Welcome to this week's author Reed Stirling!!
Reed Stirling lives in Cowichan
Bay, British Columbia, and writes when not travelling, or painting landscapes,
or taking coffee at the Drumroaster, a local café where metaphor and
metaphysics clash daily. His shorter work has appeared in Maple Tree Literary Supplement,
Nashwaak Review, Valley Voice, Out Of The Warm Land II and III, StepAway Magazine, PaperPlates, Eloquent Atheist, Senior Living, Green Silk Journal, Fickle Muses, Fieldstone Review, Ascent
Aspirations, Feathertale, Filling Station, Hackwriters Magazine, Dis(s)ent In Words, The Danforth Review, Montreal
Writes Literary Magazine, and Humanist
Perspectives.
Shades Of Persephone is his first published novel,
2019. Lighting The
Lamp will be published in March, 2020. He is presently working on a third
novel tentatively titled Square
Saint-Louis.
1.LIFE OUTSIDE OF WRITING
Before retiring and taking up
writing fiction as a past time, I taught English Literature. (Several talented
students of mine have gone on to become successful writers.) My wife and I
built a log home in the hills of southern Vancouver Island, and survived
totally off the grid for twenty-five years during which time the rooms in that
house filled up with books, thousands of student essays were graded, and
innumerable cords of firewood were split. Life outside of writing now includes
painting landscapes, reading, fishing, cycling, skiing, and travel.
2. WORK IN PROGRESS
I am working on a first draft
of a work tentatively titled Square
Saint-Louis, where the troubles in a contemporary family mirror those
of the tragic poet Émile Nelligan.
Brendan Young, a Calgary based businessman who travels more than he’d
like, admits to having absolutely no patience for the intransigence of
his music-obsessed, teenage son, Elliot. Ongoing domestic disputes have intensified over the years:
antipathy now verges on hostile rejection. Elinore, an equally conflicted wife
and mother, is threatening separation, a source of great anxiety for Brendan
who turns to alcohol for the understanding that eludes him on the home front. His sojourn in Montreal, a city not unfamiliar to him, leads him
incident by surreal incident, towards greater understanding through familiarity
with the tragic story of Émile Nelligan, who, as a nineteen
year-old, enjoyed a successful entry into the artistic community of Montreal in
the last decade of the 19th century,
and then fell victim to madness. Reconnecting with Emery St James
Montesquieu, among old antagonists he encounters at a Yamaska College reunion,
proves not only enlightening for Young in its mirroring effect —
the troubles in his family are reflected dramatically in those of the
young afflicted poet — but also redemptive. Elliot, the musician, will
have his apotheosis.
3. MOST DIFFICULT PIECE
The most difficult piece I’ve
had to deal with, a chapter, in fact, from Lighting
the Lamp titled “Glorious Disorder,” was
published in Humanist
Perspective (Fall 2019).
On the one hand, the selection
deals in a straightforward manner with the nature of metaphysical belief, which
can be a very sensitive topic for some readers. On the other hand, my characters
have to come to grip with the destructive nature of the Guillain-Barré
syndrome. Deeply conflicted about the whys and wherefores of
the devastating illness his granddaughter suffers, my protagonist explains
that the tragic situation facing the family is not divinely sanctioned but “is
simply a disorder arising out of the seeming randomness of the evolutionary
process that the cosmos contrived, one that brought us into being, and one that
can take us out.”
In reality, my neighbours’
young daughter suffered for months at the hands of this insidious affliction.
The whole family was displaced and suffered much. In time, the girl recovered,
as does my imagined character.
4. RESEARCH
More recently I research things
online. However, the reference books I consult (be they literary, mythological,
philosophical, architectural, psychological, historical, scientific,
geographical, linguistic) I find on my own shelves or on those of our local
library. Most enjoyable is research done in situ, Greece for Shades Of Persephone, for
example, and Montreal in large part for Lighting
The Lamp and the novel I’m presently working on. Reading other fiction
can also be a source relevant information. Simple observation of people helps
in many ways, verisimilitude being the objective of the observation whatever
the setting. I lean towards mystery in my writing, with romantic entanglement
an integral part of the plot development. Greek mythology and literary allusion
underpin a great deal of what unfolds. Irony is pervasive.
5. BOOKS, AUTHORS, &
SOURCES OF INSPIRATION
I read widely, and have done so
for decades, the classics included. At present, works by Ian
McEwan, Julian Barnes, and John le Carré await. The muse visits me
most often when I read the novels of John Banville.
My reading has definitely
influenced my writing. Lawrence Durrell’s The
Alexandrian Quartet provided the impetus for Shades
Of Persephone. John Fowles’ The
Magus gave me the Greek setting. Joyce’s Portrait inspired more
than one scene in Lighting
The Lamp, as did the philosophical musing of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Marcel Proust plays a
part here as well, as do Richard Dawkins, Emily Dickinson, and Albert Camus.
The poems of Émile Nelligan are working thematically into Square Saint-Louis.
Teaching literature has had an
influence on my writing. When you introduce young minds to the great works of
great artists, (e.g., Hamlet,
Nineteen Eighty-Four, Portrait of the Artist As A young Man, Gulliver’s
Travels, The Handmaid’s Tale), you are constantly challenging yourself to
get it right, to understand not only who, what, and when, but also how, and to
elucidate on these considerations as discussion ensues. In your own writing,
you want to emulate, difficult though it is to do so, but you have to try.
6. ENCOURAGEMENT
Greatest
support and understanding comes from my wife, travel guide and firewood
organizer supreme.
WEBSITE & LINKS:
BWL authors group Facebook
Shades of Persephone
Shades of Persephone is a literary mystery that will
entertain those who delight in exotic settings, foreign intrigue, and the
unmasking of mysterious characters. Crete in 1980-81, more specifically the old
Venetian harbour of Chania, provides the background against which expat
Canadian Steven Spire labours in pursuit of David Montgomery, his enigmatic and
elusive mentor, who stands accused in absentia of treachery and betrayal. The
plot has many seams through which characters slide, another of them being the
poet Emma Leigh, widow of Montgomery’s imposing Cold War adversary, Heinrich
Trüger. In that the setting is Crete, the source of light is manifold, but
significant inspiration for Steven Spire comes from Magalee De Bellefeuille,
his vision of Aphrodite and his muse. “Find Persephone,” she directs him, “and
you’ll find David Montgomery.” Her prompts motivate much of the
narrative, including that of the Cretan underground during the Nazi occupation,
1941- 45.
Shades of Persephone presents a story of love and sensuality, deception and war,
spiritual quest and creative endeavour. The resolution takes an unanticipated
turn but comes as no surprise to the discerning reader. Like Hamlet who must
deal with his own character in following the injunctions of his ghostly father,
Steven Spire discovers much about the city to which he has returned, but much
more about himself and his capacity for love.
Buy links:
Shades Of
Persephone/Amazon.ca/Reed Stirling/Books
wwwbarnesandnoble.com>shades-of-persephone-reed-stirling
wwwgoodreads.com>Reed
Stirling
wwwchapters.indigo.ca>Reed
Stirling
Lighting the Lamp
A restive Terry is
enjoined to revisit the haunts of his youth. Family dynamics of the
present, mirrored in Irish heritage of the past, come into play as do
contrarian opinions encountered among cronies, distant friends, and lost
loves. Motivated by his muse to tell all, what he seeks in addition to
understanding is truthful voice and the purest possible point of
view. Aware that remembrance of things past in not necessarily the remembrance of
things as they were, this quixotic Everyman eventually
reaches beyond self, beyond mystery, and beyond theodicy to a
philosophical embrace of cosmic apotheosis. In Lighting
The Lamp, Montreal provides more than a background for potential
jihad-sponsored terrorism, or ghosts out of the past, or a romantic trip down
memory lane; the many-layered city takes on the function of a defined and
demanding character and declares in a voice Terry hears clearly: “Know me and
know yourself!”
Interesting interview
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