An Interview with Kyp Harness
Kyp Harness, author of The Wigford Rememberies, published in the spring of 2016, won the 2017 ReLit Award for Best Novel. Kyp Harness is back with a sophomore effort—The Abandoned. Of Kyp Harness’s writing, The Globe and Mail writes, “Pen in hand, there seems to be nothing Harness cannot do,” while Publishers Weekly said of his debut, “Told with unshrinking honesty and real compassion … these characters and their stories will linger with readers.” Among the strip malls, industrial parks and overpasses of Southwestern Ontario, the protagonist of The Abandoned is a young misfit with an overactive imagination and a heavy-drinking father, surrounded by bullies at school and wondering if he’ll ever be normal. He experiences first love with another high school student, Sherrie, and at the same time he meets his first friend, Russ. In pursuing Sherrie, Tim is drawn into a cult-like religious retreat, and his friendship with Russ takes a strange turn as the three teenagers confront their vanishing childhood.
Nathaniel G. Moore: Your new book has a lot going on. How did you come up with the plot twists, etc., the passionate connections the main character has with his friends?
Kyp Harness: It's all really informed by life, by the energy of emotions that rings true no matter who the characters are. I try to remain true to the energy and it takes me on a journey that seems to make sense, that's inevitable, ultimately, even if it doesn't seem that way at first—like a crooked tree that somehow still maintains balance.
NGM: What are some fiction books you absolutely recommend?
KH: To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, St. Lawrence Blues by Marie Claire-Blais, Suddenly by Bonnie Burnard.
NGM: Music is a seperate entity in your life but if your books were made into movies would you want to appear on the original motion picture soundtrack?
KH: What can I say but my own songs? They match up with the emotion expressed in my books.
NGM: You live in what many folks call the centre of the universe (Toronto). How do you exist in a large pond of writers and not feel bogged down?
KH: In some ways a part of me feels like I'm always at some lonely outpost. My wife, poet Allison Grayhurst is also here. I could never feel bogged down by talented people. Creating is a pretty solitary thing so I'm not worried about other people creating.
NGM: What bands or songs, if any, would you want to open for your book? Like if a reader was about to read your book and was making tea or a Caesar, but there was like 15 minutes for a band to play a short set before this fantasy reader started to read The Abandoned, who would go on?
KH: Don't want to come off as egomaniac, but it would really be my own band. I have such a good band now, it would be a shame to waste them. But maybe part of the set should be instrumentals, so people don't get too sick of me.
The Abandoned launches on Saturday October 27th at the Tranzac Club in conjunction with Kyp’s latest album. For more info please check out the Facebook event page.
