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‘Paris has been the motherload of my creative life’ Canadian author and playwright Jim Nichol returned to his hometown for book reading this October By Casandra Bellefeuille – Paris Star Jim Nichol's hometown of Paris, Ontario has had a profound impact on his writing. Even though the award-winning author has lived outside of Paris for quite some time now, he admits he's never really left the town that he grew up in. "Paris has been the motherload of my creative life. This town is also important to my sense of self, not just my writing," said Nichol who is promoting his third novel, Death Spiral, which was released in 2009. So, when the County of Brant Library approached Nichol to perform a book reading at the Paris branch in October, he was more than willing to jump at the opportunity. Nichol will appear at the Paris library branch on October 17 at 1:30 p.m. to read from his latest hit-selling novel, Death Spiral. The multi-layered thriller opens with a hero's welcome for a celebrated Canadian Spitfire fighter pilot during WWII, who miraculously survived terrible injuries in the war only to encounter more violence in his hometown. And you guessed it; the setting for this novel takes place in none other than Paris. Nichol references specific areas and landmarks in town without actually mentioning names, he previewed. "I talk about an old linen store downtown and going across the bridge to the flats. I do mention the Arlington Hotel," said Nichol in an interview with The Paris Star. "Paris has been the motherload of my creative life. This town is also important to my sense of self, not just my writing," "I used images of Paris popping into my head as I remember them as a boy," added Nichols. Growing up in Paris, Nichol's grandfather was a blacksmith at the Paris Junction and his father was the art director at Walker Press. Nichol attended PDHS and fondly remembers when a majority of the student body rode their bicycles to school. Nichol married fellow PDHS classmate Judy Sibbick and after moving to Toronto for a few years, the two returned to Paris to raise their three sons. They left town again as their eldest boy began high school. Nichol was one of over 500 alumni that returned for a high school reunion this past month. "While I was at the PDHS reunion it occurred to me that everybody has at least one version of Paris in their minds. This town is very influential in everyone's lives." Death Spiral was a finalist for the 2010 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Novel. He was awarded the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel in 2002 following the release of his first novel, Midnight Cab. It was also short-listed for the CWA Gold Dagger. Midnight Cab was based on his popular CBC radio drama that aired for three seasons. The mystery show followed the life of 19-year-old Toronto cab driver Walker Devereaux. Nichol is also the author of Transgression. Nichol will have autographed books for sale at the Paris library branch on October 17. In addition to a short reading, he said he plans to have a little trivia fun with the audience. "During my talk I am going to read a bit from my first and second novels (also set in and around Paris) to see if anyone knows what part of Paris the passage refers to," said Nichol. He also plans to take some time to tour his hometown, and who knows, maybe Paris as it stands today might be the backdrop of future novels. Although Nichol did admit he has no immediate plans to write another novel anytime soon. NOTE: Excerpts in this article from the Paris Star have been altered to reflect the timing of Mr. Nichol’s return visit to the Paris Library this past October
The Landscape of Childhood By John Bemrose John Bemrose is a Canadian arts journalist, novelist, poet and playwright. His arts reviews have appeared in Maclean's, the Globe and Mail, the National Post and on CBC Radio. John was born and raised in Paris, Ontario where his father, Fred Bemrose, a 2009 recipient of the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Lifetime Achievement, recently retired as the town historian. He graduated from the Victoria University in the University of Toronto in 1970. His debut novel, The Island Walkers, was published in 2003. It was a nominee for More than anything I’ve written, I think, The Island Walkers was inspired by the place where I grew up during the fifties and sixties. This was Paris, in Southwestern Ontario, my family’s home for almost a hundred years now. that year's Giller Prize. He has also published a play, Mother Moon, and two volumes of poetry. His second novel, "The Last Woman," was published Sept. 29, 2009 by McClelland & Stewart, a Random House affiliate in Canada. It is set in Ontario's cottage country and is being touted by its publisher as a vehicle for the vivid characterizations for which he's become known. More than anything I’ve written, I think, The Island Walkers was inspired by the place where I grew up during the fifties and sixties. This was Paris, in Southwestern Ontario, my family’s home for almost a hundred years now. Paris was — and is — an exceptionally pretty town, with its two forking rivers, its steep hills, its bridges and fine old houses, but for me it has always meant something more. It’s a place saturated with narrative. And this came about because of the many stories my parents and grandparents told me I couldn’t look at a street and see only a street: It was also the spot where my twelve-year-old father had chased a herd of escaped cows. And over there was where my grandfather had fought and defeated the Indian who had spit in his toolbox. These events were so real to me, that I lived in a kind of mythic landscape, and consequently was held by a sense of belonging — sometimes comforting, at others suffocating — that I haven’t found anywhere since. The beauty of Paris was part of this. The light striking under bridges, even the strangely haunting cry of the steam whistle calling the workers to Penman’s knitting mills — these things marked me, and in some way, oppressed me, because as I grew older I began to feel that it was incumbent on me to do something with it all. I had to let people know. In some very real way, the town made me a writer. I was in my early twenties when I started trying to put Paris into a novel — but those early attempts were failures. I just hadn’t lived or written enough. In any case, I went on with other things. When I graduated from university in 1970, I went to work as a sales rep for New Press, an upstart publishing company in Toronto. I was the company’s only salesman, and my territory — which I covered in a green Volkswagen “bug” — was the entire country of Canada. Later I went to England, wrote a novel, which I wisely decided not to publish, and met the lovely woman from West Virginia whom I would marry. Back in Toronto, I became a father, published a couple of books of poems, staged a play, and earned my living as a freelance arts journalist, mostly doing reviews and profiles for Maclean’s magazine, where I’m still a contributing editor. I was also filling drawers with half-finished novels, increasingly aware that I hadn’t accomplished the central task of my writing life. I hadn’t written the “Paris” novel and with age fifty looming I knew I had to start soon or miss my chance. So in the winter of 1996 — spurred on by jealousy of a friend who’d won a big literary prize — I began The Island Walkers. I figured the project would take two or three years. It took six, as the story expanded to accommodate the tidal wave of ideas and feelings that had built up over the decades. And the curious thing was this: each time I sat down to write about the fictional town of Attawan — about Alf Walker’s hard choices and his son Joe’s first love — I seemed to re-enter the vivid atmosphere of Paris as I had known it. Most of the stories in the novel are invented, as are all of its characters. But Attawan is Paris clear through, and if there is any poetry in the novel, any joy in the telling, this has flowed, I think, from some never-broken connection with my childhood. Even while writing the novel’s darkest scenes, I felt myself in some queer way to be eight years old again, trailing happily over the Lions Park footbridge, stopping to look up the river where it gleamed in its distant reaches like the future I was sure held something marvellous. I’ve told the story from several points of view, using the Walker family as a microcosm for the stresses and conflicts of society — for the fullness of society in all its variety of age, class, sex, and experience. But just as any family is a mystery to the society around it, so the members of the Walker family are mysterious to one another: each locked in a solitude that envisions the world in what I hope are unique and surprising ways. And yet everyone in the book is also bound to everyone else by a matrix of humanity and place they are often unaware of. We belong to each other, I think, and to a common fate, even in the hell and solace of our aloneness. I think that literature, if it’s to have any value at all, must have the courage for unhappiness. I’ve tried to be honest in following the Walkers to the bottom of their night. But at the same time, every good story dances its way through the shades, with all the sprightliness, poetry, and music it can muster. The real hope is there, in the flame we make as we go out. I believe The Island Walkers is a happy book.
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