Gas-tronomic delight
Chris Robinson
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Gaston: "Everyone wants to escape and watch Wheel Of Fortune"
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Bill Gaston's In Order of Good Cheer links disparate entities with food and celebration
Samuel Champlain struggles with his colleagues to define and control the harsh new land of New France. Some 400 years later, grain-mill worker Andy Winslow and his friends are just trying to keep that land from falling apart. On the surface, Andy and Samuel don't seem to have much in common, but as Bill Gaston reveals in his exceptional new book, In Order of Good Cheer, the two protagonists are linked by a deeper concern for their friends, lovers, the fragility of their existence, boredom, and, most importantly, food.
In preparation for his appearance at the Ottawa International Writer's Festival, Xpress interviewed Gaston via email to discuss his new book.
Can you talk a bit about the origins/background of Good Cheer? Did you always have the idea to tell these two stories or did they have different origins at one point?
To give you some idea of how many permutations this went through, the novel began as the story of a man who retrieves his two children that have been kidnapped by his ex-wife, who it turns out is the better and more deserving parent, though she's jailed. That scenario now is a minor anecdote.
Then the French settlers were going to be a gang of partying ghosts that only Andy could see. Andy was a Nova Scotian in that version. So you can get a sense of what painful contortions this book went through before arriving at its present form. Thankfully I did most of the contorting in my head. By the time I started typing, I had things pretty straight. I
grew to like, and rely on, the outrageous structure, that of two stories 400 years and 4000 miles apart. I'm hoping whiplash effect of going back and forth will be jarring in a provocative way.How did the theme of food and the Good Cheer feast works its way into the stories?
I've always been intrigued by how some people seem to be able to wake themselves up, by which I mean cheer themselves up, almost as an act of will. On a naïve level it's the "don't worry, be happy" cliché, but in the sense of will, or that it might be a decision we can make, the idea is profound. The reverse is true too-we all know people who indulge in, who milk, a bad mood, even depression.
Anyway, I was attracted to how Champlain saw a hugely depressing scene-cramped quarters, men stuck with each other, trapped by winter, bad food, scurvy and death coming-and instead of getting depressed he decided to throw a gigantic party. He threw a party because things were so bad. He celebrated despite the hell around him. As decisions go, it's genius.
Another striking parallel between the two places is the amount of boredom going on. It takes different forms obviously, but there's very little action going on just a lot of scenes with Andy and Champlain living in their heads, not being the people they want to be and not being able to reach out to the people they care about. Champlain's companion Lucien is really one of the few characters who seems to be living and embracing life's possibilities.
One of the biggest challenges of writing the book had to do with boredom. The character Andy does nothing, lives internally and leads a boring life-how to make that not only interesting, but compelling? The French settlers are trapped in a tiny compound, nothing to do, smelling the same old stale breath-their boredom is almost killing. Sounds like an exciting read, eh?
But boredom is so much a part of the human condition, and therefore the book's theme, that I had to immerse the action in it, so to speak. If I've succeeded in making the book at all entertaining, I deserve a giant gold chest medallion. I'm hoping I've inserted enough sex, fine wine, and exotic organ meats. Unrequited love, urban wolves, dementia and accelerated climate change are bonus features.
Andy I've constructed to be a counterpoint to Champlain. While Champlain explores and maps an unknown world, Andy goes absolutely nowhere, except in his mind-the men are extreme opposites. But I try to portray the mapmaker's life as equally inert, mostly because he is publicly awkward, in some sense cowardly, and can't be who he wants to be.
Lucien might be a more engaging character because he is the most authentic, and free. At the same time, his situation is painfully ironic, because, though his mind is free, compared to the other two he is a prisoner--of the encampment, and of the rigid class system. In these ways I wanted the characters to be reflections of each other, and to raise questions in the contemporary world about what might be "a well-lived life."
Have we lost touch today with celebrations around food? Families seem to eat dinner together less. Christmas time has, for many, become this agonizing day where we just go through the motions and can't wait to get out.
Absolutely we have lost our sense of celebration whenever holidays and family occasions become rote. Everyone there wants to escape and watch Wheel of Fortune. This is exactly what the book is looking at, or kicking at, and it seems the answer has to do with going beneath the surface, with trying new things, new food, saying something new, inviting the weird neighbours over for a drink, learning a new song. Again, that was Champlain's genius-to do something that dazzles boredom and depression.
Bill Gaston
@ Ottawa International Writers Festival
Saturday, October 25th, 6 p.m.
