Interview with Barbara Langhorst

Barbara Langhorst’s debut novel Want depicts a rural family mystery like no other: Delphine Boudreau and her husband Hugo are living the hobby farm life of her dreams on the Canadian Prairies, far from the world of climate change concerns and global conflict. The only thing missing is a spectacular new kitchen, a tiny bistro to call their own. When she accidentally orders one online, her attempts to remedy the situation threaten her marriage to Hugo. The pressure explodes when her brother Paul arrives with end-of-the-world paranoia and plans to save the whole family on his hidden rustic homestead. As Del's comfortable little world falls apart, she, Paul, and Hugo must work through layers of family conflict to reveal the secret that has entangled her family for generations.

Nathaniel G. Moore: You live in a rural setting with horses and other assorted animals. What is a typical day like for you—or how do you balance writing and home life when you are not working at your job?

Barbara Longhorst: The trouble with being a writer with a day job is that there are not great stretches of time when I can sit and write or think all day. And it's hard to hold a novel in my head if I don't have that contact with it. When I began Want, I wrote every day for six months, and cranked out 300 pages (the first 150 twice). By the time that was over, my garden was in shambles, my horses didn't recognize me (well, they did, but I didn't deserve their loyalty), the dog had gotten old, and our four cats were used to seeking me out in my writing lair, the little loft bedroom in our 100-year-old house. When writing all that, I used to write from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. every day, and read after that, when I was able to. Now that I have less time and more salaried work, I am a guerrilla writer: every time I can find a chance to sit at the computer, I write. The urgency of working when opportunity presents itself is very real to me. When I don't write, I get depressed, which makes it harder to write, so I try to write as often as I can, even if only for an hour or two. A typical Saturday? I get up, do a few chores, try to be at the computer by 9:00, write until noon, have lunch, rush around madly doing more household stuff, go back up and write for as long as I can. By about 3:00 p.m., my husband is usually back from his weekly grocery shopping (he's a saint!), so I might help him unpack and then we have coffee, and I go back up and write until it's time for supper. Alternatively, I might quit writing at about 2:00 and read for the rest of the day, or we go for a walk or watch TV together. I am extremely grateful for my husband's liberating attitude. He looks at writing as my work, and we share the household work 50-50. The acreage work, we tend to ignore, but I love to look at the moon over the trees and smell the starlit air.

It's fascinating to discover what students connect with or dislike—they have little appetite for description these days. They want vivid impressions, but quickly sketched, rather than drawn in detail.

NGM: How has being a professor influenced your own writing?

BL: I'm one of many sessional instructors at St. Peter's College, although I also do administrative work, too. Of course, teaching English, I read a great deal, and try to read as a writer as well as a critic. It's fascinating to discover what students connect with or dislike—they have little appetite for description these days. They want vivid impressions, but quickly sketched, rather than drawn in detail. I suppose that affects my style. In a deeper sense, you could say that working here immersed me into the writing world. A large part of my duties involve working with visiting writers. I took two workshops here from Halifax's former poet laureate Lorri Neilsen Glenn in 2007, such a phenomenal instructor. It was she who gave me the courage to write my first book of poetry, restless white fields. Sean Virgo was another powerful teacher and influence. In and after university I studied experimental poetry for 20 years, yet it wasn't until I met Lorri and Sean that I came to believe that I could be a writer. Since turning to fiction in 2013, I've gone back to my childhood love of novels, but I find the two genres very closely related. Poetry shapes how I approach sound and image, of course, but I also structure my novels in the same way I would structure a poem.

NGM: In the film Stranger than Fiction, the protagonist is asked by a professor if he thinks the novel he is living in (unpublished but nearly finished by the author) is a tragedy or a comedy. Do you find yourself leaning towards one more than the other as you wrote Want?

BL: That's an excellent question—I love that movie, and I've wondered myself whether Want is comedy or tragedy. Parts of it are tragic, but I remember reading as a child that "All humour is tragedy revisited," and my mother always said, "If you don't laugh, you'll go crazy." The problems that Delphine, Hugo, Paul, Emma, and their families face are serious, but essentially, I hope the book cranes toward light. I certainly tried to infuse it with plenty of comic moments, but the forces and urges that drive the characters are not light or fluffy.

NGM: Who is your favourite character in your novel?

BL: I have to say I am most attached to Delphine—I identify most with her. She wants what I've wanted for so long, though of course the similarity ends there. Once I had set her up with my problem (I still want a new kitchen), I turned her loose and let her drive her own story. The things she does are not what I would do (I'm not that brave), but I've enjoyed watching her, living through her. On the other hand, I have enormous compassion for Hugo, and I like Emma enormously, and admire Paul. Stan is shrewd and interesting, and Fr. Lewis is a saint, of course

.NGM: The narrator has a firm grasp on her memory and watches herself transition between childhood and adolescence. Did you ever question where this book would take place in terms of time? Did you always know it would be a first  person looking back and then returning to the present?

BL: When I started the book, I began with Delphine as an adult, almost ready to order the kitchen, from a third person point of view. Hugo had his own perspective, and readers had access to chapters of that. It was hard to give his voice up, but after I'd written two versions of the first half of the novel, I switched to first person with Delphine (I remembered Art Slade at a workshop saying he changed the point of view on a third draft, so that gave me the courage to try a new point of view). Even after that, I knew I had to change the beginning—I just couldn't find what I wanted without getting solely into Del's head and seeing her backstory from the start. I was having some trouble with the arthritis in my neck, so I tried the dictation software on my computer, and voila! Out came Delphine as a child, reminiscing and foreshadowing.

NGM: The question everyone asks a novelist is, how much is this based on your own life? So here we are.

BL: Some of the characters' pasts relate to my life (my uncle and godfather really was a KGB mole, and I did have an amazing aunt), but the plot of the story and the characters are fictional. The setting is based on places I know, but we don't have access to any off-the-grid homesteads. Nor do I have a new kitchen! I cherish a faint hope that the novel will do really well, and it will be like crowdfunding a new kitchen: buy a book and support the cause!

NGM: Who are some writers you admire and have been an influence on your work?

BL: There are so many, many wonderful writers who have shaped my taste. The first novel I can remember loving was Frances Hodgson Burnett's A Little Princess, which may seem an unlikely precursor for Want, but it's the story of a girl who undergoes a descent into darkness and then a magical but real-life transformation. I loved the camaraderie of some of the characters and the glowing descriptions. As an adult I read Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping, and that became my favourite book ever. I adore Anne Michaels' Fugitive Pieces and all of Elizabeth Strout's novels, but I didn't find Strout's work until after Want was accepted by Palimpsest.

Saskatchewan has the most vibrant writing community that you could imagine. For such a small population, it has a large and intensely connected scene.

I know that the poets I studied, especially Robert Kroetsch, dennis cooley, and Doug Barbour had an enormous impact on the sense of playfulness I feel when I write. I am always mindful of Walter Benjamin, whose writing I studied during my doctorate. He has the most amazing way of being utterly droll and deadly serious at the same time. I love the work of Martha Baillie (especially The Search for Heinrich Schlogel and If Clara).

NGM: What is the Saskatchewan writing scene like? I'm sure readers across the country would be interested in knowing what it's like.

BL: Saskatchewan has the most vibrant writing community that you could imagine. For such a small population, it has a large and intensely connected scene. The Saskatchewan Arts Board, the Book Awards, and the Writers' Guild are all amazing, and the writers themselves are so welcoming and generous. Once when my daughter was a teenager, unhappy with me for something, she said, "Why don't you go find your own people?" —and after we moved to Saskatchewan in 2002 and I started writing in 2007, her words came back to me: I really did find my own people—and they are here. It's not cut off at all. Writers from across Canada come to Saskatchewan to read or go on retreat—we see people all the way to both coasts, and all of them are lovely.

NGM: Family novels are a major trope in Canadian Literature. What makes yours stand out and what makes it feel like part of the same "Google search" / or "Netflix also recommends" algorithm?

BL: I don't think there are a lot of novels that combine a fierce lust for home improvement, repeated spiritual attacks, end-of-the-world preppers, humour, tragedy, and the kinds of secrets that emerge in Want. It's hard for me to presume to say it's like the work of well-known, accomplished writers, but I hope it might be in a similar vein or genre as some of (the American writer) Elizabeth Strout's novels. Want has some Gothic features that might make it like Gail Andersen Dargatz's The Cure for Death by Lightning. I loved Barbara Gowdy's The Romantic. I'd be very interested to hear comparisons that other people see.

Nathaniel G. Moore is a writer living in Fredericton. His latest book Goodbye Horses was just published by Mansfield Press.