find that we don't have a very specific image of the person. We have a sense of what they look like, but it's not exact. We can't describe them. So there's some leeway there. LP: I think that's perfect. I love that. I love it when people... It becomes obviously your own character. You have a sense of intimacy with them, and stop seeing them in many ways as characters. I feel... It doesn't come as a surprise to me that Armand Gamache doesn't exist. I understand that but [laughter] Are you sure? [laughter] They do feel very alive to me, and I have the sense of, that I owe them something because they've given me a life beyond anything I ever had the right to imagine I would have. MLF: You said, in one of your newsletters, I think, that Gamache or perhaps the Hare was inspired by a tailor in... Well, whose name was Jean Gamache, the name. LP: Yes! This woman is amazing, isn't she? You're fantastic. MLF: No. I can only remember something for 24 hours. I just read it. [laughter] LP: Did you find that when you were doing the CBC stuff? Did you retain... Like you have six things, six compartments in your head, and something new comes in and something else goes? MLF: I was like that from the time I crammed for exams in school. I'd do it the night before, 'cause my memory is short-term. [laughter] MLF: Right. Right. And by noon it's gone. One good sneeze and there goes geometry. [laughter] MLF: That's right. But Gamache... You have said here before, there's also a lot about him was inspired by Michael. LP: Yes. MLF: The man with who is... You have just celebrated your 18th wedding anniversary, I think. LP: Good God! This is frightening. Yes. Yeah, we just celebrated our 18th wedding anniversary, and in October, it'll be 20 years from our first date. [laughter] MLF: But it's a bitter-sweet occasion, isn't it? LP: Yeah. Yeah it is. Because he's recently been diagnosed with dementia, so yeah. But the funny thing is, as anyone who's been through it knows... By the time that you're diagnosed, the family knows. MLF: You've known for a long time. LP: You know for... Well, we knew for a year. We kept... Yeah. We're not gonna take him back every week or anything, poor guy. But we kept saying, "Let's just not". Michael was the only one who didn't realize, interestingly enough, which was a real blessing. So he wasn't anxious about it or anything. He was just, "Oh, I'm fine" and "I think I'm fine." So, but the interesting thing is, he was the head of Haematology at the Montreal Children's, so he's a really, really intelligent person. And the tests are really for normal people, more people like me. So, he went from extremely intelligent to normal, so he tested just fine. [laughter] If I get dementia, it will be immediately obvious, I'll tell you. [laughter] I'm clinging to normal anyway. MLF: So now you can speak to him on your own level. LP: That's right. Yes. Finally. [laughter] And he's the happiest man I know, and yes, Gamache was inspired by him because he had this terrible job. It was a job he chose, and he was very, very good at it. He was the head of it, and he holds the first name chair in Canada in Paediatric Haematology, but it's just a terrible job. It was children with cancer. And he would sit with them through the night, and he'd have to talk to, and tell young parents things no parent should ever have to hear. And he used to wear these bow ties with, like Winnie the Pooh, and Mickey Mouse so that when he leaned over the kids that's what they would see. They wouldn't see the scary doctor. They would see the balloons or the duck. MLF: They'd giggle. LP: That's right. But he would come home every night the happiest man in the world. Not because dying children gave him pleasure. It was because he understood what a gift life is. And, if those of us who get to live it, and those children don't, how awful if we don't live it with an awareness of gratitude. With joy, in the light with the fullness of heart, completely experiencing it, 'cause these kids don't get to live it. And Michael understood that, and so he fills every moment with joy. And now, even in dementia, he's the happiest man I know. And I know dementia takes many many forms, and we've been very lucky and not everyone, some people get very anxious, and some people get violent. And some people just, get happy. MLF: I would venture that in this room there are people who have it in the family. LP: Oh, I would think... MLF: There're almost all of us have had some experience of it so... LP: Have you? Is it in your family at all?: Not in my, well, except for me. 0:31:26 LP: Exactly. I was going to... MLF: No, but friends have it... It used to be parents and friends, and now its... LP: Now it's friends. [laughter] I know. MLF: Yeah. LP: And that's why, this is why with Michael's permission, he and I talked about it, and he said we can't. There's so much shame that can be attached to it, like cancer... MLF: Yes. LP: Many years ago, or AIDS. It's just shoved under and it became somehow shameful. How could this be? Or the mad uncle in the attic. And instead, he said," No. I wanna step forward and say it's happening to me. It can happen to anyone, and there's tragedy in it and there's joy in it." And there has been massive amounts of joy in it, and sadness. MLF: So happy anniversary then. LP: Thank you. MLF: For that. Now when you finish the tour, what will you, where will you, what comes next? Would you go back to writing again? LP: Yes. Yes. I was hoping to finish the first draft. MLF: 'Cause you've actually been on tour already for about a month. LP: A little mini tour for the paperback of how the light gets in. MLF: Okay. LP: But not for this book. This is the beginning of this book. MLF: This is the beginning of this. LP: It's so exciting. I can't tell you. It's just... I was saying to someone that it feels a little bit like being shot out of a cannon. It's just waiting for so long, and then ka-boom, and it just changes everything. And just so exciting. And just, hope that you don't end up with a pile of elephant dung. [laughter] MLF: You've worked on this the same way, well maybe not for 45 years, but draft after draft after draft. LP: Yeah. That's how it's done. MLF: Before you can get it out. LP: It's finding that balance of, what this is like, of discipline, and of work and of structure. And of will, willing it to come alive. But not strangling it, allowing for inspiration. So it's finding that, allowing it to breathe, but at the same time guiding it. And I... It's imperfect. I stumble and I fall. I get it right, I get it wrong. A bit fearful. MLF: How do you keep everything straight when you have people that are with you so many years through so many books? You want... Their characters are established, so you're always true to them, but how do you avoid, and I don't recall that you ever have, repeating yourself, having somebody come out with a thought that they've had before I guess. Do computers make it possible to check for that sort of thing or... LP: No. Not mine. MLF: How do you sort it all out? Do you work on a big board and everything? LP: No, no I don't. I just, I carry around notebooks. Each book has a notebook. And I make notes. I start making notes about six months before I start writing. And a lot of it comes in the editing process of shaping, of simplifying, of taking things out again. As I said with the first draft, I give myself permission to, some of the times in the first draft, I'll have the same scene repeated a few times. 'Cause I'm not really sure where in the book it actually belongs. Where is it best? Well I thought it was best here, but then later on I think, "You know what, it's actually better here". MLF: Yeah. LP: And then somewhere in the process it becomes clear, "Oh, it's better here." I mean characters change sex, they change names, it's almost... MLF: And then there's Bean whom we don't know... LP: There's a Bean, androgynous character, who comes back in this book actually. MLF: Well, if it doesn't work out, you can always come back to radio. [laughter] LP: I was famous for the, unlike Mary Lou, was famous for "As it Happens." I was famous for the one 1 o'clock time signal. [laughter] MLF: I was... That is not true. You know it's not true. LP: I can still say it. MLF: Do it. Did you actually record it? LP: No, no, no. I would do it live every day, at the sound of the long dash. MLF: Oh, you're not kidding. LP: Following 10 seconds. Are you ready? MLF: No. Do that again. LP: The sound of the long dash following 10 seconds of silence, it will be exactly 1 o'clock eastern standard time. Beep. [laughter] [applause] MLF: Did you know that for years, for years, they had the script wrong for that? LP: No. What did they say? What did they say? MLF: Can you believe that? MLF: They used to say at the... Say it again, how does it start? LP: "At the sound of the long dash, following 10 seconds... MLF: "At the sound of the long dash, followed by 10 seconds of silence... " But it wasn't "followed by"... LP: No. It was "following." MLF: It was "following." [laughter] MLF: And every time they did it, I thought somebody really has to correct them. LP: Yeah. [laughter] LP: Yeah. But you were on your coffee break... Somebody else should really... [chuckle] MLF: We do have... If you would allow, I know you will. I know there will be people in the audience who would like to ask you questions of their own. LP: Oh yes. We'd love to. But doesn't Mary Lou done an amazing job? Wasn't she fantastic? [applause] MLF: I'm not saying goodbye yet. [chuckle] [applause] LP: No. I know. You're still here, but I wanna make sure. [applause] MLF: I'm not allowed to hog the whole time with you, but I will invite you when you're ready. There's a lady here to... There are microphones there. And there are people I think who will go around the room with a mic. LP: The only thing I would ask, sorry, just before you start, is because the books really are so intertwined, to try not to give away... Speaker 5: Oh, nothing. Oh, no, no, no. LP: Why was so-and-so... The murder is probably not the way to start. S5: Oh, no, no, no [laughter] I think you're gonna like what I have to say, actually. It really goes to the names of your characters. But I have to tell you a little story first. I'm originally from Montreal, which I love passionately. And when a good friend of mine was taking her daughter to visit their grandparents in Ottawa, I got to stay in her apartment on the corner of Outremont Bernard, a neighbourhood you know. And her mother in Ottawa is my very close and dearest friend. So I'm down on Saint Catherine Street, in Chapters, and there's this loud, banging music and I can't wait to get out of there and I'm very, very, very upset. S5: And I'm at the door, and there's a long line of books, "Still Life" by Louise Penny. Because I'm so agitated, I misread the name and I go "Louise Pelly wrote a book?" [chuckle] I pick it up, look at the first two pages, said, "Oh that doesn't look like Louise Pelly, someone I went to law school with." And then the second page [laughter] The second page, there's the word "Clara Morrow". So, this is the story. Now, the coincidence really comes at the end. The apartment I'm staying at, Jennifer Morrow is taking her daughter Clara Morrow, to visit her grandparents Sally and Charles Morrow in Ottawa. Not the coincidence. LP: You bought the book, I hope. S5: Amazing. Amazing. The coincidence is, is after I buy the book... I've read all of your books, by the way. I buy the book, I race back to the apartment, I call Ottawa, Charles answers. I said "Chuck, you're never gonna believe this. I got this book, "Still Life", and the main character... " He says is "Clara Morrow." [chuckle] I said, "How do you know?" Well, it turns out that my best friend and myself in two different cities, Montreal, Ottawa, at the same time, picked up that book. LP: Oh my God [laughter] Oh my... Meant to be, that's wonderful. S5: But the name "Clara Morrow", I wonder where you got it from afterwards... MLF: What's in a name? Where did it come from? And then... LP: I actually... I think a lot about my characters' names. I wanted the characters in the village to have regular names, even almost banal names: Peter, Ruth, some of the others. So Clara, 'cause I wanted the sense of clarity. Clara, clarity. And Morrow was just again a common name. So that's really where it came from. But I walk around a lot and I think "What's your name? What's your name?" That's why the character's name sometimes change as the book goes on because I realize "No, you're not a Pierre. You're a Serg or whatever." S5: It was just the most amazing coincidence, that several of the characters' names appear in my life. LP: Yes. S5: And on the corner of Bernard and Outremont... LP: Yes. Exactly. MLF: What is your name? LP: Thank you. MLF: Perhaps you can be in the next book. [laughter] S5: It's Joyce Miller. [laughter] LP: Thank you. Thank you. A wonderful story. MLF: Thank you very much. LP: I love those stories of synchronicity like that. Speaker 6: I've got a really short question, and I'm gonna write down your answer. So, I'm assuming that Michael wears rose water and sandalwood. And if so, what is the brand? [laughter] MLF: If there's somebody she'd like to introduce it to... LP: Do you know what it is, is he wears sandalwood. And this is actually described in the books later on, I don't know whether which book it's described in. I think it might be "How the Light Gets In," that Gamache's cologne actually doesn't have rose water in it, but Reine-Marie's does. And so when he kisses her, he gets a little bit of her perfume on his clothing. And so, that's how the two aromas combine. But when we were in England, in London, we went to one of my favourite perfumers, a florist, which is on Jermyn Street. And they have a... I had forgotten what the person was called, but some chemist who will make up their own scents. And so, I gave her "Still Life", where it's described. And I said, "Can you create this scent for us? A cologne for men." MLF: Oh, really? LP: Yes. And so we went back six months later, so we're emailing with her. And she had all of these different vials. It's the most amazing thing. It looks like something out of the 16th century. So she let us smell them and so we chose an "Eau de Gamache." [laughter] There is a florist "Eau de Gamache." MLF: So, you have your own perfume line now too? [laughter] When does that come out? We'll be seeing you at Holt's? LP: Well, you can actually buy Eau de Gamache, if you can get in touch with florists now. The downside is, it's unbelievably expensive. Even I was shocked. I couldn't believe it, but anyway so... We may end up going somewhere else where it's a little bit less expensive, so it's a little bit more attainable by people. MLF: Surely, Michael with his connections with doctors and chemists... LP: Right. Yeah [laughter] Yes. Eau de Urine [laughter] Isn't that... Blood and urine is what you'd get from doctors. Speaker 7: Hi, Louise. I wanted to share this story and I shared it on your Facebook page. I work in a Drop-in center for children and families, so parents and caregivers will bring their kids to the Drop-in center. We had an aunt, with somebody who comes regularly, she's the aunt of a child and also one of our caregivers, and she just started sharing about her nephew... I won't, go into too many details, but she was a little concerned because he's a little guy who likes to wear dresses, and the parents and she were allowing him to do this. She really felt her instincts were right. They felt good about this. S7: But I think she was just wanting some reassurance and I wanted to give her that. I can remember searching for the words and not knowing what to say or trying to find the right words. I was delighted to hear you mention 'Bean' because all of a sudden Bean came to me. So, I told her about your books and I told her about Bean. The words that came were one of the words that something you had shared: The important question what nobody had asked was, "Was Bean happy?" So I remember saying to her, "You know, is he happy?" And she sort of, her eyes filled with tears and she said, "Yes," and I said, "Then I think you're doing the right thing." So, anyway, I just wanna thank you for that gift, because, certainly when I read that story and read what you had written, I'd never imagined that I would then be able to pass that on and share with her. So, I just wanted to share that and thank you for it. LP: I'm so touched, thank you. Can I kiss or hug you? Can you come up here? I'll give you a hug. What a lovely thing, thank you. What a kind person you are. Speaker 8: Hi Louise. I grew up in a small village in Quebec, south of Montreal, in the Shadigee valley. It was called Lawrencetown. It's a very anglophone region. So when I read your book, it brought me back to my small village which was a wonderful thing because it was such a good time of my life. The anglophone francophone that you capture in your books is very interesting to me because it speaks to me that, that's how it really was. I'm wondering do you get that from francophones who read your book? Do they feel that they have a better understanding or that that's how they view the relationship? LP: That's a really interesting question. MLF: It is translated... LP: Yes. It is translated into French now. They weren't for the longest time. And of course many of the francophone speak, read English, as well. I get the sense that at first... I remember watching a television show where my French editors were saying, "They're going to discuss your book." So I turned it on to see what they had to say. They were just being translated into french so they were discussing it. And one of them was saying, "Well of course, this is a completely fictional village because this population of English wouldn't exist." [laughter]"Oh, what?" So, it came as a surprise that there is still, I think, some parts of the population that don't realize that the Anglos do exist, but for the most part... [laughter] MLF: Not if they can help it. 0:46:41 LP: We all laughed. But I think, for the most part, I think it has helped sensitize. Every now and then, I do get angry e-mails, both from the French side and certainly from the English side, who feel that I have been unfair and I don't understand. MLF: Unfair? LP: Yes. Well, that... Because I do talk about... One of the reasons the French felt that they had to fight to become "maitres chez nous" was because they weren't. They weren't allowed to, and I think a lot of the Anglophones may forget that, but that was my mother's and my parent's generation. We lived in Quebec at the time, and my mother who was born and raised in Quebec didn't speak French. She spoke enough French, she used to say quite proudly to speak to her cleaning lady. And she had no awareness of how appalling that was on every level until she got older, until she was well into her 70s. I remember her saying, "Now I know what an insult that was." But she genuinely didn't. It's no wonder that the francophones, when that was the view said no more. But at the same time, the francophones didn't... Don't... Some in that society don't value the very real contribution of the Anglophones to Quebec's society. So there were, mistakes made on both sides and some bitterness still exists, obviously, on both sides. S8: Thank you. LP: Thank you. Speaker 9: Hey, hello? Hi, I have a question. I don't know if you knew this starting out with your books or, you have a plan as to where you're going but your last book very much felt like almost the end of the series, right? I was reading it thinking, "Oh, it's over and that's it and ugh... " LP: Don't say too much. Don't say too much, oh. S9: That's it. That's all I'm gonna say. And then, you have this new book, new, I guess, chapter in the life, did you plan that from the start or do you have a sense of where you're going or does that organically grow through the process? LP: I think she's got the measure of me. [laughter] Well, I knew all along that I wanted it to continue. I knew that the storyline with… that needed to end and I knew when I was writing the fifth book, "The Brutal Telling", I knew how book Nine would end. It was all gearing toward the final scene. MLF: You knew what was gonna happen. LP: That's right. But I also knew that there would be ongoing... The series would continue but it would have to change. And one of the things that I've heard about, like Agatha Christie, for instance and Poirot, a beloved character, was that she grew tired of Poirot and I think one of the reasons she may have grown tired of him is because he never changed. He was essentially the same character in 1920 as he was in 1960. And that, I couldn't write that. MLF: That's not true of Gamache. He changes average all all the time. LP: No. Things had to change. They have to be... Murder isn't trivialized, that there is a price to be paid emotionally and so they evolve, but it's not clear to me exactly how they're gonna evolve and that's all part of the guiding without throttling the characters. S9: Thank you. LP: Thank you. Speaker 10: Hello, Louise. LP: Hello. S1: I just wanted to tell you, I took the tour in Quebec City. LP: Oh, good. S1: And it was fabulous. LP: Oh, good. Oh, I'm so glad. S1: And one thing I was concerned, when I was reading the book is, how historically true it was and he showed us that you didn't make up this, that you may tweak it but it was fabulous. LP: Oh, I'm so glad. S1: And it was so fun to wander the streets of Quebec City with other people who had read the book. I wanna thank you. LP: Oh, thank you. Oh, we're thrilled. I'm thrilled, isn't that fun? [applause] Speaker 11: I've been reading all of books but it just hit me in the last one I read, when you talk about Three Pines and finding Three Pines, it's not on the maps, anything. And one day, it hit me, Brigadoon. LP: Yes. S1: Was there anything in your mind about Brigadoon when you invented that? LP: For sure, and in fact, I think in one of the earlier books, I might even reference Brigadoon but you're absolutely bang on with that. Brigadoon, Narnia, it's... Those references are made absolutely, you're right, on purpose. There is intentionally something, the magical realism, the sense that this is the place found by people who are meant to find it and only ever found by people lost. And not everybody finds Three Pines, and even some who do, don't belong. They pass through, they pass out the other side. Right now, both are... MLF: Or they go straight into the ground. S1: Or they go into the ground. I know. [laughter] MLF: They never make it out. LP: That's the thing. It's like Darwinism at its best [laughter] If they haven't been following the news and they paused for too long in this village. Speaker 12: Hi, Louise. I'm from Pennsylvania. So I'm one of the Americans that absolutely love your books. LP: Oh, thank you. Thank you. S1: Absolutely love it. LP: Thank you. S1: And I'm sure all of us here have favourite characters and mine, other than of course Gamache, or whatever, is Ruth. [applause] MLF: Yeah. But mine is the duck. S1: Yours is the duck? Now, you're not gonna tell me to shut the duck up, are you? S1: My question is, the poetry in your books are so beautiful and I would like for you to please publish a book of Ruth's poetry, and could we have some kind of a compilation or something? I just love Ruth, so the more you do with her, the better. [laughter] LP: Thank you. Well, you know where Ruth, may be you want to take the... Do you know where Ruth poetry... MLF: Do I know Ruth? LP: No, you do know... Should be the model for Ruth. Do you know her poetry... [laughter] Do you know where her poetry comes from? MLF: No, I don't. LP: It's actually at the beginning, it's not mine. I wish it was mine. I am the worst poet in the world. I'm some, I write like some angst-ridden teenager who has nothing to be angsty about. MLF: You quote Leonard Cohen from time to time. LP: I do, but, Ruth's actual poetry is mostly Margaret Atwood. MLF: Oh, I should've known. LP: Yup, from... And it's at the beginning there's acknowledgement, so it's done with her permission because you don't wanna piss off Margaret Atwood. MLF: No. [laughter] MLF: End of career. LP: It's stunning poetry, its just, well I'm such a fan of hers anyway, but never mind this book. It's from a book called Mourning, a tearful little volume called "Mourning in the Burned House." [laughter] MLF: She's a wonderful poet. LP: She's a wonderful... Oh my God it's... S1: Okay. So we'll just all go out and buy Margret's book today. [laughter] Speaker 13: I'd just like to encourage a few more men to get up here, thought I'd give a little example. I'm wondering if you could reflect a little bit about human vulnerability in terms of what you've learned writing these books but also, obviously your own personal story and the story you shared tonight about your husband. LP: Thank you for that. These books, clearly are not about death. Death is a conceit, a reason to talk about life and the choices we make in life and that's what I try to bring without making it too personal, but I think, the more in touch I am with my own emotions and the more aware I am of my own emotions, good and bad, and how much I own my own actions both good and bad. I think the more I can bring to the characters, very little exists in the characters Ruth and even Francoeur and, Beauvoir at his worst. I understand that Peter and of the jealously I understand it because I've felt those things. That's what I try to bring to the book, so it's a line that Ruth quotes in this particular one, "The Long Way Home" and it's not a poem, it's from a letter that Robert Frost wrote to a friend and in the letter, he's describing his creative process and he says that for him a poem begins as a lump in the throat and Ruth is saying the same thing for her, that's how the poem begins and it resonate with me because that's how the books begin, as a lump in my throat, some strong emotion that I need to explore and get out. So, you don't get grey hair without having had a lot of joy and a lot of sorrow as well so. MLF: So, this brings me back to Michael and I wonder whether or not, what you're going through, the two of you now, how has that informed the book. You talked about it being informed by, well inspired by Conrad and Homer. LP: That's right. MLF: The Odyssey. LP: The Odyssey. Yes. Yup. And the spiritual, the balm in Gilead. MLF: Yes. LP: There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole. Yes, there is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole, there's power enough in heaven to cure a sin sick soul. Yes, it was inspired by a lot of things. I think this is in many ways, my most personal book because, it's... The journey is both a physical journey but it's mostly an interior journey, as most of them are, like the Odyssey was about Ulysses discovering himself and discovering home, and it is for the characters, and it was for me because I wrote that as we were trying to navigate what was happening with Michael and realizing sometimes you do take the long way home and what home means to us and then the sense of peace inside of some of the ability to accept whatever is happening. MLF: Are you a painter as well? LP: No, I'm not but Michael was a painter. MLF: You could be. Obviously you've done a lot of research but because OCAD and the artists community is so central in this story, I wondered if you paint. LP: No. No, I don't but the place I live in the Eastern townships is varied. There's lots and lots of artists and lots of artist's friends and Michael really introduced me to the nuances of painting but what I write about, if you notice is that, I almost never write specifically about a painting, what I... A little bit, just enough so that you might be able to see it in your mind's eye but really what I try to write about are the emotions of the painting elicits. Emotions I can write about, paintings... I, not so much. So, that's what I try to. MLF: And emotions Clara can paint and Peter can't. LP: Yes. That's exactly, that's exactly it. That's exactly, that's beautifully put. MLF: Well, you put it that way. I'm quoting you. [laughter] It is beautifully put, yes. LP: Thank you. [laughter] MLF: I think another, perhaps one more question, and then I know that there are people who want to ask you to sign the books that they're buying. LP: I would love to. Speaker 14: Thank you. Good Evening. I just wanted to share an experience I had very recently, my mum was born and raised in Sherbrooke, so the Eastern Townships is an area that's very near and dear to my heart. And as I do every few years, I like to go and visit, my mum has passed, but I like to go and visit her remaining sisters. So this year I said to my husband, "Let's leave a day early and let's see if we can go and find Three Pines. [laughter] And we found the closest thing to it. We stayed at the Knowlton Inn, and we dined at the Le Relais, the restaurant, which is the setting for the bistro. LP: Well, to be honest, it's not really. But it was one of the inspired. S1: But it was in resonate use for the movie. MLF: Oh, the movie? S1: Was it used for "Still Life"? LP: No. No, it wasn't. No, that was somewhere else. I've actually forgotten where. But it was one of the inspirations for sure. S1: But I guess what I'm getting at is, and I knew it wasn't exactly, but I could feel it. Like it was... I walked in, I guess that's really what I was trying to say is, we walked in and I looked around and I just felt like I was in the middle of one of your novels. LP: I love hearing that. S1: And then we went to the book store, which I understand has moved because they've become so popular that they are in a new location and they have that lovely little area that says "Welcome Three Pines" with the two chairs [laughter] And if anyone has an opportunity to visit, it was just exquisite. 1:01:01 LP: Thank you for saying that. 1:01:02 S1: And thank you, Louise. 1:01:04 LP: It is an extraordinary place. And people think I have an imagination. I have no imagination. I am simply writing what I see everyday and I am the luckiest person on earth. MLF: You never reveal on your book covers exactly where you live. Is that deliberate? Are the Eastern Townships already overrun by people, looking for Louise Penny, looking for Three Pines? LP: I think, yeah. I think it is. I don't wanna say, "And this is the address", and we've taken our name actually off of the mailbox which used to be there for some... MLF: Have you? But did you have stalkers and? LP: A few. But everyone was very nice. Almost no one came and knocked on the door. But I think now it would be silly not to do that. And our friends and neighbours are very Danny and Lucy when people ask. MLF: Protective? LP: Yeah. They'll say, "Well, we don't really know where she lives." or it's... MLF: This isn't no JD Salinger. [laughter] LP: That's it. Oh yeah, yeah. I plan to become a recluse. MLF: Become a recluse, yes. LP: Pass the word. MLF: Yeah. LP: Can I take a picture before I forget? MLF: Yes. Get the picture. LP: Would you mind standing in the center aisle so I can get a picture of you? MLF: You know I can barely stand at this time... [laughter] LP: This is a test. Okay. Alright. Now, do you guys have the book yet? Speaker 15: Yes. LP: Can you hold it up? [laughter] 'Cause I'm shameless. MLF: You know who else is a really aggressive publicist is Margaret Atwood. [laughter] She believes in selling books. LP: Okay. Wait a minute. My God, what a handsome crowd. Oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Blackberry, wouldn't you know it? Okay. Alright. Smile. [laughter] LP: Thank you. Yvonne Hunter: Thank you, everyone. Thank you so much. Thank you, Louise. Thank you, Mary Lou. LP: Thank you, Mary Lou.