A Canada Watch Exclusive:
The Terrible Beauty of Peter Behrens’ The Law of Dreams
Later this month, internationally renowned Canadian novelist Peter Behrens will participate in a multi-media, theatrical presentation inspired by his Governor General’s Award-winning novel The Law of Dreams (2006) – an epic tale set in 1846 during the Irish potato famine – at New York’s Irish Arts Center. The author, originally from Montreal and now living in Maine, granted Canada Watch this exclusive interview.
Canada Watch: Your first book, Night Driving, a well-received collection of short stories, was published in 1987. It wasn’t until almost 20 years later, in 2006, that your second book appeared. That is the Governor General’s Award-winning The Law of Dreams, and it’s a fully realized, “masterly” (in the words of The New York Times) debut novel set in 1846 during the Irish potato famine. Had you been working on other projects in the intervening years? And what finally triggered The Law of Dreams? Was this a story you’d always wanted to write?
Peter Behrens: I think “well-received” is publisher-speak for “sold 500-1,000 copies hardcover.” After Night Driving, I had to figure out a way to earn a living. One of the stories, “Vulcan” – set on a grain farm in Alberta – which had also appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, was optioned by a producer in Hollywood. Since I was living in Los Angeles at the time, post-Stegner Fellowship at Stanford, screenwriting seemed a logical career choice. I spent 15 years writing scripts, always getting paid, rarely getting films made. A bit frustrating.
CW: - The American novelist Jonathan Lethem has described The Law of Dreams as a kind of “lucid dream.” I like that: “lucid” in that the landscape and the characters and situations feel so real, sometimes alarmingly so, given the subject matter, and “dream”-like in that the book is set in a distant, remote time and in a context of a famine that is so hard to conceive of for those of us living now, in the relative plenty of the western world.
Peter Behrens: Some people think the past was misty, gauzy. In period movies they often use a different lighting for “the past,” as if everything happened then in a kind of beautiful golden or pink light. I have a feeling the light of the past was the same as today. The past wasn’t always the past; it used to be now. Nostalgia is boring. Regarding famine, the same scenes that played out in Ireland in 1847 play out in Africa now. And some of them played out in Haiti this winter, from what I read.
CW: This is historical fiction, which must layer in a potentially daunting, additional challenge for any novelist. Was all the research done before you settled in to write? Or did you begin writing your story and then fill in the context and answer specific research-related questions while in progress?
Peter Behrens: I would write until I came up against what I didn’t know. Then stop to research. Then start writing again. I had a broad conceptual framework in place – I’ve been a lifelong student of Irish history. And as a member of the O’Brien family in Montreal – my mother was O’Brien – I never not knew about the famine. I don’t remember anyone ever talking about it, but I don’t remember ever not knowing about it.
CW: For a book that has been described as epic, “Homeric,” and been compared to Melville...and considering your young protagonist Fergus and the scope of his experiences and the distance he travels over the course of the novel, it’s kind of amazing that you bring it all home in under 400 pages. Does that concision spring from your experience as a short story writer, do you think? Perhaps it’s guided by your experience writing screenplays?
Peter Behrens: Maybe both. I was on the road with Fergus, and he had to keep moving or die. I think that drove the pace of the narrative. But my background writing short stories and screenplays was a factor. Concision.
CW: The book has also been described in various ways as “poetic.” I would agree with that, and I did think of other Canadian authors who share your ability to underscore big storytelling with the intimacy of poetry or poetic language. Writers like Michael Ondaatje, Alistair MacLeod, Anne Michaels, Steven Heighton. Is this a Canadian trend, do you think?
Peter Behrens: Don’t know. But anytime someone mentions my work in the same breath as Alistair Macleod’s, that’s enough for me. Every book has its own voice. A book is a voice. Maybe before it’s a theme or a plot or a story. The novel I’m writing now sounds a lot different than Law. Novels are always about language. Good novels. Bad ones aren’t, so they’re hard to read.
CW: Another Canadian, Marshall McLuhan wrote in his 1962 book, The Gutenberg Galaxy, that in selecting a novel, the potential reader should turn to page 69 and read it. If you like what you read there, he suggested, you should go ahead read the whole book. You recently submitted The Law of Dreams to that test for a popular “page 69 test” blog, and it seemed to hold up. Do you subscribe to McLuhan’s method when choosing a book?
Peter Behrens: Didn’t know the concept came from McLuhan. No, I’m a first sentence reader. If that first sentence has problems, I’m out of there. Writing is all about sentences. The rest of it is simple.
CW: I never ask this, but in the case of The Law of Dreams, which ends with a new beginning, I can’t help myself. Sequel?
Peter Behrens: Sort of. But I skip a few years. Generations. The new novel, Angel Death No Mercy, is set in the world of Fergus O’Brien’s grandchildren – my grandparents. It’s set in Pontiac County, QC, Westmount, Los Angeles, Maine and covers the period 1900 to 1960.
CW: The Law of Dreams is very cinematic as well. Have the movie rights been spoken for, and, if so, would you want to be the one to adapt it for the screen?
Peter Behrens: Well, different people have wanted to option it. So far I haven’t seen the right strategy in place for getting the book to film. It’s a very good film story. It’s also difficult: period, young actors, etc., but all that can be overcome. That’s all about making numbers work. It will get made, and I will likely write the first draft script at least, but I want to work with a producer and a director who have their own vision and will make a film much better than I could imagine.
CW: The idea of adaptation brings us to this month’s Irish Arts Center presentation of the novel, happening from May 21 to 23. This is going to be a multi-media presentation, featuring pianist and composer Paul Sullivan, soprano Rosie Upton, with you narrating. Whose idea was this presentation?
Peter Behrens: Paul Sullivan’s. We live in the same small town. We knew each other, not well. He read the book and called me up one day in January ’09 and said, “Let’s do something together based on your book.” Neither of us knew quite what we had in mind. It evolved, began to take shape. Rose came on board. We found a talented actor. It became itself.
CW: Again, the novel is so sweeping, so much happens, how do you communicate that in a live setting over the course of a single hour? Or are you just trying to give an impression of it?
Peter Behrens: Well, it is based on the book, but it’s not really about the book. The show’s goal is not to deliver a sense of the book but to seek to do through a different medium what the book was trying to do – deliver a vivid sense of what the famine might have been like for people living through it. The show wants to be itself, not a staged synopsis of a novel. It wants to be a vivid and entertaining hour that will thrill audiences and stay in their minds.
CW: Will you be reading directly from various points in the novel, or are you focusing on presenting one particular portion of the tale?
Peter Behrens: I don’t read from the novel: an actor does that. We follow the bare narrative line of Fergus’ journey from County Clare to Montreal. We focus on scenes that work well in the format. My role on stage is being myself: I introduce the story, explain my relationship to the history, fill in some of the narrative structure, give historical background to the events and scenes. I’m sort of The Professor.
CW: It sounds like an amazing evening. Margaret Atwood recently came through New York with a multi-media presentation inspired by her latest novel, The Year of the Flood. Is this another Canadian trend in the making…?
Peter Behrens: Yes, I hope so. We want to do the show next in Montreal and Toronto.
CW: You are a Canadian who is an American resident who is being celebrated by Ireland: do you consider yourself as obeying the “law of dreams,” i.e. that you will keep moving? Or are you more or less permanently settled in Maine?
Peter Behrens: Well, I guess I’m a border person. Canadian but Quebecer, Quebecer but Anglo, Anglo but Irish Catholic...I’m comfortable with being on the perimeter of things I write about. In the winter we live in West Texas, 50 miles from the Mexican border. All my stories are Canadian, for no other reason than that I write about the world I grew up in, or that world’s mythology and history.
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CD Spotlight:
Tamara Silvera, Departures
The aptly titled Departures, the sophomore CD from Los Angeles-based Canadian singer-songwriter Tamara Silvera, is a deliciously catchy record of romantic exits that is by turns heart-wrenching (it hurts) and adrenaline-inducing (it rocks). Departures is also an old-fashioned collection: meticulously produced by Calgary native John Whynot and sequenced to deliver an overall experience, the album delivers a 12-song arc in the age of the single-song download. From the caustic lead track, “Misery,” and its opening admonition (masked as a question), “Is it easy to walk away?,” it’s clear the emotional terrain Ms. Silvera – a wonderful singer – is navigating here. And while Ms. Silvera “lingers in” the “misery” of this song’s particular departure, the listener can at least delight in the track’s gradual build and the slow release of its musical charms: what begins simply, with the choppy strum of an acoustic guitar and a raw-voiced question, ends as a full-out, wall-of-sound rocker. It’s infectious, as is the entire record, and, although Departures as a whole offers a complete listening experience, it’s tempting to highlight a couple more of its stand-out tracks. First among these would be the stunning, soulful “Unconditional,” which could be a lost Dusty Springfield gem, and the piano-driven “Soul Phone,” an exquisite, ornate Lennon-esque beauty, an anguished shout-out that serves as the album’s post-departure mission statement.
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Canadian Playwright Oren Safdie’s The Bilbao Effect Debuts in New York
Back in 2003 a quiet hit landed Off-Broadway: Private Jokes, Public Places, a biting satire on academia, relationships, and the importance of challenging tradition, written by acclaimed Montreal playwright Oren Safdie, enjoyed an extended run and rave reviews. Touted as “inspired and astonishing” by no less than The New York Times, the play left New York audiences wanting more from Mr. Safdie (the son of Canadian architect Moshe Safdie).
Well, “more” has arrived, in the form of a month-long run of the playwright’s latest, The Bilbao Effect, at the Center for Architecture in New York. The play, which once again deals in the world of architecture – Private Jokes, Public Places was set during the presentation of an architectural thesis – tackles controversial urban design issues as it follows Erhardt Shlaminger, a world-famous architect who faces censure following some rather unorthodox accusations. His design for an urban redevelopment project on Staten Island is said to have led directly to a woman’s suicide.
“The Bilbao Effect” became a popular term after Canadian-born architect Frank Gehry built the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, transforming a struggling industrial port city into a must-see tourist destination. Its success spurred other cities to hire other famous architects and give them carte blanche to design other spectacular buildings in the hopes that Bilbao’s success could be replicated.
The New York production of Mr. Safdie’s play – the second of a planned trilogy focusing on contemporary architecture – is directed by Brendan Hughes and features an accomplished cast of actors that includes John Bolton, Anthony Giaimo, Ann Hu, Joris Stuyck, Lorrain Serabian, and Dan Barbaro. The play was commissioned by the Canada Council for the Arts, is supported by the Quebec Government Office – New York, and was developed from a column Mr. Safdie wrote for Metropolis Magazine
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Baba Brinkman Brings his Rap Guide to Darwin to New York
In The Rap Guide to Evolution, Canadian actor and rap artist Baba Brinkman takes a hip-hop look at the history and current understanding of evolution. Mr. Brinkman calls it “the first-ever laugh-out-loud peer-reviewed rap.” Winner of the Scotsman Fringe First Award in 2009, the show combines remixes of popular rap songs with lyrical storytelling and improvised freestyle rhymes.
According to The New York Times, the show, which is being performed over the course of four days this month at New York’s Bleecker Street Theatre, is an “astonishing, and brilliant, lecture on evolution.” The Times Olivia Judson goes on to describe Mr. Brinkman as “a burly Canadian from Vancouver,” a “latter-day wandering minstrel [and] self-styled ‘rap troubadour’ with a master’s degree in English and a history of tree-planting.”
Mr. Brinkman refers to this uproarious performance as “peer-reviewed” because the show “evolved” out of a correspondence with evolutionary biologist and rap enthusiast Mark Pallen (University of Birmingham). Teachers, students, and families are invited to take advantage of a special student discount. To purchase tickets for $9.50 each, use the code BBSTUDENT at the Bleecker Street box office, at www.broadwayoffers.com, or by calling (212) 947-8844.
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Karine Vanasse, with her Best Actress Genie for her work in Polytechnique.
The Best of Canadian Filmmaking Honored at the 30th Annual Genie Awards in Toronto
The Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television last month announced the winners of the 30th Annual Genie Awards. Polytechnique (a harrowing French Canadian film that dramatizes the 1989 Montreal massacre of several female engineering students by an unstable misogynist) garnered nine awards, including Best Motion Picture, Achievement in Direction (Denis Villeneuve), Original Screenplay (Jacques Davidts), and Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role (Karine Vanasse). Other Genie winners include the actor Joshua Jackson for his work in One Week and Adapted Screenplay winner Kari Skogland for Fifty Dead Men Walking.
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