Midlanders Susan Swan’s latest novel entitled The Western Light

By Susan Doolan, Special to QMI Agency
Thursday, May 16, 2013 7:10:04 EDT PM
Published in The Barrie Examiner

Midland native Susan Swan will be at Chapters in Barrie on Saturday for an event that includes an interview about her new book, The Western Light, a book signing and an summer reading giveaway of some of Swan’s earlier novels, all rare editions

Canadian author Susan Swan returns to her Midland roots for her latest novel, The Western Light. She will be at Chapters in Barrie on Saturday for an event that includes an interview about her book, a book signing and an summer reading giveaway of some of Swan’s earlier novels, all rare editions.In The Western Light, Swan’s seventh novel, The Toronto-based author revisits one of the central characters of The Wives of Bath, a 1993 best-seller that was turned into a movie in 2001, called  Lost and Delirious (it starred Piper Perabo, Jessica Pare and Mischa Barton). That story centres on two girls  at a boarding school — Mouse Bradford and Paulie Sykes — who don’t want to grow up.

Mouse Bradford, two years younger (age 12), takes centre stage in Swan’s new book, The Western Light, and like the Wives of Bath, this story also has a murder. Her father is a busy country doctor who has limited time for his family and as a result, Mouse finds a father substitute in a hockey player who has been jailed, rightly or wrongly, for the murder of a wife and baby. The truth doesn’t come out until the end.

“I wrote The Western Light because I wanted to find out what I really thought about my father,” said Swan. “Like the father in my novel, he was a country doctor who was so busy saving people in the community that he neglected his family.

“Are you a hero if you neglect your family? That’s what my narrator, Mouse Bradford, wants to know.”

Swan’s father was a well-known doctor in Midland at a time when there was no health care. Swan said it wasn’t uncommon for him to work 20 hour days.

It was his story — one of them — that started the novel. It was a day when a young Dr. Churchill Swan (Tud was his nickname)  had to walk a lighthouse keeper, who was trapped in a storm and unable to travel to Parry Sound,  through an operation to remove his son’s appendix on a ship-to-shore radio. “I gave the story to one of the characters in the novel,” said Swan, who was born in Midland and lived there for 17 years.

Even though there are some similarities between Swan and Mouse, The Western Light is a work of fiction. She has always wanted to write fiction and credits her mother for encouraging her.

Swan attended Midland Public School — she gave the valedictorian address in Grade 8 — and spent her high school years at Havergal College, a girls boarding school in Toronto. She started out as a reporter, working summers at the Midland Free Press. At McGill University, where she studied English and philosophy, she also worked on the school paper. After graduation, she became a journalist, then a freelance writer for magazines, and then started writing fiction full-time.

The Western Light is set in a fictional tourist town on Georgian Bay. Swan maintains a tie to distinctive landscape of Georgian Bay and it has appeared as a setting in a previous novel. Swan’s father died when she was age 17. Her mother, age 93, returned to Sarnia, her hometown. Swan currently makes her home in Toronto with Patrick Crane, an editor at HarperCollins. She has one adult daughter, Samantha Haywood, who is a literary agent.

For the Chapters event, Swan wanted to take a different approach from the traditional reading to make it interesting for people. As a result, Valerie Gardner, a member of the Innisfil Lakeshore Library book club, will be interviewing her about the book on Saturday, May 18 at 1 p.m. With every purchase of The Western Light, Swan will be giving away one of her earlier novels, free.

GIVEAWAY AND TALK with SUSAN SWAN ON MAY 10 – Ridgeway Reads Spring Author Series

Canadian author Susan Swan will be talking about her new novel, The Western Light, Friday, May 10 at Ridgeway Crystal Beach High School Auditorium. Doors open 6 pm, reading, at 7.

Swan’s new book is set in Petrolia, Ontario and on the Georgian Bay. It  tells  the unforgettable story of Mary “Mouse” Bradford–protagonist of Swan’s bestselling The Wives of Bath—who is torn between her distant father and the charismatic Gentleman John Pilkie, an ex-NHL hockey player sent to the psychiatric hospital in Mouse’s hometown for murdering his wife and child.

Pilkie suffered a concussion playing hockey and it’s not clear until the end of the novel whether he is a real killer or not.

For every purchase of The Western Light, Swan is giving away a free copy  of her earlier novel, What Casanova Told Me.

Click here for more details.

Thursday 2 May 2013, 8:00 p.m.
Meet & greet reception with the artists to follow the performance

Featuring Canadian Author Susan Swan
& Toronto’s popular all-woman opera noir quartet, The Billie Hollies
Directed and Produced by Louise Fagan

Brescia Auditorium, Brescia University College, London
Tickets: $20.00; $15.00 for Circle members
Tickets available at the door OR
Click HERE to buy tickets online!
Free Parking

“A profound, hilarious and subverting evening of prose and song from among the best”
- Dave Bidini, Guitarist & Lead Vocalist, Rheostatics & BidiniBand

In Heroines of the Sexual Gothic, critically acclaimed author Susan Swan explores her relationship to some of her most intriguing characters — the giantess Anna Swan, the fiercely independent Asked For Adams and the romantically idealistic Mary “Mouse” Bradford. Woven throughout Swan’s explorations is original music composed by Donna Linklater and performed by The Billie Hollies, Toronto’s popular opera noir quartet. The soulful sound of The Billie Hollies singing passages from Swan’s novels bring these characters to life, allowing the audience to powerfully connect to their own hopes, humour and struggles.

Heroines of the Sexual Gothic is a theatrical performance that illuminates the body as an ongoing cultural dilemma for women and for men, while exploring how overcoming limiting perceptions of one’s self can lead to brave and daring triumphs. Employing both poignancy and hilarity, Heroines asks what the creation of Swan’s characters tells us about the current cultural situation for women–a time when many young women are reclaiming feminism (yes, they are!) and re-launching, re-visioning and re-inventing initiatives to continue the work started by their mothers’ generation of feminists.

Join us for this unique evening of performance – Susan Swan, Louise Fagan and The Billie Hollies have created an evening of talk and music you’ll never forget!

Assistant producer and director: Mariel Marshall

To learn more about this multidisciplinary performance visit:
www.heroinesofthesexualgothic.com

Susan Swan	The Billie Hollies

The Parry Sound Bed and Breakfast Association offers A Book Club Weekend with guest authors Susan Swan and Judy Fong Bates

Event Overview

Friday, October 25th to Sunday, October 27th
2 comfortable nights at one of The Parry Sound Bed and Breakfast Association’s B&Bs
2 delicious breakfasts prepared by your host
Time to explore Parry Sound
2 afternoons of unhurried conversation
2 award winning authors — Susan Swan and Judy Fong Bates
for details, cost and reservation
www.parrysoundbb.com

** Register early as space is limited **

The initial offering of The Parry Sound Bed and Breakfast Association’s Book Club Weekend begins on Friday, October 25th with your anticipated arrival at one of five unique Bed and Breakfast homes in Parry Sound. If you are in time for dinner, Parry Sound offers a choice of restaurants.

Saturday morning, October 26th will begin with a delicious breakfast at your chosen B&B and time to explore the shops in Parry Sound. On Saturday afternoon at 1:30 p.m. we will gather in the comfortable living room of one B&B to meet an author. With the promise of great conversation and tea, The Book Club will begin. Dinner on Saturday is at the discretion of the participants. Perhaps you would like to meet other attendees in a local restaurant to continue the conversations of the afternoon?

Sunday, October 27th will repeat Saturday’s schedule with two exceptions. The Book Club will be hosted at a different B&B where you will meet our second author. Sunday afternoon’s gathering will end by 4:00 p.m., which will give most participants time to return home during daylight hours.

September 30th is the last day to register. Early registration is strongly advised as our B&B Association has limited accommodation. This special weekend is only available to pre-registered and pre-paid guests of The Parry Sound and Area B&B Association.

Our Special Guest Authors

Judy Fong Bates came to Canada from China as a young child and grew up in several small Ontario towns. She is a writer, storyteller and teacher. She taught elementary school in the city of Toronto for over twenty years. While teaching she honed her skills as a storyteller and has told folktales and original stories at schools and festivals throughout southern Ontario. Judy has also taught and mentored students in creative writing through the University of Toronto, Trent University and Diaspora Dialogues.

Susan Swan,  knows Georgian Bay well, she was born in Midland and has since spent many summers on Georgian Bay north of Pointe au Baril. Her most recent novel The Western Light takes place on Georgian Bay, in a town that is 90 miles south of the French River. In this novel it is the fictional town of Madoc’s Landing. There is also a nearby, larger town, called Port Waldie, “It was famous for the Georgian Bay Trestle, the longest wooden railroad bridge in North America.” This is familiar landscape for local readers.

It is 1959 – 1960, and we meet Dr. Morley Bradford and his daughter Mary. Into their lives comes a convicted murderer, John Pilkie, now resident of the local “Bug House”, the Ontario Psychiatric Hospital, where Dr. Bradford is sometimes called for medical emergencies.

John Pilkie grew up in this town, became a hockey player, and after suffering any number of injuries, was forced to leave his team and faded into the past – until he murdered his wife and child. Or did he? Was he suffering a brain injury from his hockey related concussions, or was someone else guilty of the crime? The Western Light will thrill hockey fans, these are the heady days of the six original teams and the young men who wanted so desperately to play for one of these teams, practicing on their outdoor rinks and beginning their careers in small towns before heading to the big leagues.

What we soon learn is that Mary, a young adolescent ripe for an imaginary love affair, is infatuated with John Pilkie, his past, his present, and her dreams of the future. Into this mix are thrown Mary’s school friend, Ben, whose father Dr. Shulman, is the doctor in charge at the “Bug House”, the local psychiatric hospital, and a cast of astonishing characters that kept my head spinning from beginning to end. There are wonderful scenes of the lonely Mary listening to the adult conversations through the grates in the floor from above, in the home she shares with her father and extended family.

We have a story of a girl without a mother, whose father, a well respected local doctor, puts his patients and their needs before the needs of his daughter, despite her great need to come first in his life. There is the tale of Mary’s father talking to John Pilkie’s mother on the phone, while the Pilkie family is trapped during a storm in the lighthouse where they live, as she performs the surgery necessary to remove the seven-year-old John’s appendix and save his life.

On the bay there are limestone towers, anyone familiar with Flower Pot island will recognize, where Mary and her family go for picnics. Susan Swan describes that feeling of leaving the restrictions of mainland life behind physically and emotionally, as Mary observes her aunt and her father, “In that instant the grown-ups felt free of the mainland, where life unfolded in respectable rituals…” We all know it, but Susan Swan has put it into words.

Mary describes herself as “a child of the water” and anyone who has grown up “on the water” knows exactly what she means. Susan Swan’s great strength as a writer shows itself when she describes the landscape of Georgian Bay – here we see the author’s connection, and love, of Georgian Bay through the eyes of the young Mary.