dandelion puffball, clouds and blue sky in background, suggests a windy day

Blown Away

All right, I exaggerate. But for several days earlier this month it felt like a distinct possibility. Or that at least some of the plants in the garden would take flight.

I don’t like strong winds, meaning more than 20 knots (37 km or 23 miles per hour). You would think that after thirty-two years I would be reconciled to them, because they’re not unusual here. I know the patterns by now: a low pressure weather system (which may or may not produce rain) is almost always followed by an episode of moderate to strong westerly winds. Such a wind blew from May 16th to 19th, almost without pause. It was the duration rather than the strength I found most trying.

The wind doesn’t really affect me personally, now that fifteen-kilometer (each way) bike rides are no longer part of my life, as they were when I was commuting to work. No, it’s the plants in my garden I worry about, especially when I see them swaying, thrashing, leaning, and occasionally breaking.

I provide stakes and string early in the season. I learned long ago it’s best to do that before supports are needed, rather than try to strap a leaning, disheveled plant to a pole after the damage is done. Not all plants can be staked and tied, however. Hellebores, for example, are clumps of big leaves, each on its own stem that sprouts from the ground. They’re self-supporting up to a point, but when the wind sways them back and forth, back and forth for three solid days, they splay out, and some are snapped off altogether.

Once things calm down, the garden looks battered and bruised. Pulped leaf fragments and twigs are everywhere, along with a few branches. Plants that were shapely and attractive before the blast have acquired an eastward list. Pots have fallen over and their occupants sustained some degree of injury. And if there has been no rain to accompany the wind, some plants may be limp and wilting.

The gardener, needless to say, is not happy, running around trying to set things to rights and cleaning up the debris, muttering curses the whole time.

I know winds aren’t malevolent forces intent on doing damage. They are natural phenomena caused by differences in atmospheric pressure of adjoining air masses, which create pressure gradients. In other words, areas of low pressure suck air from areas of high pressure. This is part of local weather, and it’s a fact that Victoria, British Columbia, is located in a place where weather systems trundle through and atmospheric pressure rises and falls. This produces winds. So suck it up (haha!)

As well as the post-frontal westerlies I’ve been complaining about here, we get icy north-easterlies at times in winter, like the ones that caused much damage in southern British Columbia last January. Meteorologists in Washington State refer to these as “Fraser outflow winds,” after the valley of the Fraser River, down which the cold air is funneled. Similar winds in high summer bring heat waves. In autumn, southeasterly gales precede our major rain events. As the air pressure rises after a cold front passes, the aforementioned westerlies kick in, blowing hard from the opposite direction.

The only wind I welcome is the westerly breeze that dispels our summer heat waves, as offshore air flow changes back to onshore, bringing the cooling effect of air from the Pacific Ocean. Those Washington State meteorologists call this a “marine push.”

Blue and white bearded iris May 2024
This iris would be flat on the ground if I hadn’t strapped it to the bamboo stake.

Winds that happen at particular times in particular places are often given names. With a few exceptions, names are most often bestowed upon winds with unpleasant effects, such as cold, heat, or dust. I’m surprised there are so few named winds in Canada. On the east side of the Canadian Rockies we have Chinooks, that can suddenly raise winter temperatures by 20 degrees. Squamish winds funnel cold air through the fjord-like inlets on the north coast of BC, and, I suppose, the Fraser Valley as well. There is the famous Witch of November on the Great Lakes, but that’s about it for Canadian named winds, as far as I know.

I have my own names for these masses of moving air, some not printable. The post-frontal Westerly Whooper, which I’ve already described. The Thermal Trough Terror, a hot outflow from the interior of the province. The Arctic Blast or Fraser Freezer. The welcome westerly marine breezes that dispel our heat waves could be dubbed the Pacific Doctor, analogous to the Cape Doctor of South Africa and the Fremantle Doctor of Australia. But somehow these don’t sound as interesting as Mistral, Sirocco, or Simoom. Or Elephanta, Khamsin, and Williwaw.

Ah well, the winds can’t be argued with, and they do make me appreciate and treasure calm summer evenings, which are magical and lovely.

Perennial bed next to path in back garden, pink delphinium, grey foliage, heuchera "Timeless Orange"

In case you’re wondering, yes it’s windy again today (May 25th). Twenty-three km WNW.

Featured image from Pexels.

signs wrong way and one way

My Last Word on Writing Rules

(This post was prematurely published for about one minute on May 1st. That wasn’t supposed to happen. My apologies to those who almost saw it and wondered what I was up to. Note to self: Do not look at draft posts on any device but the laptop, to avoid fumble-fingered incidents.)

Why do I keep returning to this subject of writing rules?

  • because I see them so often
  • because of my natural tendency to question rules
  • because I have suspicions about their origins.
gargoyle grumpy
Sez who?

I admit these may not be the best reasons. “Get over it, already!” But I believe no one should be intimidated if they want to write. No one should be discouraged from taking the first steps. But if new writers are faced with a palisade of rules, they may decide not to bother.

Lists of words you should avoid, story structure you must use; don’t do this, make sure you do that. Why?

I think many of the writing rules we see on the internet originated with people who read submissions for publishers and agents. They aren’t reading in a relaxed state for pleasure and diversion, but in critical mode with an evaluative eye. Imagine this scenario:

Reader 1: Folks, the word of the day is “glow!” Something was glowing in every single sub I read today. Cheeks, eyes, and the ever-useful ambient glow that helps characters see in the dark.
Reader 2: I’d rather see things glowing than all the shoulders shrugging, foreheads wrinkling, and eyes flashing, rolling, and crawling. I was starting to twitch by lunch time.
Reader 1: Hey, “Show, don’t tell.”
Reader 2: Sure, but with all those body parts doing stuff independently, even sweet romance reads like horror.
Reader 3: And what about “Was, was, was”? He was this. She was that. Wuz, wuz, wuz, like someone sawing wood.
Reader 1: (Rolls eyes.) And then there’s the Song of the First Person Narrator: I, I, I.
Reader 2: (Sings.) Ai, ai, ai, ai!
Reader 3: I’m thinking soon AI will be doing the writing, and we’ll be out of jobs!
(All laugh.)

You can’t really blame these folks. Their job is to read submission after submission and find reasons to reject most of them. Their complaints have morphed into Advice to Writers, often from people in the publishing biz: freelance editors, book doctors, and authors of how-to-write books. Creating anxiety in potential clients is a time-tested technique of advertisers. Get those writers worried about all the rules they’re breaking and some will hire you to fix them. Or they’ll buy your how-to-write book.

Many writers have embraced these rules, because who isn’t looking for a magic bullet? Writing can be hard, so when an authority hands you a list of rules, you pay attention. Do this, and this, and you will succeed!

The big question: Is there any scientific evidence that these rules are based on anything more rigorous than someone’s opinion? I suspect not. I’ve read a few studies involving brain scans or eye-movement studies of people in the act of reading. Here is one example, and here is another. Planning, executing, and writing up such a study involves a multitude of details, takes a great deal of time and energy, and requires funding obtained by a complicated process. The results of a study like this are so precise and limited, that I am almost certain there is nothing scientific supporting these so-called “rules.”

Thinking about it, why would any researcher do scientific studies on writing rules? There is certainly no shortage of books of unquestioned quality. No one is worried about the readability of individual books, except those who write and publish them. Readers have a vast array of tastes and different skill levels, so it’s impossible to select a group of typical readers to study. Those who study the process of reading focus on how people learn to read and why some of them struggle.

I think the only rules a beginning writer needs to worry about are those of grammar. If you are capable of constructing and connecting comprehensible sentences, you are ready to write. Sure, your plot might fizzle out, your characters might be flat, and you might produce crap, but at the start, don’t fret about how many times you use a word or whether your pinch-points are in the right places. Just tell the story, with verve and sincerity. Yes, tell; forget about showing at this stage.

(Of course that’s just the beginning. When you get to The End, you will have to figure out what to do next with the thing you’ve created. Don’t even think about publishing at that point.)

A person can learn to write without to reading how-to-write books or taking courses. Those options may work for some, but in my experience, the following actions are crucial:

  1. Read a lot. Especially books that delight you.
  2. Write a lot.
  3. Test your writing on others.*
  4. Rewrite.
  5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until you are satisfied with what you have written.

*Other writers, as in a critique group. Or people who may not be writers, but who are readers, and whose opinions you trust (alpha and beta readers). And be willing to read others’ writing and make helpful comments; this is part of being a writer. A congenial group of fellow writers with whom you can talk about rules (and other things) is immensely helpful.

The big exception: If you aspire to be traditionally published, you should be aware of those dubious rules, because you will be submitting your work to publishers and/or agents. It will be read by people like the ones I poked fun at in the scenario earlier in the post. They read tons of stuff, most of which they must reject. They are acutely sensitive to repeated words, excessive description, tics, and tropes. Things that sail right past ordinary recreational readers buzz around in their brains like wasps, annoying and stinging. To impress these readers, a piece of writing has to be fresh and original but within whatever parameters they are looking for. Good luck.

For another opinion on writing rules, read this post by Randall Silvis on Jane Friedman’s site. My favourite sentence: “The more specific a writer’s rule, the less trustworthy it is, and the sooner you should find the nearest exit.”

That’s it. ‘Nuff said. The end.

Images from Pixabay

Pink rhododendron flowers at Finnerty Gardens, UVic, May 2, 2024

Rhododendron Days

May is rhodo month in Victoria, BC. Recently I visited two wonderful local gardens, both open to the public, in which rhododendrons and azaleas were in full, opulent bloom.

First, a selection from Finnerty Gardens at the University of Victoria.

Pink rhododendron flowers at Finnerty Gardens, UVic, May 2, 2024
Yellow rhododendron flowers at Finnerty Gardens, UVic, May 2, 2024
Red-flushed cream-coloured rhodo at Finnerty Gardens, UVic, May 2, 2024
Pink rhododendron flowers at Finnerty Gardens, UVic, May 2, 2024

And now, a rhodo, an azalea, and two plants with splendid foliage from the wonderful and romantic Abkhazi Garden.

Purple rhododendron flowers at Abkhazi Garden, May 2, 2024
Rodgersia foliage at Abkhazi Garden, May 2, 2024
Rodgersia foliage
Yellow and green hosta at Abkhazi Garden, May 2, 2024
Hosta
Orange azalea flowers at Abkhazi Garden, May 2, 2024
Pool with water lily leaves from above at Abkhazi Garden, May 2, 2024
Overview of one of the pools at the Abkhazi Garden

Both of these gardens are open to the public. Admission to Finnerty Gardens is free to visitors at the University of Victoria campus. The Abkhazi Garden has admission by donation. I recommend them to any garden lover visiting Victoria, as well as the impressive garden at Government House, which also has free admission. They are especially gorgeous in the month of May.

(By the way, my apologies to those who received a notice of a writing rules post a few days ago. I published it prematurely by mistake. After I unpublished it, I couldn’t respond to several puzzled comments. It will appear officially next week.)

Pond and Shed areas spring 2024, ferns, bluebells, yellow grass

Busy, Busy, Busy!

Back in January, I published a post that contained the below list. I’ve added comments (in bold) to show what progress I’ve made.

  • Perform all pruning on the Pruning 2024 list. Mostly done. Some shrubs (lilac, mahonia, and ceanothus) will be done when they’ve finished blooming.
  • Move daylilies “Hyperion” and “Tetrina’s Daughter” to spots where they will get more sun and bloom better. Or, in the case of “Tetrina’s Daughter,” bloom at all. Done, but it remains to be seen whether flowers will result.
  • Find a spot in the back garden for crocosmia “Lucifer” to avoid its flowers being eaten by deer. Move a few plants to that spot in spring 2024. Done, except instead of moving plants, I bought a bag of rather shriveled bulbs and planted them not long ago. None have sprouted as yet.
  • Remove the reliable but rampant aster from near Rosa chinensis “Mutabilis” so the rose has space to grow to full size, now that it has recovered from being chomped to 2″ by deer in January 2023. Done, but I suspect the aster is merely lurking and intends to make a move when I’m not looking.
  • Lift and repostion achillea “Moonshine” before it fizzles out from neglect. Too late; “Moonshine” appears to have been extinguished.
  • Grow a second plant of the nameless pink dahlia from a cutting and (eventually) plant it in front garden near tall asters. Note: will have to apply deer repellent. Not done, because dahlias have yet to start growing; I hope to see sprouts in May, unless they perished in the January freeze.
  • Grow at least one plant of the ornamental grass Muhlenbergia capillaris (Muhly grass) from seeds ordered December 2023, and eventually plant it at the front of the magnolia bed. Leave some of the Linaria purpurea (toadflax) nearby, because the latter’s purple flowers may look good with the fluffy pink Muhly. Done! There are four small plants of Muhly grass in a south-facing window, soon to be potted up and eventually to occupy spots in the garden.
  • Remove the ancient woody lavender from near the front walk (after taking cuttings). Plant the yellow chrysanthemum in or near the vacated spot. Not yet done because a clematis is using the lavender as a support. I will have to work something out soon.
  • Trim and thin all periwinkles (Vinca minor and Vinca major) and make sure they’re not making nuisances of themselves. This is one of those tasks that’s never really finished, but I’ve discovered it’s best to trim periwinkles in late summer rather than in spring, as my pruning book advises. They look tidy all winter and bloom in spring. Trimming them then would remove the flowers.
  • Lift the tall meadow rue (Thalictrum, species and variety unknown) in spring 2024, as growth starts. Remove the tree roots no doubt intertwined with the thalictrum’s roots, improve the soil and replant. Plant has been getting smaller every year and is not doing well, most likely because of invasive Norway maple roots. Done, and yes there were tree roots. The plant appears to be doing well so far.
Garden things-to-do lists spring 2024
Garden things-to-do lists

In addition to all that, I’ve done a zillion other things—started tomato and pepper plants, pulled up hundreds of maple and laburnum seedlings, mulched, edged, clipped, and mowed. Today (April 26th) I started cutting down hellebore flower stalks before the plants produce seeds. I already have more hellebores than anyone needs. I also began the tedious task of pulling up spent bluebell flowers. These aren’t the bluebells of the famed bluebell woods (Hyacinthoides non-scripta), but a less refined relative (possibly Hyacinthoides hispanica or some other species). They are quite pretty, mostly shades of blue edging into lavender, always with a sprinkling of a few white- and pink-flowered plants. But they are seriously weedy. It’s bad enough that the bulbs increase underground, but I’d rather they didn’t self-seed as well, so I pull the flower stalks as the flowers fade.

We have had almost the normal amount of rain so far this spring, so watering isn’t yet an issue. I laid out my six soaker hoses in March, while it was easy to avoid damaging plants in the process, so I’m ready to start watering, but I hope that won’t be necessary for at least two more months.

“Body count” update: Most of the plants I feared lost in January’s arctic blast have survived, although some of them have to re-grow substantially. It looks like Erysimum “Bowles Mauve” has indeed perished, though. It’s said to be hardy to USDA Climate Zone 6, which means it should have survived -11C (12F), but apparently it fell victim to the cold winds we experienced at the time. Something to keep in mind if I replace the plant. An unpleasant surprise was the degree of damage sustained by rose campion (Silene coronaria, although I still think of it as Lychnis coronaria.) This has been an utterly reliable near-weed, a mainstay of the garden. But many plants, mostly older ones, were killed back to the ground or killed outright. Quite a few survived, though.

Garden things-to-do lists spring 2024

May will be just as busy as March and April have been. Among other tasks, I will have to get about 20 big pots of dirt ready for tomatoes, peppers, and various annuals. That means dumping out the old soil and adding compost, manure, lime, and fertilizer, and then refilling them. (This is why I never need to go to the gym!)

This is also why blog posts have been rather sparse here lately. But I will publish a final word on writing rules later in May.

Cut down spent flowers of hellebores "Ivory Prince" and "Pirouette"
Tellima grandiflora and Japanese painted fern with pond and bench in background, April 2024
test tubes, experiment, science

Writing Rule Experiment

Before I publish my final post on writing rules (that will be the next one), I thought of an experiment any reader can do.

Have a look at one or two of your favourite books, books you love, re-read regularly, and would not want to be without. See how many of the popular writing rules their authors have broken.

I’ll bet you won’t care.

How did I select a book for this test? I avoided recently-published bestsellers, for the simple reason that I don’t own any. I borrow those from the library. Besides, I was interested in books published before the current spate of Advice to Writers. On the other hand, 19th-century classics (by authors such as Jane Austen or Charles Dickens), although favourites of many, would provoke observations such as “Well, the classics are a special category. You can’t apply the same rules to them as to 21st century writing.” (Okay, but why do so many 21st century readers love those books?)

So, a 20th century book I love. I went to my “6 star books” shelf on Goodreads. Four of the nine books there are by Mary Renault. (Of the other five, two are collections of essays on gardening by Henry Mitchell. Others are “The Willows,” a story by Algernon Blackwood; a volume of poetry by Robinson Jeffers; the last one is J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.) So I selected Renault’s Fire from Heaven, a historical novel first published in 1969, about the childhood and youth of Alexander the Great. On Goodreads, it has just over 9,000 ratings and 768 reviews, with an average star rating of 3.97.

Cover of Penguin paperback edition of Fire From Heaven by Mary Renault

I read the first chapter. The first thing I noticed was that the word “was” appears four times in the first paragraph. I have seen purveyors of advice to writers warning against this word. It’s the past tense of “to be,” they say, which makes it a weak, passive word. (Really? While I don’t advocate sentence after sentence in which “was” is the action word of choice, I think sometimes it’s best to let things be.)

Back to Chapter 1 of Fire from Heaven. After the first paragraph, I forgot to look for violations of popular writing rules, because I was immediately captivated by what was happening on the page, or rather, the scenes manifesting in my mind as I read. This is a book I’ve read many times over the last several decades, but it was as compelling as the very first time.

Probably the best way to scrutinize a piece of writing for “weak” words, words ending in “ly,” and other violations of those rules would be to type it up in Word and use the Find function. Am I going to do that? No. But this first chapter of Fire from Heaven is a remarkable example of showing Alexander at age five, his family situation, and the world into which he was born.

Then I looked at The Fellowship of the Ring, the first book in Tolkien’s epic The Lord of the Rings. It has nearly 3 million ratings and 40K reviews on Goodreads; average rating 4.39. No question, though—it violates rules right and left. To start with, the rather long Prologue is a huge info dump all about hobbits, with a recap of The Hobbit. It’s followed by two and a half pages explaining the Shire records. Only then does Chapter 1 begin, on page 43!

Cover of Ballantyne paperback edition of The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien

Tolkien doesn’t hesitate to use “was,” or adverbs (“he walked briskly”), and he even uses “laughed” as a dialogue tag. Horrors! The book is full of “filter words.” Characters see things, feel things, realize things, and even begin to wonder about things. More horrors! But you know, when I first read this book in my teens, and in many readings since then, none of those words has made me stop reading or even hesitate. I doubt if I ever noticed them until I went looking deliberately.

But, some will say, it’s different for classics, or books published before a certain date, or books that everyone loves. Readers make exceptions for books they love.

Think about that. It isn’t so much that we notice problems and make exceptions because we love a book, but that the plot and characters engage us readers to the extent we don’t notice those supposed rule violations. If the story fails to engage, a reader may very well see them, but in that case the real problem isn’t weak words, but a weak story.

Remember, it’s the story and characters that engage the reader, more than the words used to carry them. A reader whose eyeballs are whizzing back and forth over the screen, or who is turning pages quickly as they read, isn’t going to trip over ordinary, everyday words. But readers who are also writers might, and readers who are evaluating submissions certainly will. And some of them will write blog posts telling writers not to use them.

Which means many of those rules may be safely ignored by writers engaged in creating relatable characters doing interesting things. But I’m not advocating sloppy writing. A good story written well is superior to one written without care for the prose. But no one should fret about lists of weak words or story structure charts until well into the editing stage. Such things may be helpful when you’re polishing the prose used to convey the story, but not when you’re carving its structure out of your raw imaginings.

Fellow readers, I would love to know if you try this “experiment.” Please share your thoughts in the comments.

Featured image from Pexels.

Plant Life Spans

A brutal cold snap in January damaged or killed many garden plants in my region. I’ve been anxiously watching certain plants in my garden for signs of life in the past several weeks. The body count isn’t as bad as I thought at first, but a few plants appear to have perished, and a few more are still making up their minds.

A few years ago, I wrote a rather florid post about plant deaths. A short time later, my “New Dawn” climbing rose died, mysteriously and relentlessly. That made me wonder about plant life spans. We’re familiar with the idea that humans and animals die when they reach a certain maximum age (approximately 80 years for us, 20 for cats, 10-15 for dogs, 200 for tortoises, etc.). But what about plants?

Plants are different, in this and in other ways. For one thing, they can clone themselves (okay, some insects can reproduce by parthenogenesis, but that’s an exception). The question is: under ideal conditions, do plants die of old age? Of course, there are unfavourable conditions: freezes, droughts, bugs, and disease, all of which have analogues in animal life. But I never see life spans mentioned in descriptions of plants, in other than the following terms: monocarpic, annual, biennial, short-lived, long-lived.

Some plants do live only one year. They grow from seeds in spring, bloom, produce seeds, and die at the end of the growing season. That’s why they’re called annuals. Then there are biennials, which bloom in their second year of life, produce seeds, and die the following winter. But not always. Foxgloves and hollyhocks are supposedly biennials, but I have observed some of them extending their lives to a third and even a fourth year. So maybe they can be called “short-lived perennials.” Other herbaceous plants are monocarpic. They may take several, or even many years to bloom and produce seeds, but once an individual has done that, it’s the end. So yes, some plants do have unavoidable lifespans.

Woody plants, shrubs and trees, on the other hand, are expected to live for years, decades, and even centuries. We hear of ancient yews and oaks, and of course there are trees such as California redwoods, western red cedars, and bristlecone pines, that are famous for individuals more than a thousand years old. Among herbaceous plants, peonies and hellebores are described as long-lived.

But do trees, shrubs, and long-lived herbaceous plants actually have lifespans? Do their life processes fizzle out after some specific number of years or decades? I’ve read a lot about plants over the years, but I don’t remember seeing anything more than the general terms I’ve mentioned to address lifespan, in contrast to estimates in years for humans and most animals.

Here is an answer to that question by someone on Reddit who calls themselves Bloodaxe007:

“While not technically biologically immortal, most plants by human definitions will live functionally forever if provided with constant ideal conditions, yes.
If they are not killed by something, they wont die of old age.
Edit: Learn to read. IF. NOT. KILLED. Changing environmental conditions counts as killed. Changes in soil Ph counts as killed. Changes in temperature count as killed.
All you amateur gardeners can fuck off. Your garden is not “Constant ideal conditions”, it is not in stasis.”

Ah yes, Reddit. 🙄 I have no idea who “Bloodaxe007” is or what qualifications they have to comment on plant lifespans, but it appears they are not an “amateur gardener.”

If it’s true that plants in ideal conditions don’t die of old age, a gardener blames themselves for the death of a plant, unless it has been killed by something identifiable and unavoidable. “I should have taken better care of it.” Should have watered it more. Or less. Or something. When the death is unexplained, the possibilities for self-castigation are infinite.

Here and now, in my garden some of the plants affected by that January cold snap are showing signs of life. A few are still dithering and a couple are definitely dead. I have no need to wonder why they perished, and I’m already considering their replacements.

Perhaps that’s the best way for the amateur gardener to deal with plant deaths: accept them, mourn briefly, and move on. For whatever reason, their time was up.

Woolly sunflower (Eriophyllum lanatum) with wallflower Erysimum "Bowles Mauve"
This sight will be absent this year, since Erysimum “Bowles Mauve” is no more. Arctic winds in January did it in. The woolly sunflower (a native plant), however, is fine.

Featured image from Pexels.

What Do Readers Owe Writers?

A few months ago, I wrote a post about whether or not to write critical or even negative book reviews. In one of the comments to that post, author and blogger acflory said this: “I guess the question boils down to how much do we, as readers, owe the writer? Or other readers, for that matter?”

This post is an attempt to answer those questions.

A consumer owes nothing once they’ve paid the price of an item to the supplier, which in the case of books may be a faceless publisher or distributor. Or an online retailer, the epitome of faceless and impersonal. On the other hand, an actual relationship may exist between a reader and a live, human, local bookseller.

Just how deep the relationship is between consumer and creator depends on whether the reader sees the book as a product, a work of art, or something to which they have a personal connection. The essential quality is humanity. The more non-human layers between the reader and the author, the less real the author is. Some authors are celebrities with public personas. But these are often artificial, which makes perceived relationships with them also artificial.

Except when there is a real personal relationship of some sort, I don’t believe readers think they owe anything to authors of books they read. Ideally, the time spent reading is enhanced by the pleasure provided by the book, but does that create a further demand on the reader? If, upon closing a book, a reader feels a gush of gratitude toward the author for writing it, they may express that in a review, sort of like leaving a generous tip after a meal in a restaurant. Or they may recommend the book to friends. It’s entirely up to the reader, however. Authors must not expect reviews and recommendations as a matter of course.

Now, what about when the book is free, either a review copy or a book for which the author charges nothing? In the case of a review copy, the reader may feel they owe a review, but some may choose not to provide one. The author can’t demand a review in exchange for the free copy. And if an author chooses to make their books available to anyone at no cost, that’s their choice, so imposes no obligation on the “buyer” (who may not actually read that free book; come to think of it, not all paid-for books are read either).

Short answer: once the buyer of the book has paid the asking price of the book they owe nothing to the writer. If they write a review or mention the author on social media, it’s hoped they will do so with courtesy and respect, but no more or less than is owed to any fellow human.

Once the financial transaction is done, the relationship between reader and author shifts to the reader’s side, mediated through the author’s books. Readers form relationships with books—especially their characters and settings—rather than with authors. To readers, the author’s name is often just an identifier, a brand name rather than a person.

In the absence of a review (and consider how often reviews are written under an alias or “handle” of some sort), the author most often knows nothing about the people who buy their books, whether they read them, or what they think of them.

In fact, it can be said that by reading a book, the reader potentially incurs a debt from its writer by spending (!) never-to-be-recovered time reading rather than doing something else. But the author (if they’re an indie) most likely has experienced the warm little glow that comes from knowing some unknown person has selected their book from the millions available and paid $5.99 or $2.99 (or even nothing at all) for it. That closes the loop and reduces the debt to zero.

But are there more subtle obligations? For example, should a reader approach a book prepared to give their full attention to the act of reading it? Their enjoyment of a book (or lack of it) may be due in part to the mood they’re in and how closely they read. A reader’s opinion of a book isn’t determined 100% by the book, but to some extent by what they bring to the experience.

And what about other readers? Is anything owed to them? Strictly speaking, no. But in our hyper-connected world, a reader may wish to share their thoughts about a book with other readers, in casual conversation, via social media, or as a member of book club. Having books in common is a kind of social glue. And many readers find it easier to express a casual opinion about a book to friends than to write a book review, which for some is too similar to a book report from school days. But it’s entirely the reader’s choice and not an obligation.

This is why the community of authors and readers who are also bloggers is so valuable. Here, authors and readers actually form relationships and discuss one another’s books. We are not only each others’ customers but colleagues and even friends.

Image from Pexels.

Local Author Book Review #20: Sleepers and Ties by Gail Kirkpatrick

Book Description

Grieving museum curator Margaret returns to her childhood home to leave behind her sister Shirley’s ashes and attend the final reading of her will. Unbeknownst to Margaret, Shirley has left her eight million dollars and a letter asking Margaret to return to its former glory an abandoned railway line—a fanciful notion, everyone tells her, with no real legal binding. Embarking on an adventure that will test more than just an executor’s duty and loyalty to her sister’s legacy, Margaret is forced to make decisions now and for the future that will challenge and forever change a landscape, her career, her marriage, her friendships, and her very own legacy.

My Review

A middle-aged woman is called upon to deal with the deaths of her mother and younger sister in quick succession. While in a months-long fog of grief and loss, she is informed that her sister has left her a small fortune and a seemingly impossible mission to restore an abandoned prairie railway, presumably the one near which they grew up and where their father was a station agent.

Railroading pervades this story, from chapter headings to artifacts and politics. The prairie setting near Saskatoon, Saskatchewan is invoked in vivid descriptions of weather, landscape, and history. Farming and its challenges, including the matter of moving crops to market, is skilfully worked into the plot without causing terminal boredom. (I must say, this is the first time I’ve encountered references to the Crow Rate and the Canadian Wheat Board in a work of fiction.)

The story is told in present tense and extremely close first person. We are in Margaret’s head as she drives from the town of Plover to Saskatoon. We stay at the historic Bessborough Hotel. We visit a lawyer’s office and a cemetery. During several more trips from city to country and back again, we experience sometimes uncomfortable reunions with old friends and a linking up of memories with new information and ideas. While doing all this, Margaret must fend off the expectations of her boss and her husband back home in Victoria, British Columbia. Her weariness and confusion ooze off the page.

In normal life, Margaret is a museum curator. This work influences her view of physical objects, whether they are artifacts from past years of railroading, or the possessions of her deceased mother and sister. Things and people from the past trigger memories that bloom into flashbacks. Some of those spawn their own flashbacks, so while the narrative is chronological, it takes many side trips into Margaret’s past. These excursions present vignettes of her childhood and relationships, and (in one chapter) a rather detailed peek into her working life.

The pace of the first half of the book is slow, as Margaret dithers and puzzles about why and how a prairie railway might be revived, and what role she is willing to play in that process. Once discoveries, revelations, and people converge, the pace picks up considerably, and matters personal and otherwise proceed speedily to a point where new horizons come into view.

This book is a heartfelt portrayal of family relationships, old and new friendships, and the interweaving of past and present. It’s also a worthy addition to the CanLit canon. I recommend it without reservation to readers of literary fiction, especially those who know and love the Canadian prairies, or have even a passing interest in railroads.

On a personal note, I enjoyed this book particularly because I lived in Saskatoon for twelve years and explored the countryside around that city. I’ve seen the boots and shoes on fenceposts along a highway heading out of town. I may have had a drink in the same bar as Margaret at the Bessborough Hotel, twenty years before the events related in this story. And now I live in Victoria, British Columbia, and know exactly which local museum has an escalator.

About Gail Kirkpatrick

After receiving her undergrad at the University of Victoria, Gail Kirkpatrick completed her MA in writing at Lancaster University where she explored the parallel and converging lines of memory, shared history, and landscape. Her writing has been published in various literary and trade magazines in Canada and the UK, and Sleepers and Ties is her first novel. She currently resides in Victoria, BC.

More information about Gail and this book may be found HERE.