Episode Transcript
[00:00:21] Speaker A: You're listening to KFAI on 90.3 FM in Minneapolis and streaming on the web at KFAI.org welcome to Write On Radio. I'm Eric and on tonight's program Ian Graham Leisk talks with Peter Guy, the award winning author of Safe from the Sea, the Lighthouse Road, Wintering Northernmost, and the Ski jumpers about his latest novel, A Lesser Light, set against a brooding and beautiful landscape. A Lesser Light is a story about industry and calamity set science versus superstition, inner desire countered with societal expectations and the consequences when these forces collide in the wilderness of rapid social change.
All this and more. So stay tuned to Write On Radio.
[00:01:24] Speaker B: She found the two boys inside when she got there. The one with the bandage sat at a stool before the counter while a woman with a stern but beautiful mien slowly removed it. Celia couldn't help but stare at the two of them. Such tenderness she'd never seen.
Celia made a slow parade around the store shelves, pretending to consider all manner of goods but actually studying the boy and that woman. She stood now between Celia and him, the cut of her dress like something from a newspaper advertisement. No coarse gingham there, rather something akin to silk. She stood upright. The woman did as though she had a spine made of a shovel handle. The ringlets of her downy hair fell.
[00:02:07] Speaker C: Like still more silk. When she stepped to the side, the boy stood facing Celia.
[00:02:14] Speaker B: A quarter of his face seemed to be missing where his eyes should have been. Only a sack of soft looking flesh hung like a fish's belly. He closed his good eye and smiled, and when he opened it again he said, hi, you.
Cilia ducked as though they were playing hide and seek, but then stood as quickly feeling the fool. She walked over to him, the woman turning to greet her. I'm Rebecca. I don't know you, she said, her voice matching her countenance exactly.
[00:02:45] Speaker C: Celia did not respond, only looked at.
[00:02:48] Speaker B: The boy, who said, I just winked at you.
[00:02:50] Speaker C: But you couldn't tell, could you?
[00:02:52] Speaker B: From the stool beside him, the other boy spoke.
[00:02:55] Speaker C: Ode's a goblin, ain't he?
[00:02:58] Speaker B: Did you have an accident? Celia asked, ignoring both of the others and taking another step closer to the.
[00:03:04] Speaker C: Boy with one eye.
[00:03:05] Speaker B: An accident? The boy with the jacket and tiger fought. More like you picked a fight with the wrong bear.
[00:03:12] Speaker C: He took a bite from a piece of jerky.
[00:03:14] Speaker B: You hush, Danny, the woman said, straightening the knot of his tie and then.
[00:03:19] Speaker C: Laying a gentle hand on his cheek.
[00:03:21] Speaker B: And you, she continued talking now to Cilia. Look like you could use a sip of Water. Or anyway, something to cool you. What's your name?
Still Celia kept her gaze on the one eyed boy. Did a bear really do this? We have them around the cabin all the time. Wolves and bears both. One wolf was like to curl up on our hearth, he comes around so much. Where's your cabin? Ode asked. And I repeat, what's your name? The woman rejoined.
Finally Cilia turned and offered her hand in the manner her uncle had to the magistrate some 15 minutes before. I'm Silya Levik. My parents drowned and now my uncle is putting me up for adoption or becoming my new papa himself.
[00:04:01] Speaker C: I'm not sure.
[00:04:02] Speaker B: We came on the Nocturne from Otter Bay. She'll sink the fairy well three times, if I heard rightly. Heard from who? The betide boy asked, his tone scoffing. He wouldn't understand, celia said. It's funny, the one eyed boy said. I often have dreams about the Nocturne. She's always running aground in them. To this, the woman said. But you also dream about waltzing with the same bear that did this. She dipped her finger in a small canister of ointment and applied it to the crease where the boy's eyes should have been. I'm getting a glass eye when this heals. A glass eye? Celia said.
Just then a man walked into the apothecary.
Celia had seen him collecting the mail sacks on the dock while she stood in the shadow of the courthouse making snowmen.
[00:04:48] Speaker C: He seemed bigger out there.
[00:04:50] Speaker B: Who's this? He fairly bellowed. This is Cilia Limvick, our new friend. Cilia, this is Hosea. He set the mail sacks beside her on the counter and stood with his thumbs hooked in in his suspenders. If the woman's face betrayed solemnity and reserve, this man's ruddiness and practiced smile gave the impression of a harlequin just demasked.
[00:05:13] Speaker C: She distrusted him instantly, the way he.
[00:05:15] Speaker B: Ogled her, the way he leaned toward her, the sourness of his breath, which reeked of pickled herring. Sylvia has recently lost her parents. If what she says is true, this was Rebecca again. Why would she lie about that?
[00:05:30] Speaker C: Od asked.
[00:05:30] Speaker B: I'm not lying. Celia slithered out from between the counter and Hosea. She felt in her pocket for the nickel Mr. Mayfair had given her and stepped down to the end of the counter with confections piled upon it. She chose a chocolate bar and came back to Rebecca and offered her the coin.
Rebecca had already started to wrap Od's eye again, paying strict attention.
Just put the coin on the counter. And tell me, where is your uncle now? Do we know her? Uncle Jose asked. His voice possessed a lascivious register, one that warned Celia even as she couldn't quite shake his grasp.
My uncle is meeting Mr. Mayfair and.
[00:06:10] Speaker C: I doubt you know him. His name's Mads Broughton.
[00:06:12] Speaker B: You're Mads Broughton's niece? Mr. Broughton? The Sawyer from up at the Burntwood timber camp?
Two winters he's been up there, celia said, still doubtful of the man. I know him indeed. He's a springtime customer.
[00:06:25] Speaker C: In fact, he wasn't much more than.
[00:06:27] Speaker B: A week ago here headed back down to you. A wide smile filled his clownish face. But you say his sister and her husband have drowned.
[00:06:37] Speaker C: Your mother and father have.
[00:06:40] Speaker B: Celia, tired already of the story of her loss, merely nodded. Ode, his head now wrapped, stood. Shall Danny and I walk you back to the courthouse?
[00:06:50] Speaker C: Count me out, danny said.
[00:06:52] Speaker B: My mother told me I had to be home for supper.
[00:06:54] Speaker C: He ran for the exit like the.
[00:06:55] Speaker B: Building had gone up in flames and he was gone from view before the screen door slammed shut.
[00:07:02] Speaker C: You can walk this young lady back.
[00:07:03] Speaker B: To the courthouse, but hurry back for supper yourself.
Hosea spoke from behind the counter where he'd gone to commence sorting the mail.
Rebecca seemed perturbed that Ode had offered the girl an escort. Her expression, which had changed as easily as the spring sky, now bore a certain crossness. Thank you for your hospitality. Celia tried playing bashful, hoping to regain Rebecca's kindness.
You know Celia Lindvick. Our boy Ode is an orphan too. You have that in common. But about Curtis Mayfair, know that he's only an authority on these matter where the state is concerned, she said.
What other authority is there? Celia asked. There's no end to men with power. The thought seemed to sober Rebecca, or soften her, and she walked Celia to the door, where she as much as whispered in her ear. Be mindful of that as you and your uncle sort things out. Yes, but also as you grow up, every single boy and man you meet will want something.
She turned and called for Ode to take Celia across the street.
[00:08:16] Speaker D: Fantastic stuff. We've just been listening to Peter Guy reading from his new book, Lesser Light.
He's been on every he's been on this show for every single book.
[00:08:29] Speaker B: I think it's a true story.
[00:08:31] Speaker D: Yeah, very good. Welcome back to Rod and Radio.
[00:08:34] Speaker B: Thanks for having me.
[00:08:35] Speaker C: And it's good to see you again.
[00:08:36] Speaker B: Good to be here.
[00:08:36] Speaker D: Yeah, you too. I'm Ian Graham Leesk. So I should tell you this just about Peter. He's the author of Safe from the Sea, the Lighthouse Road Wintering, which won the Minnesota Book Award, Northernmost, which is my favorite, and ski dumpers from 2023. Still lives in Minneapolis. Born and bred. Here with your family.
[00:09:00] Speaker C: That's right. Can't seem to shake this place.
[00:09:03] Speaker D: No, it's a good place to be, especially for writers.
[00:09:06] Speaker C: Yeah, let's say it's a great, great city for that. For a thousand other reasons as well.
[00:09:10] Speaker D: Yeah, that's true. And even the weather now, I suppose. So that section, I. I love that section, especially how it ends and this buildup of tension is. Is there an influence on you with that. With that kind of tone that you're producing there?
[00:09:30] Speaker B: I mean, I'm sure there is.
[00:09:32] Speaker C: And I'm sure actually that there are more than one or two influences at work, as there usually are. I think as we were sitting down.
[00:09:43] Speaker B: To talk, you mentioned Dickens and certainly.
[00:09:46] Speaker C: I've read so much of him and.
[00:09:48] Speaker B: Loved him and I wouldn't have thought.
[00:09:49] Speaker C: Of him as an influence, say, when.
[00:09:54] Speaker B: It came to that scene.
[00:09:55] Speaker C: But the more I think about it.
[00:09:57] Speaker B: And I've only had 10 minutes to.
[00:09:58] Speaker C: Think about it, but there's actually, it seems, that influences more than in just.
[00:10:05] Speaker B: That scene in this book.
[00:10:07] Speaker C: There's. I mean, it would. It sounds preposterous to say, but Dickensian quality, that is a cast full of large characters across purposes and coming from all directions, major and minor characters alike, each with their own brand of wisdom and their own secrets and their own wishes.
And so maybe that was a more direct influence than I might have thought of.
[00:10:40] Speaker D: Yeah, it felt very much like certain introductory scenes that Dickens would do and obviously people of his time too, like Wilkie Collins as well, and how they introduce certain characters. And I could really feel the artful dodger here and that whole piece of where they all come. And in fair play to you, you don't use the pompous language that he uses, but use some other as another influence of lovely, clear, imagistic language that you must have worked very hard on.
[00:11:18] Speaker C: I mean, I did work very hard.
[00:11:20] Speaker B: At one of the ambitions of the book. Not at the outset, but by the time I was done writing it and.
[00:11:25] Speaker C: In the process of revising it was taking this, you know, 600 page manuscript or even longer.
[00:11:33] Speaker B: I think it was probably about 650 pages the first time I printed it.
[00:11:37] Speaker C: Off and putting a shine on it, putting a buff on it, so that the same stylistic integrity that I aspire to in all my books wasn't going.
[00:11:50] Speaker B: To be missing here.
[00:11:51] Speaker C: Just because the book was a little longer.
[00:11:54] Speaker B: And so the editorial process was pretty intense.
[00:11:58] Speaker C: And curiously, and luckily, I guess what is often a feature of the revision, which is rearranging all the furniture, moving.
[00:12:09] Speaker B: The house from one side of the.
[00:12:11] Speaker C: Street to the other, sometimes killing a.
[00:12:14] Speaker B: Couple of characters in the bargain.
[00:12:16] Speaker C: That part of it was not here, so I could really focus on the sentence level, line level stuff.
[00:12:24] Speaker D: It wasn't there because you got it right the first time.
[00:12:28] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:12:28] Speaker B: Or mostly right.
[00:12:29] Speaker C: And when I say it wasn't there, I mean the wholesale changes went. There were things to do, but I.
[00:12:34] Speaker B: Mostly felt good about the order of.
[00:12:37] Speaker C: Things and about the pace.
[00:12:45] Speaker B: And the.
[00:12:45] Speaker C: Evolution of the story and didn't feel.
[00:12:49] Speaker B: Like a character was missing or a.
[00:12:51] Speaker C: Point of view needed to be removed.
[00:12:54] Speaker B: Or a point of view added.
[00:12:55] Speaker C: It felt, I don't know, almost like it was born standing up or something like that.
[00:13:02] Speaker D: You know, I think you have a tremendous instinct and it's developed over time, you know, since Lighthouse Road is that first one, which you displayed in that, of course, as well. But there's a sort of sense here of a well made book that I've never seen from you before.
It's different.
I think you go for it in some of the other slightly longer books that scale ski, you know, ski jumpers as well, but that's very sort of working class and focused in here. And now you're going back to 1910.
[00:13:32] Speaker C: And actually sometimes 1905, sometimes even 1900.
[00:13:36] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. You're doing a little bit of backstory there, but it's mostly the story takes place in 1910. You know, it's an extraordinary time to go, you know, to write about just before the First World War. America's booming, the industrial industry is booming, and Grand Marais, which you call Gunflint in all your books, is booming.
[00:13:57] Speaker C: Duluth is booming.
[00:13:59] Speaker D: Duluth is booming.
And the lake is still the same.
[00:14:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:04] Speaker C: Well, isn't that what's magnificent about it? Not only is it the same, not only is it the same water, and in some parts of the lake, it is literally the same water, but it's.
It's never been the same two days in a row, not in all that time. And what it gives the lake that is, is that it at once is so enormous and ubiquitous when you're there and kind of overpowering when you're there, but it is its own thing, own.
[00:14:43] Speaker B: New thing every day.
[00:14:44] Speaker C: And as a writer, I think one of the reasons that I just continue to go back there is for that very reason, because if I'm standing on.
[00:14:53] Speaker B: The shore of Lake Superior, no matter where I am. And if I look hard enough, I'm.
[00:14:56] Speaker C: Going to see something that I've never seen before, despite having stood there 500 times before with the purpose of observing it and thinking about ways to put it into one of these books. So it's a pretty. Pretty terrific gift for that.
[00:15:15] Speaker D: I love it there, and it's just something that always captures my imagination. Josh has a question.
This is Josh Weber.
Come in. Mind and speaking.
[00:15:26] Speaker C: Hi, Peter.
[00:15:26] Speaker B: Hi, Josh.
[00:15:27] Speaker E: So Lake Superior is treated like. Just to pivot off what you guys are talking about. Lake Superior is treated like a living entity at times, with moods ranging from serene to tempestuous. How does the lake's changing personality drive internal dynamics for the characters in this work?
[00:15:42] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I think that one of the things that I have done.
[00:15:48] Speaker B: Probably more subconsciously than consciously, especially early.
[00:15:52] Speaker C: In my writing life, so maybe a.
[00:15:55] Speaker B: Little bit more consciously now than before.
[00:15:58] Speaker C: Is use the lake as a mirror.
[00:16:02] Speaker B: To hold up to the characters and to.
[00:16:06] Speaker C: Maybe not a mirror, maybe.
[00:16:11] Speaker B: A glass.
Why I'm at a loss for what this word is a microscope. To enlarge their characters and to make.
[00:16:18] Speaker C: Their characters, I don't know, deeper.
[00:16:23] Speaker B: Sorry for the bad pun.
[00:16:24] Speaker C: But also more interesting and more mysterious.
[00:16:29] Speaker B: Like the lake itself.
[00:16:33] Speaker C: And in this novel especially, I think.
[00:16:36] Speaker B: More so than any of the novels that I've written, Lake Superior takes one.
[00:16:42] Speaker C: Of the leading roles, not just as a setting and not just as a.
[00:16:47] Speaker B: Part of the scenery of the novel.
[00:16:50] Speaker C: But as a godlike force in the novel.
[00:16:55] Speaker D: And you could say, then we start pulling out the structuralism, which. I can't help them.
It's like Poseidon. It's got this horror that it can experience explode at any minute and take. Your mother and father can snatch them. And then it's lovely and peaceful. And you could row from the lighthouse to Gunflint, you know, which is Grandma.
Would that take two days to row up?
[00:17:22] Speaker C: That's a good question.
[00:17:23] Speaker B: I think I did the math on that, but I can't remember.
[00:17:27] Speaker C: It's.
[00:17:28] Speaker B: What.
[00:17:28] Speaker C: It's about 60 miles from there to there. Yeah.
[00:17:32] Speaker B: You could row that in a couple of.
[00:17:33] Speaker C: A couple of days?
[00:17:35] Speaker B: You or I might not be able.
[00:17:36] Speaker C: To, but a younger, more strapping lad might be able.
[00:17:41] Speaker D: There aren't too many more strapping lads than you and I. Getting a bit older, but. But, yeah, I mean, I. I was wondering about that. Is. Did you check that detail to see if that's how long it would take back. Back in the day with a Rowing boat.
[00:17:55] Speaker C: Yeah. And, and, and they, you know, they are more want to roe that is any of the characters in a lesser light, whether it's the fisherman, Masprottan or Theodolf or Willisau or the lighthouse keeper or his wife to the little settlement.
[00:18:13] Speaker B: At Otter Bay than they are to Gunflin.
[00:18:15] Speaker C: But there is a passage where they contemplate where Motts is talking to Celia, in fact, because she doesn't want to get on the.
[00:18:24] Speaker B: On the ferry.
[00:18:25] Speaker C: And she. She says, what's wrong with the rowboat? And he says it's a couple of. It would take us a couple of days to row there. So, yes, that's the long answer. The short answer is yes. But that sort of detail is really.
[00:18:40] Speaker B: Important to have, right?
[00:18:42] Speaker C: I mean, any detail is important to have, right? Of course, but a detail like that, especially if you have fictionalized the whole hundred mile structure stretch of wilderness and small settlements, is really important.
[00:18:59] Speaker D: So that brings us to the lighthouse itself, which you give it another name. What was the name of the lighthouse?
[00:19:05] Speaker C: The Jinnahbeko Light.
[00:19:06] Speaker D: Yeah. Where does that come from? That's a.
[00:19:09] Speaker C: Well, curiously. So I batted around about 100 possibilities.
[00:19:15] Speaker B: For the name of this lighthouse and.
[00:19:17] Speaker C: I, in order to answer that question, I'm going to take just a short step back to say that.
[00:19:22] Speaker B: And I alluded to this just a.
[00:19:24] Speaker C: Second ago, but the North Shore in my fiction has been fictionalized. All the places have been fictionalized. Once you go to the other side of Two Harbors to the east or north side of Two Harbors all the way up to the Canadian border. And I've done that for all sorts of reasons, not least that for me, when I think of the North Shore, I don't think of Beaver Bay, I don't think of Silver Bay, I don't think of Tofty, and I think of the North Shore. And that place has, in my mind.
[00:19:59] Speaker B: And in my imagination, has become its.
[00:20:02] Speaker C: Own thing, its own physical space, yes. But also its own spiritual lodestar for me, or something like that. And so when I name the places.
[00:20:16] Speaker B: That are there now more than when.
[00:20:17] Speaker C: I was younger writing these books, I try to deliberately obscure it while also being specific. So there are Ojibwe names for all.
[00:20:30] Speaker B: The rivers and creeks on the North.
[00:20:32] Speaker C: Shore, with one exception, and there was.
[00:20:35] Speaker B: Undoubtedly a name for it.
[00:20:36] Speaker C: But it's not then the certainty, the linguistic certainty is not there with the Split, excuse me, with the Split Rock.
[00:20:44] Speaker B: River as it is for the others.
[00:20:46] Speaker C: And the best guess that the linguists have for the Name of the Ojibwe.
[00:20:54] Speaker B: Name of the Split Rock river is.
[00:20:55] Speaker C: The Jinnahubiko Zibi, which translates to War Eagle Iron River.
So I like that, I like that it was even lost to the Ojibwe language or uncertain in the Ojibwe language. And I also love the way it looks on the.
[00:21:11] Speaker B: The page.
[00:21:12] Speaker D: It's a lovely word. Yeah, yeah. But. But also Split Rock. This. The name itself is like the characters.
[00:21:18] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:21:19] Speaker D: They are split. Yes, everything's split. That's why I think it's well made because you've got all these parallels and, you know, contrasts. You've got the. Celia and Matt are very working class against Theobold and Willa and they're obviously very middle class and kind of pucker loads of things. Like all these contrasts between behaviors and where people come from and of course between the women. The two women are incredibly contrasted. You know, one of them is probably a little bit psychic or at least think she is. You know, and then Willa is very well educated and she's very stubborn.
[00:22:04] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:22:04] Speaker D: And the, and the, the whole, the whole sort of movement towards that. That old structural concept of the allazons and herons. Do you remember that from the North Fry in the old days, Alazon was a character that is kind of big and blustery like Theobald. And an Aeron is somebody who takes the air out. Right. Like the, the fool in King Learn. And that's what the little kid is doing all the time. You grow to love her for that. And that's why I felt that there was this well made component for it. I really enjoy it because I don't really see that anymore.
[00:22:41] Speaker C: You know, I think that when there's a reason, I'll say it like this, that we can talk about stories, that we can talk about the form that.
[00:22:52] Speaker B: They take and the archetypes that inhabit.
[00:22:55] Speaker C: The stories that they do.
Because most of the stories that we tell as novelists certainly have been told before.
[00:23:08] Speaker B: Some version of this story has been told before and they repeat. And yes, there are new names to the characters and new places and new.
[00:23:15] Speaker C: Subjects and all of those things, but.
[00:23:17] Speaker B: There'S an awful lot that's similar between.
[00:23:19] Speaker C: One novel and the next if you look hard enough to find those novels. And that is our. I mean, that's because our mythology informs them all.
And I'm no exception to that, of course.
[00:23:34] Speaker B: And probably I fall harder for it.
[00:23:36] Speaker C: Than most people do because I've read too many books.
[00:23:42] Speaker D: There's no school of thinking anymore about the Novel. Am I right?
Well, you know, there's no Cubism. There's no modernism. Everything's modernism really now, isn't it?
[00:23:57] Speaker C: I suspect if we went across the street and started polling the English professors at the University of Minnesota, some of them would have a theory. But if it's true that there's less.
[00:24:07] Speaker B: And less of that all the time.
[00:24:08] Speaker C: I think it's both. I think it's a good thing because I think that one of the things.
[00:24:14] Speaker B: That the novel has always. The novel with a capital, nature has.
[00:24:17] Speaker C: Always required is freedom from convention.
[00:24:22] Speaker B: And those labels are just another kind of convention. I think.
[00:24:25] Speaker D: I agree. I completely agree. But those professors are the last people that we want to get in here. I think we're about to take a break.
[00:24:40] Speaker B: There was enough wind that night to account for all manner of fates colliding. And who's to say that the very gusts that push Willa across Superior street had not sailed down from up London Road? For the wind most certainly blew that way. A savage nor'easter.
But that's a short blow down London Road. And the bigger question, the fairer question is where'd that wind begin and when was it the same gusty stuff that filled the head sail of Thibert's Novantique nearly two centuries agone, the first wind that ever filled a sail on Lake Superior one come from the headwaters of the St. Mary's river out past the.
[00:25:21] Speaker C: Sault or the breeze that sent St.
[00:25:23] Speaker B: Luisson's ensign a flutter at the same spot 50 some years before Thiber went sailing. Does it just keep going round, oblivious of time?
If it quiets, where's it go then? Into the hearts of the bridled souls.
I've felt the wind off the Greenland Sea and the great Australian bite in a hundred places between. And believe me when I say its longanimity was the same in one place as the other.
Of all the things that could be said of the wind that night, that it would, as William Brant foretold, sink ships, that it carried with it the bitter water of its 350 mile provenance.
[00:26:04] Speaker C: Which is to say all the lake's fair length.
[00:26:07] Speaker B: That its appetite, like Boreas himself, was insatiable, that it found Theodolf in the aura of Willibrandt's song, is perhaps the most remarkable of all.
[00:26:20] Speaker D: Okay, so you said you weren't going to tell us what that meant.
[00:26:24] Speaker C: Well, so there are these mysterious, I hope mysterious first person unnamed italicized sections at the outset of each of the sections in the book.
[00:26:39] Speaker B: When I started writing the book.
[00:26:42] Speaker C: I included them partly, maybe even mostly.
[00:26:47] Speaker B: As, like, a point of reference, a.
[00:26:49] Speaker C: Way to find entree into the end.
[00:26:53] Speaker B: Of the chapter, end of the scene, scenes that I was about to be working on.
[00:26:57] Speaker C: But they evolved.
[00:27:01] Speaker B: As I wrote the.
[00:27:01] Speaker C: Book, and they became not only more grounding, but also they seemed to be.
[00:27:08] Speaker B: Taking on a meaning of their own. I had no idea what they were like. There was no intention. I wasn't being clever or coy or.
[00:27:16] Speaker C: Anything like that as much as I was just trying to almost practice my skill scales or something to warm up for.
Yes, exactly.
But they evolved, and eventually they came.
[00:27:31] Speaker B: To mean something to me. And I had thought that I would.
[00:27:34] Speaker C: Remove them when it was time to send the book off to my editor.
But I ended up keeping them and developing them, and I went back and rewrote most of them.
And what I won't say is what I think they are, but what I think that they do is they situate the reader in what's to come in a given chapter. And I think, too. I mean, we were just talking about.
[00:28:02] Speaker B: This a minute ago. The stories that have been told have all been told over and over again.
[00:28:07] Speaker C: And I think that those italicized sections, including the one that I just read, is. Is a way of reaching up into that layer of ubiquitous storytelling, across humanity, and putting it on the page. In this book, there's an awful lot.
[00:28:27] Speaker D: Of storytelling that I don't think we do get into. And we're scared to get into it. And that's the inner self.
And I. You know, we mostly show that instead of tell it. But there is an amount of inner storytelling, inner detail.
What I think you probably end up having to do next is get inside the head. You're going to have to go to. You've never really done stream of consciousness in a big way, and that's. Nobody's ever done it properly, not Joyce and not roughly at the same time. Virginia Woolf comes out with that, Mrs. Dalloway, and, you know, they're scared to go into the way we really think.
[00:29:22] Speaker B: I wonder if they were scared or.
[00:29:23] Speaker C: If they were experimenting, those two writers, especially experimenting.
[00:29:29] Speaker B: I mean, it was so radical what.
[00:29:30] Speaker C: Both of them were doing, that there's. And I can't imagine being so radical. I have no desire to be so radical, but that there's like a kind of abstraction or something. They just can't.
You didn't know how far you could push it.
That's right.
And so they went as far as they thought they could take it. I Mean, both of those books are beautiful and magnificent and wonderfully strange, especially if you put them back in the context of the years that they were written, which is right about the same time that this novel takes place.
[00:30:15] Speaker D: Actually, it's very close. Josh, you were trying to.
[00:30:19] Speaker E: I've had multiple questions.
[00:30:21] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:30:22] Speaker E: Peter, musical references such as Beethoven's Piano Sonata permeate the text. How do these musical elements enhance or inform the emotional resonance of the narrative?
[00:30:33] Speaker C: Well, I mean, it's such a great question. I think that for me, there's a.
[00:30:38] Speaker B: Short and a long answer to this question.
[00:30:41] Speaker C: The short answer is that music, in the case of this novel, that music, in particular Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, was a soundtrack to the writing of it, and just a frankly gorgeous and moving piece of music, one of, I think, the most beautiful pieces of music that have ever been played, that have ever been put down. And there are, of course, references to the moon in the novel, many of them. It's no mistake that that's the sonata that I chose of all Beethoven's work.
A kind of clumsy attempt at repetition or something like that.
[00:31:28] Speaker B: But I'll tell you also that I.
[00:31:29] Speaker C: Listened to that sonata. I mean, I'm sure I listened to.
[00:31:33] Speaker B: It 300 times while I was writing.
[00:31:36] Speaker C: This novel, practically every time I sat down to write.
[00:31:41] Speaker B: And what happened, and I didn't realize.
[00:31:42] Speaker C: This was happening until the end, is that the stranger structure of the novel itself mimics or mirrors.
[00:31:52] Speaker B: Mirrors is a better word than mimics, because I didn't do it intentionally, but.
[00:31:56] Speaker C: Mirrors the structure of the Moonlight Sonata itself, which is to say that it begins on a somber note in the middle, the middle movement of the novel. There's a certain playfulness. We meet the lighthouse keepers, wives, and.
[00:32:13] Speaker B: They form their relationships, and Celia's character.
[00:32:16] Speaker C: Develops, and it becomes summary.
[00:32:21] Speaker B: S U M M E R Y.
[00:32:23] Speaker C: Like the season summary. And then as the season turns again, the.
[00:32:29] Speaker B: The novel gets a little bit darker.
[00:32:30] Speaker C: Which is exactly what happens in the. In the Moonlight Sonata.
[00:32:34] Speaker E: There's references to Haley's comment, and then, as you just mentioned, there's mentions of the moon that occur throughout the novel. How does astronomy reflect Willa's internal state and her yearning for understanding beyond her immediate surroundings?
[00:32:48] Speaker C: I mean, I think that Willa is constantly trying to orient herself in the universe that makes it impossible to orient yourself. So she's basically set herself up for a fool's task, which is not to say that astronomy is a.
[00:33:04] Speaker B: A foolish subject.
[00:33:05] Speaker C: Of course it's not.
But for Willa, because she's unable to Continue her studies because she's unable to complete them. And because it's really all she has. When she first arrives at the lighthouse station, she's certainly not interested in hanging out with her new husband or the other lighthouse keepers and their wives once they arrive. She's looking to the heavens to keep herself sort of firmly on the ground.
And, you know, for better and for worse, it helps to do that. It helps to keep her character centered in as much as she's able to do that. But I just thought that the contrast between the moon, which is one of her objects of fascination, and the lighthouse itself, the light from the lighthouse itself, one organic one, not one the subject of her fascination. The moon, the lighthouse, the subject of her husband's fascination, or one of them. That those contrasts just set up a nice interplay, the storytelling.
And so, I mean, there's all sorts of intended points of connection and connectivity and contrast with those subjects. But more than anything, there's just the.
[00:34:37] Speaker B: Fact that there it is.
[00:34:39] Speaker C: And that the moon and the lighthouse are as likely to fall on the same water as each other. And I think that that's kind of magnificent.
[00:34:49] Speaker D: It is. And the lighthouse is this new thing, newly built, that's shining out into this lake at night. The lake's never seen anything like that before unless it was the moon or a comet.
[00:35:02] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:35:03] Speaker D: And what a place to watch a comet from. Remember when Hale Bopp came through here?
[00:35:09] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:35:09] Speaker D: I was up in the North Shore for that. And it was really weird because it was at a funny angle. We thought it would be going in a different way. So, you know, to imagine being able to see Halley's comet coming over Lake Superior. And the dark that they would have had them without the ambient light that we have now just kind of spoils it is astounding.
[00:35:29] Speaker B: And it's beautiful, too, to think about that.
[00:35:32] Speaker C: Like, here's this object that comes around, whatever it is. I Forget once every 86 years or.
[00:35:38] Speaker B: 76 years or whatever it is, that number escapes me.
[00:35:41] Speaker C: But here.
[00:35:42] Speaker B: Here it comes, and it's coming.
[00:35:43] Speaker C: You know, it's gone so far away and returns again. And here it is, and everyone is.
[00:35:48] Speaker B: Fascinated by it and terrified of it. Less so now than then, when people were.
[00:35:53] Speaker C: Frankly, you know, it was the end times for many people, including Theodore, who fears that the comet means the end of human life.
[00:36:05] Speaker B: And I love that. I love that it's this.
[00:36:07] Speaker C: It's this thing that can go so far away and return and impose a kind of confusion and excitement on all these characters. And something that they have no control over.
[00:36:22] Speaker B: None at all.
[00:36:23] Speaker D: Yeah. And it's got that psychological depth to it that I think we all have a comet in us that we don't really know where it's coming from. And Celia certainly displays that. Yeah.
Just having said Celia, what about all the names? I mean, you told us a little bit about the name for the lighthouse and Gunflint is obvious. You know, it's the end of the Gunfoot trail. But what about the other names in here?
[00:36:54] Speaker C: I mean, so Celia is just.
[00:36:56] Speaker B: It's.
[00:36:58] Speaker C: A beautiful Norwegian name.
[00:37:01] Speaker B: She's a Norwegian child.
[00:37:03] Speaker C: A child of. Of Norwegian immigrants.
Her. Her namesake.
[00:37:12] Speaker B: Is, as with most of.
[00:37:14] Speaker C: The Norwegian characters, that I've come up with, a ski jumper.
So there's nothing, you know, there's nothing suggestive in the.
[00:37:25] Speaker B: In the names of the characters. Except for Theodores.
[00:37:30] Speaker C: Theodolf is the son of German immigrants, not a first generation immigrant son.
And I wanted him to have a name that was suggestive of something. He comes from an aristocratic Duluth family. His father is one of the most powerful and wealthy men in Duluth at the time.
[00:37:59] Speaker B: Fictional. But there were plenty of characters like him in real life at the time.
[00:38:03] Speaker C: It was, as we talked about at the outset, the real boom time for life in that part of the state.
[00:38:09] Speaker B: And I wanted him to have a.
[00:38:11] Speaker C: Regal but also kind of preposterous name, and one that had many layers to it. And I was looking through old German names and came across this, and it has. It's like wolf like.
[00:38:29] Speaker B: He's wolf like.
[00:38:31] Speaker C: So that's Theodolf's name. But I mean, there's so many different places that the names come from, and they make their meaning. I think many of them do by accident. At least for me, I find that. And I was even reluctant to name Thiodolf in that way because I worried about overstepping as the author and being too intentional, being too direct in its meaning.
[00:39:03] Speaker E: Animals such as wolves and moose often seem to act as omens or signals of change in the novel. How intentional was this narrative choice for you?
[00:39:11] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, one of the things.
[00:39:13] Speaker B: That'S true now, but was even more.
[00:39:15] Speaker C: So when then is that you were living in a wilderness, and that part of what came along with that wilderness is the flora and the fauna, and I'm fascinated by it. One of the reasons that I most.
[00:39:30] Speaker B: Love to be up in that part.
[00:39:31] Speaker C: Of the world is that I might.
[00:39:33] Speaker B: Run into a moose if I stand in the woods long enough, or I.
[00:39:35] Speaker C: Might run into a bear or a wolf. Any of Which I've run into at one time or another. And so that's the first layer of that. Like it's authenticity incarnate or something, or. Anyway, that's how I think of it. But there is a lot of work that the wolf does in this story, and I won't say too much about.
[00:40:01] Speaker B: How the story of the wolf in.
[00:40:02] Speaker C: This story evolves, but it's an omen at first, and then it becomes something much more than that later in the novel.
Same with the fawn that Willa, or, excuse me, that Celia goes hunting for.
And these animals, for cilia especially, are.
[00:40:29] Speaker B: Like a grounding mechanism, is maybe one.
[00:40:32] Speaker C: Way of saying it. She's familiar with them. She knows them, though she can't control them.
[00:40:37] Speaker B: She knows how to capture them or to hunt them.
[00:40:40] Speaker C: Things that she feels like she can, you know, take some control of.
She can't do that with very many things in life.
[00:40:49] Speaker D: Yeah, that's right. And the whole thing with that wolf early on in the story, we can give some of that away because it happens so early, but the cheeky wolf comes and steals.
[00:41:01] Speaker C: Steals the hamstick.
[00:41:02] Speaker D: Steals the hamstick. Yeah. I really like that detail. I like the way you set things in there for me as a certain kind of reader, and I presume you're writing to certain levels of reading for me to kind of chew on and think, well, when's that coming back? You know, what are we going to do with this? And we always come back to it. Yeah. And, you know, it's. God, that takes a lot of work, doesn't it?
[00:41:27] Speaker C: It does. And, you know, I'm thinking about the wolf now, especially, of course, because we're talking about it, but I. You know, so. So the. The trajectory or the.
[00:41:37] Speaker B: Or the story of the wolf and why it's included.
[00:41:40] Speaker C: One of the first things I learned about the steamship that plied those waters back then, it was a boat called the America.
[00:41:48] Speaker B: And it basically ran a route up and down the North Shore from Duluth to Isle Royale.
[00:41:54] Speaker C: You know, like, as soon as ice was. As soon as the water was safe.
[00:41:58] Speaker B: The boat was running.
[00:41:59] Speaker C: And it was a lifeline. And one of the things that is true about that is that oftentimes when it blew its horn, when it blew.
[00:42:07] Speaker B: Its whistle, the wolves on shore would respond.
[00:42:10] Speaker C: And I just thought, what a fast, fabulous and fascinating detail. And so I, of course, brought that.
[00:42:17] Speaker B: Into the end of the novel.
[00:42:18] Speaker C: It happens right away in the opening scene.
[00:42:22] Speaker B: And then there's this wolf that kind.
[00:42:24] Speaker C: Of, as Celia says in the section that I read at the outset, it's as like to curl up on her hearth as it is run, run wild in the woods. And so all of a sudden I had this, you know, almost like a.
[00:42:38] Speaker B: Pet in the novel.
[00:42:40] Speaker C: And it becomes a problem to grapple with because I'm not writing magical realism, I'm not writing fantasies. So how do I then make that.
[00:42:52] Speaker B: Work in the novel?
[00:42:53] Speaker C: Something that I was totally unwilling to give up. And you described it as fascinating. It is fascinating to walk around, I don't know, for a month or two.
[00:43:03] Speaker B: Wondering how I was going to solve the problem of this wolf. And once I real. And this is the part that I won't say more about, but once, as.
[00:43:10] Speaker C: Soon as I realized what the solution was, it was like 10 other things created, crystallized in the novel, and 10 other smaller problems had their solution.
[00:43:25] Speaker B: And I love it when that happens.
[00:43:27] Speaker C: It's lucky when that happens. It's also, I think, the story taking care of itself because, I mean, I solved the problem, but all these other things are in there almost by accident, certainly not intentionally. It's certainly not planned, and yet they have a solution as well.
[00:43:45] Speaker D: Is that serendipity happening more as you mature as an older.
[00:43:48] Speaker C: It is, yeah.
So I always feel like I'm fumbling around when I talk about this, but.
[00:43:57] Speaker B: The older I get, the more certain.
[00:43:59] Speaker C: I am that there's me, the author, of course, and it's my pen scribbling.
[00:44:06] Speaker B: The words out one day at a time.
[00:44:08] Speaker C: But like I said, there's something falling from that, from our history as a human species telling stories that falls into it. And certainly there's something that happens once the characters take shape and I guess grow into active roles in the story where they start making demands on their own behalf.
[00:44:37] Speaker D: Story that many practiced writers say is that they let the characters begin to take control.
[00:44:45] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:44:45] Speaker C: And when I was younger, I didn't believe in that. I thought, what a bunch of baloney.
[00:44:51] Speaker B: Whenever a writer said that.
[00:44:52] Speaker E: What about a ham steak?
[00:44:54] Speaker C: What a bunch of hamstick. Much better, said Josh. Yeah, but I think that what it is, if we take a couple of steps back to observe it, is one.
[00:45:06] Speaker B: Of the things that I've learned to do better.
[00:45:08] Speaker C: And one of the reasons I think that the books get better from one.
[00:45:13] Speaker B: To the next, even if they're not everyone's favorite.
[00:45:16] Speaker C: They're better structurally.
[00:45:18] Speaker B: They're better from the standpoint of craft. They're better from the standpoint of depth.
[00:45:22] Speaker C: Of character because you learn to trust. Trust the characters and you learn to inhabit them and Observe the world of the novel not through my own intellect or imagination, but through their intellect and imagination. Their moral shortcomings, not my moral shortcomings, their beliefs, not my beliefs. And when you do that, that's when.
[00:45:50] Speaker B: They start giving you solutions to problems, that. That's when they start telling their own.
[00:45:54] Speaker C: Story or writing their own story.
[00:45:56] Speaker D: Well, you've got a multiple character point of view, structure operating here, and you've been getting. Having to get into all of those different heads.
So that's hard to do, I think, especially you, big, hunky, great guy trying to get inside a little girl, into her head.
[00:46:15] Speaker B: It is and it isn't.
[00:46:16] Speaker C: I mean, I think that, yes, it's been.
Never been my experience on this earth.
[00:46:24] Speaker B: To be a young girl, obviously, it's never been my experience to be a young woman. It's never been my experience to be a lighthouse keeper.
[00:46:32] Speaker C: It's never been any of the things.
[00:46:34] Speaker B: That happen in this novel. I have never been. So I have a couple of responsibilities.
[00:46:40] Speaker C: The first is to be generous with them, to let them, as I was just saying, sort of make some of their own decisions and become who they.
[00:46:55] Speaker B: Would in real life.
[00:46:57] Speaker C: It's also my job to imagine deeply. Like, that's all writing a novel is, imagining deeply. And I actually am at least as comfortable, if not more comfortable writing from.
[00:47:10] Speaker B: The point of view of a woman than I am writing from the point of view of a man, because I.
[00:47:13] Speaker C: Have experience, Experience of being a man on this earth. And so my imagination has freer reign.
[00:47:19] Speaker B: In the department of being a young girl or in the department of being a woman.
[00:47:23] Speaker C: That doesn't mean that I, you know.
[00:47:26] Speaker B: I haven't learned from the young women.
[00:47:29] Speaker C: And women in my life, whether it's.
[00:47:31] Speaker B: My daughter or my wife or my.
[00:47:33] Speaker C: Sisters or my friends or.
[00:47:34] Speaker B: Or my mother or anybody else.
[00:47:37] Speaker C: Of course I have.
[00:47:38] Speaker D: And do you talk to them about these things and, you know, sort of question them on.
[00:47:42] Speaker C: Yeah, Not.
[00:47:43] Speaker B: Not directly.
[00:47:44] Speaker C: Like, I don't say, we're gonna.
[00:47:46] Speaker B: My daughter's name is Isa.
[00:47:47] Speaker C: I'm not gonna say. Isaac, can I ask you a question? Would you do this or that, given the set of circumstances? But I'll say things like, have you ever thought about this? And I'll ask something totally off the wall.
[00:47:59] Speaker B: And it usually.
[00:48:00] Speaker C: I mean, it's usually a pretty fun conversation.
And also, like, just like dad talking to his daughter and his daughter talking to him.
[00:48:10] Speaker D: All right, very good. We've got about a minute and a half left.
What's next? Briefly?
[00:48:16] Speaker C: So I read that very brief section from that omniscient point of view. And I mentioned a couple of characters in it, including a character named the Bear who's the protagonist of one of four, three. Excuse me, was it originally going to be four, one of three protagonists in the next book I'm writing, which is the story of the first ship ever built on Lake Superior back in 1736, I think it is built in Superior, Wisconsin, Built in Sault Ste. Marie, what is now Sault ste. Marie in 1736, I think I had that year.
[00:48:52] Speaker B: Right.
[00:48:53] Speaker D: Have you been to Sault Ste. Marie?
[00:48:55] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm going again this summer to do a little bit more research. But it's a Jesuit story and shipbuilding story and again, the story of a young, a young woman who's cast into a role she was totally unprepared for.
[00:49:13] Speaker D: And not expecting more great stuff for you to learn.
[00:49:16] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly.
[00:49:17] Speaker D: Wonderful. Always great having you here.
[00:49:19] Speaker C: Thanks so much, Ian.
[00:49:20] Speaker D: Josh, thank you. Listening to me, Ian Graham Lee speaking with Peter Guy, A Lesser Light.
I hope you enjoy it if you purchase it and make sure that you do a review. Right?
[00:49:37] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:49:37] Speaker D: That's what we want to see our readers doing. So thanks. And now this.
[00:49:56] Speaker A: You'Ve been listening to right on radio. Hello, I'm Eric Zimmerman. We would like to thank Peter Guy and all of our listeners. Without your support, KFAI would not be possible.
