Marina Endicott

Marina Endicott was born in Golden, BC, and grew up with three sisters and a brother, mostly in Nova Scotia and Toronto. She worked as an actor and director before going to England, where she began to write fiction. After London she went west to Saskatoon, where she was dramaturge at the Saskatchewan Playwrights Centre for many years before going farther west to Mayerthorpe, Alberta; she now lives in Edmonton. Her first novel, Open Arms, was short-listed for the Amazon/Books In Canada First Novel award in 2002. Her second, Good to a Fault, was a finalist for the 2008 Giller Prize and won the 2009 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book, Canada/Caribbean region. The Little Shadows, her latest book, longlisted for the 2011 Giller Prize, was a finalist for this year’s Governor General’s Award and will be published in the UK and Australia in spring 2012.

<[G]mendicott> I started with the characters, and if I'd thought a bit longer before I started, I'm not sure I'd have had the courage to embark on the book. I hadn't realized that every couple of weeks I'd have to make up a whole new set of characters and investigate a whole new town.

<annaTRR> Yes, but the hookers are always way more interesting than men, aren'they

<[G]mendicott> Miss Angela inson is my favourite character in Michael Ondaatje's Billy the Kid. There's a lovely passage where she shaves her legs-first woman in the west to do so.

<[G]mendicott> Hey, it blanked me out!

<[G]mendicott> That's funny.

<shirleymultipage> I had read a biography of the Cherry Sisters and wondered if they inspired you altough they were far less talented than the belle Aororas and ended up in dire straits although many of their experiences were similar.

<[G]mendicott> The women were more interesting to me, at least in this book, because another strong propulsion for the book was my own sisters.

<[G]mendicott> Oh, the Cherry Sisters! Poor darlings.

<[G]mendicott> What a sad time they must have had-although they don't seem to have been very sensitive, do they?

<[G]mendicott> The Cherry Sisters, for those who haven't read about them, were a disastrously bad singing act. Managers booked them and told patrons to bring tomatoes to throw.

<[G]mendicott> I made a conscious choice not to use many really vile acts in the book-bad gets dull awfully quickly, I think, once you get past the first amusement.

<annaTRR> Sounds like you have done a massive amount of research for this book and the background of it "tomatoes being thrown around?". I absolutely loved your descriptions of the various acts, at times I had a real sensation of watching a live performance. Did you imagine these acts or did you use any particular source to bring them back to life?

<[G]mendicott> Thanks so much, Anna. I read about thousands of acts, and saw all the archive film footage I could get my hands on, but all the performances in the book are imagined.

<[G]mendicott> I did use old vaudeville routines by many famous people, including Bob Hope, of all people, and of course Will Rogers and W.C. Fields (who spent quite a lot of time in Australia) and Charlie Chaplin and the Marx Brothers, all of whom got their starts in vaude.

<[G]mendicott> Buster Keaton's family act was very much like the Knockabout Nandos, but I made up the routines in thebook.

<annaTRR> The Little Shadows is also full of contrasts: the bleakness of the landscape is set against the colorful vaudeville scene, the desperate situation of the Avery family needs a quick resolution and yet the story slowly unfolds, the grieving mother is laughing during the show at the depiction of her own grief. Did you do it on purpose, and if so why did you use this device?

<[G]mendicott> Buster was thrown around by his father for years, and the act was always being investigated for cruelty to children, but he knew how to fall...

<shirleymultipage> You mentioned that you were inspired in part by your own sisters. of the three belle aurores, which one do you feel closest to?

<[G]mendicott> I'll get back to yours, Anna. Shirley: my answer to which sister am I closest to changes day by day.

<[G]mendicott> If you asked my own sisters, they'd probably tell you that they see me in Aurora, because I was the oldest (and bossiest), but I don't think I'm much like her.

<[G]mendicott> I'm closer in temperament to Clover, and most days I love her secretly the best.

<[G]mendicott> But Bella's love of performing and her loneliness and bravery as the book wears on is also very dear to my heart.

<[G]mendicott> Which one do you feel closest to yourself?

<[G]mendicott> The contrasts, and the bleakness of the winter landscape with the brilliance of the rosy footlights: yes, I think that's one of the things we all take away from theatre. At least all of us who live in winter! (April, and still snow on the ground here in Edmonton.)

<annaTRR> It is interesting what you say about the sisters because I saw them as Aurora being about duty, Clover is consumed by thoughtfulness and Bella is all about fun and my favourite was Clover too. I think that the three different characters would allow many readers to connect with one of them.

<[G]mendicott> I agree with your assessment! I'm always happy to hear readers tell me which sister they identified with themselves. I think it tells me something about them-but I'm not sure what.

<annaTRR> Talking about the weather...there is also a strong sense of landscape and weather having a significant part in shaping the character of the Avery sisters (toughening them up) you yourself have moved a lot in your life, do you think that there is any truth to the belief that these natural elements have significant influence on who we become? And is there particular place that you really identify yo

<shirleymultipage> I think maybe Bella because she was so rebellious, headstrong and brave and not afraid to get where she wanted to go. She was also so responsible and looked after her family when she made it big. in many ways for all her fun loving character, she was very very strong.

<[G]mendicott> I did have a peripatetic childhood. My father kept changing professions, and we moved all over Canada as he went to various universities and took many different jobs. Although it was sometimes painful, I think the experience of all the landscapes of Canada was incredibly useful to me as a writer. And wherever I go to read in Canada, I can almost always say, I grew up here! (At least for a year or so.)

<annaTRR> The ending of the book (which I will not give away here) has all the makings of an end of act I, would you ever consider going back to Avery sisters?

<[G]mendicott> ...Yes, Bella looks after everybody. At a reading last night I read the last few scenes before Julius's death, and Bella has such a long hard slog before she gets her heart's desire.

<shirleymultipage> Yes please please go back to the Avery sisters--you could make it a generational saga! I can hardly wait to read it(them)!

<[G]mendicott> The day I finished the final draft, my husband came home and found my crying at my keyboard. "What's wrong with you?" he asked. "I don't get to be with them any more," I said. He laughed, and then he told me to open a new Word doc. "Type this: 'It was a brilliantly sunny day, not a sad winter day like in her childhood. Bella was running down the street toward the Palace Theatre for the second show...'" I typed it, and I've kept the document and a secret file of "what happens next". From time to time he still tells me, they're not dead, they're fictional.

<annaTRR> Great characters never die !

<[G]mendicott> I'd like to find out what happens to the children, Avery and Harriet.

<annaTRR> In my mind Good to Fault ( your second novel) and the Little shadows have one thing in common: the central characters are intrinsically good. It is very hard to make an interesting character out of a good person, is this your personal challenge or was than an intentional choice?

<[G]mendicott> I was thinking the other day, writers often have a single epiphany that they write over and over in various permutations. I think my epiphany is that people are not as bad as you think they are.

<shirleymultipage> Hooray for your husband! Nice to know he's not like the men in Little Shadows(although there were some nice ones too. I'd like to find out what happens to the children too, not to mention the sisters themselves. What happens to them when vaudeville dies?

<[G]mendicott> Maybe it was all the moving we did in my childhood, but I grew up with the feeling that other people were slightly dangerous or at least unreliable, and the one solid thing I can say I've learned over time is that people are human, that they are me, are WE. Each person inside her or himself is trying to be good, I think... whatever good may mean to them.

<[G]mendicott> Shirley, I'm glad you saw some nice ones in there!

<annaTRR> ..Or they are not as good as you think you are as I am still sometimes puzzling over Good to Fault was the central character really so good or did she see an opportunity to get something that she always wanted and look good?

<[G]mendicott> Yes, well, that's the sad sidebar of the epiphany-we are all bad too.

<annaTRR> How you ever been surprised by a reader who told you something about your stories that you did not know?

<[G]mendicott> Oh, many times, I love that. For instance, one reader talked about names in my books, and I do spend a lot of time thinking about names, and they're very important to me), and this reader said, I love that you called him Clayton (in Good to a Fault)-feet of Clay! -and I'd never thought of that.

<annaTRR> Have you ever used these discoveries in your new stories?

<[G]mendicott> A book isn't really complete until the reader has added her or his thinking and understanding to it, so one of the great pleasures of touring with a book is hearing from people how they think of certain characters, or what worried them. I don't know if one has ever gone straight into a new story, I'll have to think about that.

<annaTRR> We have a lot of aspiring writers on our site so I have to ask you if you always wanted to be a writer or is it something that happened gradually?

<[G]mendicott> I wanted to be an actor! I was determined to be one!

<[G]mendicott> But it's funny, the whole time I was acting I was writing writing writing, filling scribblers with notes on characters and previous circumstances etc.

<annaTRR> Do you stick to any particular writing routine?

<shirleymultipage> Was the collapse of the theatre roof in Edmonton an actual occurrence or did you make it up. it was amazing even fictionally that no one was killed or injured

<[G]mendicott> I started writing seriously in my twenties when I was an office temp (in between acting jobs), and had to look busy even when there was no work to do. So I'd pretend to be typing but actually I wrote short stories.

<[G]mendicott> Shirley: the collapse of the theatre roof is absolutely true. There's a wonderful book about early theatres in Edmonton, called Lost Empires, by John Orrell, that details the collapse of a theatre roof. Until I read that book, I'd intended Mayhew's theatre to burn down, but the flood was much better.

<annaTRR> Many people who are passionate about books believe that books have power to change our lives. Was there a book like this in your life?

<shirleymultipage> I'm sure authors hate being asked this question but I'm going to ask it anyway. Who are your favorite authors and is there any particular one who has inspired you?

<[G]mendicott> Writing routine: I get up very early in the morning, because my husband's alarm goes off at 5, and I usually try to get a couple of hours in before I have to wake my kids up for school. Then I go back to my desk once I've driven them to school, and stick there till about 4 when they come home. I make supper and loll around and clean up a bit (a little bit), and then I go back to my desk until I fall asleep. My routine: work all the time.

<[G]mendicott> Two questions in one, Anna and Shirley! Many many books have changed my life, maybe a thousand. Maybe every book I've ever read, blowing me this way and that like a butterfly. My favourite writer is Penelope Fitzgerald, the English writer who won the Booker for Offshore and wrote only a few novels, but each one a pearl.

<annaTRR> I have to come back to the writing routine, as it is always fascinating to hear how authors write, is writing a scheduled thing for you or does it just happen?

<[G]mendicott> Well, it's not scheduled, in the sense of 9 am to 11 am being sacred, but when I'm writing I don't do anything else, so I'm at my desk constantly. If I'm driving, or at the grocery store, I'm making lists on my phone by mic, or by email.

<[G]mendicott> There are lots of people who say they only write four hours a day, but honestly, I'm too slow for that. I have to just work all the time.

<[G]mendicott> One of the reasons I know I ought to be a writer is that I'm willing to work at it all the time.

<[G]mendicott> And of course there are lots of days when I don't get anything much done. But if I'm not sitting here, I won't get anything done.

<annaTRR> What is next for Marina Endicott? Are you already working on a new book (aside hiding the Avery sisters in your draw)?

<[G]mendicott> Yes, I'm midway on a new novel called Hughtopia, about a gallery owner who tries to fix the lives of all his friends, which is in the same vein as Good to a Fault; and I'm doing the research on another historical novel, this one set on a clipper ship in 1910.

<annaTRR> plus the Avery Sister, It sound like luckily for us you are probably doing less groceries but more writing

<[G]mendicott> Ha! I loved that movie Stranger Than Fiction where Queen Latifah came and locked the writer Emma Thompson in a hotel room and wouldn't let her do anything but write. Wish somebody would come and do that for me.

<[G]mendicott> Seriously, I think it's a major reason that there have been more male than female writers historically. The women have been making the bread and clearing the table and looking after children, and not able to keep a straight thought in their heads.

<annaTRR> ... well I guess it comes down to the old question of quality versus quantity, yes the output has been a bit smaller but a lot of books are of superb quality and present life and our experiences from a unique point of view. Does anybody has any additional questions?

<[G]mendicott> Thanks for joining in, everyone. It's great to talk to you.

<annaTRR> Dear Marina, on behalf of The Reading Room and all of our passionate readers, many thanks for the time that you gave us for this interview. It is always such a treat to be able to speak to a writer, especially when they are so well loved. For our members a quick reminder that Marina is the author of three fantastic books: Open Arms, Good to Fault and The Little Shadows.

<[G]mendicott> Thanks, dear Anna-this was fun.

<annaTRR> We hope that this interview inspired you to get immersed in the amazing world of vaudeville and that you will share your comments with other readers at TheReadingRoom.com

<annaTRR> Many thanks Marina one more time and I know I am repeating a sentiment of many when I say that we are really looking forward to your next book.

<krycha> thank you - it was great

<annaTRR> Shirley, Krycha, Caroline, glaymore thanks for joining in