Away From Everywhere (39 page)

I thank the entirety of my elaborate family for obvious reasons, but my mother, in particular, for supporting such a quixotic passion long before I got any recognition, and my father for passing along the character required to churn out a novel and my step-parents for their support. My brother, Scott, for supporting my obsessive habit in the ways he does, and my sister-in-law, Kim, who has been so great about my long haul to publication. Ashley MacDonald for being so supportive when it matters the most, Mario and Geoff for your sustained interest in and conversations about my writing career, Joel Upshall for being my in-family affirmation that people should only be doing what they want to be doing (as I type this you are opening for Kiss), Beverly has been particularly sweet, and my grandparents for actively keeping informed about my writing (even if I hope they never read this blunt novel).

I also thank The Writers' Alliance of NL for the services they provide local writers, particularly since a rough draft of this novel won entry into their Emerging Writers Mentorship Program. I thank my mentor, Mark Callanan, because I still cringe when I think of that first draft. Instead of running from the book, he stuck around, honed in on a few things, and made me a better writer so that I could go back to the manuscript and make a book out of it. I suppose now is as good a time as any to apologize for all those long, panicked, incoherent emails?

Obviously, thanks go to Kathleen Winter, M. T. Dohaney, and Kenneth J. Harvey for taking the time to read and endorse this novel. Kathleen's writing is a crash course in modern creative writing, M. T. Dohaney's The Corrigan Women made me fondly jealous I didn't write it myself, and the Globe and Mail said it best about Ken Harvey: "Shout Harvey's name from the rooftops ... There is no other writer like him." I am grateful to Michael Crummey, because during his time as MUN's writer in residence he read the first few chapters of a rough draft and showed me the power of language without lazy modifiers. Nothing has improved this novel more than replacing 95% of its adverbs and adjectives with dug-deep-for descriptive and evocative sentences. Speaking of MUN, I still appreciate Iona Bulgin's support and interest in my writing, and I have certainly benefitted from Larry Mathews' unpretentious and deft pointers, as well as everyone I sat around that table with in Larry's creative writing course.

My sincerest gratitude to the following people for reading old manuscripts of mine before anyone should have been reading me, and still encouraging me: Mary Beth Collett, Samantha Smith, Megan Mullaly, Kaylen Hill, Clay Badcock, and Kim Bragg. And, for long-standing encouragements and showing up to my first reading: Mark Shallow, Carla Myrick, Devin Rose, Isobel O'Shea, and Christine Champdoizeau, because nothing satisfies an author more than seeing a reader s hands and eyes glued all over their work when it matters the most. I know I am forgetting people, but look how long this is getting. I will financially reimburse you for any snubbery.

CHAD is an award-winning writer from St. John's,Newfoundland, and sits on the board of directors at the Writers' Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador. His stories “Subtle Differences” and “How Far is Nowhere?” are featured in
The Cuffer Prize Anthology
, and most recently, “Holes to China” won the 2009 Cuffer Prize. He is also the founder of Salty Ink.com: A Spotlight on Atlantic Canadian Writers, and has contributed to, or does contribute to, various periodicals, such as
Current Magazine
and
Atlantic Books Today.

Visit his personal website for additional special features, such as a video trailer and book soundtrack.
http://chadpelley.wordpress.com

. . .
after
thoughts

AWAY FROM EVERYWHERE

SPECIAL FEATURES

Away from Everywhere:
Origins and Unexpected Outcome...

Book Club Questions...

AWAY FROM EVERYWHERE
ORIGINS AND UNEXPECTED OUTCOME

AWAY FROM EVERYWHERE CAME OUT ALL WRONG...

Not all wrong, just not as planned. Originally titled
The World Before Now
, my goal was to have a jaded man rediscover himself in small-town Newfoundland, away from the complexities of his busy life. It was to be a serious novel, but with a seriously comedic edge as well; I had some ridiculous characters sketched and ready to go. Also, the “journal chapters” were never supposed to be Hannah's; the sister-in-law was originally not to be a major character. My idea was that, at first, it wouldn't be known to the reader who was writing them, until Owen meets the woman: a forlorn art teacher who just lost her child. She andOwen would meet and sort of bring each other back to life, but not in the generic Hollywood way – I was thinking a unique friendship with a comical one-way crush. I never had to worry about avoiding the cliché though, because by the end of the first chapter, what I had planned for this novel faded away as the characters ofOwen and Alex started to come to life, and the “why”of Hannah's affair as well. I found myself letting go of all my plans, and every time I sat to write I was writing paragraph to paragraph, not knowing where I was going with the story. I wrote about twenty-five different drafts of this novel, each one a different story with different intentions.

THE STORY STARTED TO WRITE ITSELF, REALLY...

The first chapter of
Away from Everywhere
has never changed. I knew it was the right first chapter for a novel because I was four chapters into another novel, titled
Your Crooked Smile
, but found myself more and more fixated on this opening chapter, and eventually abandoned
Your Crooked Smile
to write this novel. Incidentally, somewhere between thinking about this first chapter and sitting to write it, I had a near-death hydroplaning experience myself. I remember thinking,
Great, now I can accurately describe the feeling of losing control of a car!

I thought the exposed affair was a great way to get an already shaky character shunned and shipped out of his family's life to a small town in Newfoundland. Originally, Owen was to be an alienated and depressed English professor on sabbatical, going to spend the summer at his father's old cabin, to sort of come to terms with Hannah's death and a few other troubles in his life. That was supposed to be chapter two, but in the final draft,Owen doesn't head back to Newfoundland until the novel is nearly over, because I had to ask myself,Why is there a family cabin he can go use, and do I want to explore the brothers'childhoods, just a little? I did, and that
just a little
turned into “part two” of this novel, the longest part. I'd turn on some music and just string sentences together, and the next thing I knew I was writing about a mentally ill father and a dead mother, and alcoholism, and the brothers coming out of it all as two very different men. For a while, I found myself purposefully trying to have the brothers represent two different and costly approaches to modern life. I played that notion up originally, but then toned it way down. I think an element of that has remained in the novel.

WHERE THE SCHIZOPHRENIA CAME IN...

I needed a reason why there was an abandoned family cabin for Owen to run off to in part three of the novel. I thought dead parents would explain the abandoned cabin, but then I thought that wasn't original enough, so I had the family succumb to dealing with schizophrenia. I can't imagine the exhaustion and pain of losing someone this way, because, as with the Collins family, there's no real closure: a schizophrenic can get better and worse and better again. But then life's never the same. I think some of the most potent scenes in the book are the ones with Owen watching his family fall apart, and the toll it took on his mother. Owen and his father had a real bond too, so Owen lost a really valuable connection with his father: a man who saw and lived life the same way. Initially, this notion was the origin of the title, as in the two of them talking of getting away from that world they perceived as having no meaning, only to ironically disappear to wherever it is a schizophrenic goes. The title later took on a multitude of meanings.

I researched the disease, of course, but relied more heavily on ten specific case studies I read online, because I feel like individuals are better to study than sweeping, textbook generalizations about a mental disorder. I didn't want it sounding like I was cutting and pasting symptoms into a character, and I tried to avoid “teaching” readers about schizophrenia and bogging them down with terms they'd need a glossary for, because my intention was to show the
effect
of schizophrenia on the Collins family, not to prove I did my homework.

THE ORIGINS OF HANNAH'S "JOURNAL CHAPTERS"...

Once the childhood was explored and I got to writing part three, the “return to Newfoundland”bit became a smaller portion of the book and I ditched the cast of eccentric characters I had planned, because the tone of the novel had gotten too grim for them. I also ditched the lonely art teacher who was to be Owen's salvation and the one writing the journal entries.

I decided the “journal chapters” would be a good way to tell the story of the affair through
Hannah's
eyes, so she could be kept alive in the book, and so she could also provide insight into who Owen and Alex are, and to bring up what I see as one of the solid motifs in this novel: the flipside of love. The complexities of it. The blows and lows a relationship can take and the conundrum of denying yourself what could be a truer love. I started making Hannah a more and more complicated character to add more layers to this conceptual element of the book. In doing so, Hannah also became what I consider the saddest character in the novel, and from what I gather, her journal entries get the biggest reaction from readers: they love her or hate her, or both. They identify with parts of what she says, or they think she is naïve; they get uncomfortable with some of the truth in what she has to say, or think her opinions are unfounded. I guess a reader's reaction depends on that reader's life experiences and who they are? That's an ideal character, in my mind.

I think most people shy away from acknowledging the wavering nature of love and buy into the Hollywood portrayal of the happily ever after. I always joke that if the movie kept going, half those couples would end up divorced. Sounds bitter, yes, but I'm a romantic as well, and that's no better, we expect
too much
from a relationship. Relationships are naturally volatile things with highs and lows, and the people sharing them change over time, and sometimes outgrow each other. I mean, ultimately, relationships give life meaning, but inevitably, they get tested by time. So I wanted to write a book that cast a light on that. It didn't come out as I planned though, through Owen and Abbie. Instead it came out through the mind of a complicated married woman. I found myself, as a writer, having fun with this notion, and her character, and next thing I knew she was the voice of ten chapters and, later, almost dictating where the story was going, not only thematically, but plotwise as well, when Owen starts reacting to what he reads.

I'm sure as a male writer I'll take flak for embodying an unhappily married woman too. But I didn't. I embodied Hannah Collins, a very complicated woman. I had her character endure much, and I hope it didn't seem like me exploiting serious tragedies for gripping writing. The miscarriage, for instance, was only there because she and Alex never really dealt with it, and sadly, psychologically, a miscarriage can affect intimacy and interpersonal relations for a couple who go through one. I didn't want to scream stuff like that at readers though. I wanted it to be true to life. Hannah, in the end, wasn't sure what her and Alex's biggest problems were. Most couples on the rocks don't. She struggled to understand the “why” of the affair herself. In the end she chose Alex, or did she just settle? I don't know.

THE TWO ABANDONED ALTERNATE ENDINGS ...

Originally, I toyed with the idea of having Alex become schizophrenic. I thought, How gripping would it be to have the girls calling Owen about their father muttering to himself and “acting scary,” and Owen
knowing
but unable to help because he can't go near them, and everyone else telling him to back off, “Alex is just grieving,” until one of the girls get hurt by his schizophrenia-induced negligence or delusions. Can you imagine the salt in the wound of Owen taking custody of the girls? A trustworthy source felt that would have schizophrenia overwhelming the story, and I decided some warped version of this could be material for another book. I tackled a lot in this novel, and needed to save something for future ones!