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The Oakville Beaver, Wednesday October 31, 2001 - C3 Books and Brunch event Mansions of Colour art show Mansions o f Colour, an exhibition of paintings by Rosalinde Baumgartner, will be featured at the Cannington House Gallery, 100 Bronte Rd., until Nov. 10. For more information, call 905-469-0420. Authors read and answer questions By C arol B aldw in ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR Along with Oakville author Lawrence Hill, authors Amanda Hale and Richard B. Wright, spoke at the recent Bookers Books and Brunch event. Hale, a poet and playwright from B.C., read from her first novel, Sounding the Blood, which takes place over a one-year period 1915 to 1916 - at a whaling station in Rose Harbour on the southern tip of the Queen Charlotte Islands. She told the audience that the story emerged while she was visiting a friend, who now lives on the site. "She invited me there five years ago, and I became captivated by the atmosphere and the history of the place. So, I started to write, and eventually I realized I was writing a novel," she explained, noting that she hadn't original ly intended to spend five years on one project. "I felt I had to respond to I don't know what, but something there that was calling...There was something about the characters that were there for me and that just grabbed me, and then developed in the writing o f it." Although the characters are fictional, Hale added, the details are based on researched facts. She described a bit about each character: Leo Slaney, the Newfoundland manager of the station, who is fumbling to repair his mar riage; Nora, Leo's distraught wife; Isobel, the Slaneys' rebellious teenager; Lee Sun, a young innocent seduced by the opium and gambling dens o f Victoria's Chinatown; and Kazuo Yamamoto, a wronged outsider yearn ing to recover his wife and child in Japan. Hale read to the audience from the pro logue, which, she said, takes place in present day: "They have been expecting he r.. .She hov ers above Rose Harbour, her hair whipping in the wind, her eagle eyes flickering with reflec tions of ghosts on water. The trees of the spruce forest stand tall against the steely blue sky..." Her reading emphasized the many com ments that have been made about the poetic language in Sounding the Blood, which retails for $21.95. Wright, although the last speaker of the morning, is the most seasoned author of the three, with eight novels to his credit. His most recent Clara Callan has been nominated for a Giller Prize, as was his last novel The Age o f Longing. Clara Callan is the story o f two sisters, Clara and Nora, who live in small town Ontario during The Depression. Their mother died before either girl was 10, a possible sui cide, and their father, a school principal, raised the girls. The book follows the sisters' disparate lives through a series of letters and diary entries. Wright began his talk at The Oakville Club by describing the framework of his new novel and its characters: "Clara is the older o f the two; she's about 32 when the novel begins. She's a reflective type o f person; she's unmar ried; lives alone; her parents are dead. She has this big house she has to look after. She teach es elementary school in this village of W hit field, where she takes long walks. She tries to write poetry. She takes life very seriously," he explained. "Her younger sister, Nora, is a more adven turous person. She's prettier. She's very gen erous, a bit shallow. She's an actress who goes off to New York and becomes a mild celebri ty as the heroine o f a radio soap opera." Then, he said, Clara is raped by two pass ing tramps while she's on one o f her walks. P kJM Displays, Gifts, Valuable Prizes Enjoy the entertainment. Enjoy communication with special interest groups and members of the business community, their displays, gifts & prizes Richard B. Wright She becomes pregnant and, after struggling at length with her predicament, she decides to write to Nora for advice. Wright then read the letters, outlining that particular exchange, plus one of Clara's diary entries: "July 4, 1935. Dear Nora, What you are about to read will no doubt be startling and so you should brace yourself.. I know you're occupied with your radio business down there, but I'm not quite sure where to turn at the m om ent..." In the few entries that he read, the tension, as well as the love, between the two sisters became evident. W hen asked why he chose to write from a woman's perspective, W right said that he wanted to explore all the "stuff that women had to put up with about 55 years ago, which a lot of us, I don't think, realize." Although he admitted to being "stumped by" some of that stuff, he said his wife bailed him out on such occasions. "But mostly, it's an active imagination," he added. "But it was a challenge, and I took some risks with it...B u t why restrict what a writer can write about?" Clara Callan is available at local book stores for $32. The next Bookers Books and Brunch event will take place on Feb. 3, 2002. FREE A D M I S S I O N OAKVILLE GOLF CLUB MON. NOV 5TH 6:30 PM S IG N -U P O N L IN E AT: w w w .w e lc o m ew ag o n .ca w G 0 ELCOM E A G O N ltd S in c e 1930 C all to c o n firm y o u r a tte n d a n c e HOSTESS T I I U at 9 0 5 - 8 2 7 - 9 4 1 5 V e n d o r Spa c eA v a il a b l e OAKVILLE *A S E Amanda Hale & T oronto n e ig h b o u rh o o d n u rtu re d identity crisis (Continued from page C2) EE SH IA TSU&M A SSA G ETH ER A PY CENTRE LTD. Growing up in a predom inately white Toronto suburb with a white mother and a black father, Hill was left grappling with his racial identity. In fact, he said, he has spent most of his life thriving in predominately white communities. Yet, being called "nigger" in his formative years, let him know that he was, and always would be, black. "If I had been bom in another time or another place, this book would never have been written. It w ouldn't have been possible if I'd been raised in South Africa or in South Carolina. There, my racial identity would have been handed to me on a card at birth," he said, explaining that his paternal cousins in the U.S. always knew exactly where they stood when it came to race. That's one of the reasons his American parents moved north to raise their children. "Post-war, middle-class, suburban Toronto provided a new opportunity for racial defini tion that had never existed b efore.. .This book came out o f that wiggle group." Despite the racial ambiguity that Hill sometimes felt growing up, he always felt loved, and he readily admits to his good for tune in being raised by loving parents who stressed the importance o f education and global awareness, as well as a sense o f social responsibility. According to Hill, his creative pursuits and that of his brother, Dan, were nurtured within an "intellectual and emotional security," as was a tacit obligation to try to right any social injustices or offensive comments. In fact, he said, his parents raised him to believe that he would be failing as a human being if he didn't challenge racial remarks whether they were blatantly stated or couched in so-called jokes. "We had a near-religious obligation to say som ething back," he stressed. "I feel as though I am failing as a citizen if I don't chal lenge that person or say something." When Hill talked to the audience after brunch, he said his father encouraged him and his siblings to write by requiring letters for any important requests. Recalling a desire to have a kitten when he was about six years old, he said, "I remember going up to my room and writing this letter with absolute, passionate conviction because I sensed that the outcome of my desires hinged on my ability to deliver a well-drafted let ter... Obviously, it made us believe, at a very early age, that our words had power." Afterwards, an audience member asked if he ultimately got the kitten. "Yes, I got the cat," he replied. "Her name was Smokey. She had nine kittens." Hill also read an excerpt from his book, focusing on the chapter titled Hair Issues, a humorous recollection of how he and a num ber of European barbers tried to manage his curly locks over the years until he finally dis covered a young black stylist. Despite the serious content of Hill's non fiction book, there are many com ical moments as well as many revealing ones, including the arrival of 75 hooded Ku Klux Klansmen in Oakville in 1930. Hill's next novel is already in the making, Set in the 1700s, it follows a black woman who is sent to Savannah. Georgia as a slave and, at the end of her life, returns to Sierra Leone. Black Berry, Sweet Juice: On being black and white in Canada is available at local book stores for $32. R EGISTER ED M A SS A G E TH ER A P IS TS /C ER TIFIED S H IA T S U TH ER AP IS TS Therapies Offered Include: Traditional Swedish Massage · Shiatsu Therapy · · Connective Tissue Massage · Sports Massage · Cranio-Sacral Therapy · Headaches · Whiplash/Neck Pain · Muscle Rehabilitation Effective In The Treatment Of: Musculo-Skeletal Pain · Stress/Tension Release · Gift Certificates Available A Trusted Name in Oakville SUNDAY APPOINTMENTS NOW AVAILABLE HE'S HERE! NOW IN OAKVILLE] A&E tips? 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