Sunday, February 16th, 2025

This month, Giller Award-winning author Joseph Boyden’s latest book tour pulls into town. On Monday, September 16, he will be reading from his new novel, The Orenda, at Avening Hall. Best-selling author and Mulmur resident Cathy Gildiner will be leading a conversation with Boyden and Michael Winter, author of Minister Without Portfolio.

Boyden and Winter are not new friends; they’ve known each other since 2001 and have travelled extensively together. They’ve already run with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain, so spending 30 days together on a cross-Canada book tour shouldn’t be too much of a strain.

The Orenda is a historical 17th-century epic. The story is told through the voices of three people: a Huron man whose family was murdered by the Iroquois; an Iroquois girl he has kidnapped; and a Jesuit priest from New France. So how does a boy from North York come to write a story like that?

For starters, Boyden, who has métis, Micmac, Scottish and Irish ancestry, identifies strongly with his First Nations heritage.

“I think Canada needs stories about native people,” said the author, who counts Native American author Louise Erdich as a major influence on his work. “They are the First People and they don’t get a fair shake.”

Growing up among myths about his own family history, Boyden doesn’t have to reach far for inspiration. In fact, stories about his father, uncle and grandfather’s service in World War I and World War II inspired his first novel, Three Day Road. To develop The Orenda, he drew from his life experience on Georgian Bay, and from the Jesuit education he received at Brebeuf College School.

Today, Boyden divides his time between New Orleans, the town east of Parry Sound where his mother lives, and James Bay where he visits friends. In his own life, Boyden bridges geographical extremes, just as many of the characters in his novels struggle to do.

Tensions between modern and traditional ways of living crop up at every level in Boyden’s work. His books are rife with contrasts about formal and bush education, and city and wilderness lifestyles. These varied settings provide the background for subjects that can be so light and so dark at the same time.

Can literature serve to ease this kind of strain that exists between the old and the new? Boyden certainly thinks so. The greatest compliment he receives is from readers who tell him that his stories helped them understand Native people in a better way than before. Over the telephone from his home in New Orleans, he told the story of one reader who gave her father, whom she described as being racist, Three Day Road. She reported that the book had changed his views.

“It’s my duty and obligation to tell these stories,” Boyden explained. “We have to know our history if we’re going to be able to figure things out.”

History in the making
To help with the process of telling historical tales, it helps that Boyden is a history buff. His writing process involves diving right into a topic and performing the research as he goes.
In the case of The Orenda, he started writing with “the most exciting scene,” which is where the novel begins. “It’s a seventeenth-century car chase,” he said, adding humourously, “snowshoes through the wilderness.”

So how does a post-millenial writer make history relate so well to a modern Canadian audience? So much so, that each passing publication leaves bookstores and fans hungry for more? “My philosophy of writing is to tell a good story first,” he explained. “One that gets the reader involved.”

First, he establishes his characters. “Good characters,” he said, “need to want or pursue something.” Next, he lets them to lead him through the story. “My characters choose me more than I choose them. I’m not always sure what will happen – it’s as much of a journey for me as it is for the reader. I jump into my characters and go on my way.”

It took Boyden two-and-a-half months to write the first 60 pages of his new book. Then, only 13 months to write the next 450.

Winning Canada’s largest literary award for fiction – the $50,000 Scotiabank Giller Prize, in 2008 – for his second novel, Through Black Spruce, was “a big deal,” he said. “It makes you worry about your next book.”

In fact, part of the reason he lives part-time in New Orleans is to keep a bit of distance from “the noise” there is in Canada while he writes.

Fans of books and movies should stay tuned. Film pro-ductions of Three-Day Road and Through Black Spruce are in the works.

And for anyone left wondering, what is an orenda? Says Boyden: “You should read the book.”

Tickets to the event are $25 (which includes a $5 credit toward a book purchase), or $15 for students. Purchase them at Curiosity House or through www.ticketscene.ca.

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