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April 22, 2024

Renowned Canadian writer Terry Fallis will share the joys, pains and process of creating a great novel

Terry Fallis: Tracing the roots of a novel

BY JOHN BUTLER — Terry Fallis — the acclaimed Canadian author of nine novels, and working on his tenth – loves writing. He also loves talking with others about writing, be they readers or fellow writers.

He will share much about the mechanics as well as the ethos of pulling a good story together, seemingly (but not really) out of thin air, when he gives an Author’s Talk entitled Tracing the Roots of a Novel on Wednesday May 8th at 2:00 pm at the Centre Grey Recreation Complex (also known as the Markdale Hall and Arena), 75 Walker Street in Markdale – sponsored by the Grey Highlands Public Library and the Kimberley Community Association. Admission is free.

Terry’s root-sharing will focus on his latest novel, A New Season, but the two-time Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour recipient (in 2008 and 2015) will draw on a lifetime of experience and third of a lifetime writing novels: he wrote his first one at the age of 42. While he wears the title of “comic novelist” comfortably, he’s quick to point out that a comic novel isn’t a comic book — it’s a work of fiction that uses humour to explore the twists and turns of human existence in a way that avoids the solemnity that’s a turn-off for those of us who want a little laughter before we cry.

Terry’s novel A New Season is a thoughtful exploration of aging, loss, family, friendship and love, all wrapped in humour and heart. It’s also the book that Grey Highlands will be championing in this year’s Grey County Reads competition (the competition is a friendly literary rivalry among towns in Grey County, held together by a transcending love of books.)

Every public author has a front-stage persona — the author’s books themselves, and public consumption and discussion of the books. But each author also has a back-stage life — a life that begins with an idea, exploring it, writing about it and getting the book published and distributed. Sometimes the back-stage has stories as fascinating as the books themselves — stories that, if told, make the reading of a book more enlightening and enriching.

Terry is a master at letting us look behind the curtain, so we see the joys and irks of a writer’s life. He does this through his popular blog A Novel Journey and other publications and speeches that help us understand what goes into writing books.

He’s quite clear about the engine that drives his creativity. It is curiosity — the need to know. He credits his father, a noted Toronto surgeon and author of medical texts, with constantly stoking his curiosity, both by example and by encouragement. Terry’s father also bequeathed to Terry a love of language, a sense of humour and a methodological approach to problem-solving. From his mother he learned how to deal respectfully and with empathy toward others, and how to fulfil one’s obligations to other people. We see both sides of Terry’s background in his assertion that “writers often have much in common — love of language, an affinity for storytelling, an interest in relationships and the broader human condition, a need to examine the complexities of the heart, a desire to confront or at least consider existential threats to society, let alone the planet. To me, that can all be distilled into a single critical trait that so many writers share — curiosity.”

Curiosity sprung early into Terry’s life. Terry, his twin brother Tim, and a friend — avid readers of Hardy Boys books — formed their own detective agency when they were children (they never actually solved any cases.) All his life, he says, he has become fascinated with topics, exploring them relentlessly, absorbing their lessons and moving on to the next topic. This near-obsession serves him well, he says, as a writer. The novel he is currently writing, titled The Marionette, is about a failed Canadian intelligence officer turned spectacularly successful thriller writer. Terry wanted to set the novel in a nation with a record of failed governments. He chose the African nation of Mali — which touched off an intense crash course in learning all about the country and its people.

Curiosity was a motif in his earlier professional life as well, stretching as far back as his university days when he was President of the McMaster Students Union during his final engineering year at the university — an experience that changed his life when his curiosity turned to how people plan, hope and achieve as groups. This led to an initial career as advisor to a number of Canadian politicians, including the Rt. Hon. Jean Chrétien, the Hon. Jean Lapierre and in Ontario, the Hon. Robert Nixon. In 1988 Terry entered the world of public affairs and communications consulting. In 1995 he co-founded Thornley Fallis Communications, an agency he helped lead until he retired to write full-time in 2022. These years prepared him well for his writing years and for the good life in general, says Terry: “I learned so much about people, how to read them, how to connect with them, how to bring them on my side, how to leave them feeling good about the encounter while always being genuine. In the end, just being a nice person can carry you a great distance. But whenever I appear at a writers’ festival, a library talk or a book club, I use all the skills and knowledge I gained through my career. These very transferable skills have made my writing life so much easier and more enjoyable.”

Part of the back-stage life of a writer is the solitude of writing itself, when one’s only companions are ideas and a keyboard. He embraces this “alone time”, and laughingly describes himself as an introvert masquerading as an extrovert. Terry writes daily for eight or nine hours at a stretch, taking time thereafter to enjoy the company of his wife and two sons, to do book promotions and give lectures, to pursue his latest fascinations, and to play for his beloved Toronto ball hockey team whose teammates have been his friends and confidants for decades. So much for loneliness and isolation says Terry with a smile (spoiler alert — his ball hockey passion plays a major role in his novel A New Season.)

While he is one of Canada’s most successful contemporary authors (and its most successful in the comedy novel genre), he harks back to his earliest writing days when his submitted work didn’t even get automated rejection letters from publishers. But he persevered — not because he felt his work was exceptional, but because he needed desperately to know if his work was any good. The answer came with the phenomenal success of his first published novel, The Best Laid Plans. It won the 2008 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour and also won the 2011 edition of Canada Reads as the "essential Canadian novel of the decade." This success led to eight more national bestsellers, multiple awards, a TV miniseries, a stage musical, and over 1,000 book talks. And through it all, Terry continues to be deeply interested in what readers think of his work. “Writers never read their own stories for the first time” he says, so readers’ reactions are vital.

Terry doesn’t conform to the stereotype of a brooding writer — he isn’t Heathcliff with a pen — and he says his life has never been happier. “My only regret is that I didn’t start writing earlier” he says (he only started writing humorous fiction seriously at the age of 42.)

As someone who spent much of his life pursuing a non-author’s career, he has advice for the person who takes up serious reading, or writing, when they retire. For the later-in-life serious reader, he suggests that the reader choose a variety of books, and read each one to the end, abandoning none of them prematurely. “Give each book a fair chance to capture you,” he says. His own favourite early authors were Robertson Davies, Mordecai Richler and John Irving — if he had abandoned any of them too soon, he would never have learned the joys of literary comic novels. For the first-time writer later in life, Terry offers Ernest Hemingway’s observation that “You can’t write until you’ve lived a little.” Terry goes on to advise any new writer to find their own voice, not simply borrow the voice of someone they’ve read. It may take a while, he says, but it’s worth it.

Much as he enjoys writing, Terry has concerns about the plight of writers, publishers and booksellers in Canada, given the relatively small size of the market. In particular he decries the tendency of very high-volume bookselling companies to discount the prices of books, leaving authors and publishers with little in the way of deserved revenue. He believes governments and the culturally aware public both have a role in creating a cultural landscape that helps writers to survive here.

But Terry doesn’t dwell on the challenges for long — he emerges as an optimist, driven by his belief in the transformative power of the well-crafted written word, and his joy in being among gatherings of writers and the readers they serve.

You may emerge from the May 8 Author’s Talk with Terry in Markdale as a confirmed reader, a rejuvenated reader, or an inspired writer-to-be. You’ll also emerge, having been entertained by Terry’s accounts of how real life and real imagination merged to create his novel A New Season. Most of all, you will have spent part of your Wednesday afternoon in the company of an affable famous Canadian writer who enjoys your company as much as you enjoy his.

 


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