Remembering the Bones

by Frances Itani

  Structurally, what was the most challenging aspect of writing this novel?

  The biggest challenge was that the story had to be told from Georgie’s point of view while she was trying to inch her way into the open, hoping for rescue, hoping to be seen from the road above. As she couldn’t do much for herself, physically, I had to create strong internal conversations. Georgie belts out songs; she recites; she rhymes; she talks to the living and to the dead; she talks to crows; she talks to herself. She also begins to wend her way through family history. All of this may or may not be taking place within a very short time: seconds, minutes—or is it days? I also had to open up scenes in order to provide variety for the reader. I was aware of the necessity to create dialogue, too, including the dialogue Georgie was having with her inner self.

  Before pursuing a literary career you were a registered nurse. Was there a history in your family, as in your protagonist Georgie’s family, of people in medicine?

  No one else in the family studied medicine, but I did have a great-grandmother who was a midwife. She died when I was a young child. All my life I’ve listened to my mother’s stories about my great-grandmother and her remedies practised during the first half of the twentieth century in eastern Ontario.

  “I loved the work I did as a nurse. My days and nights were filled with infinite variety.”

  As for my own early profession, I loved the work I did as a nurse. My days and nights were filled with infinite variety. I am fortunate enough to have studied at some of the great medical institutions and universities in North America. (Nursing education, residence life, et cetera, were free at the time, and though students were not paid for hospital work, the “free” education had much to do with choices of profession for young women.) During the years I taught and practised nursing, I continued to attend university and gradually moved on to other fields, but the nursing years were important beginnings for me. As part of a medical team, I felt capable of offering some measure of real help. I should say, too, that the knowledge and skills have helped me in every other area of my life.

  In what way did your nursing education come into play in writing Remembering the Bones?

  Every field and profession has its own language, and because I am comfortable with the language of medicine, I sometimes like to include characters with medical backgrounds in my fiction. In Deafening, I wrote about a stretcher bearer. Among the many documents and books that I used while researching First World War medicine, History of No. 1 Canadian General Hospital, Canadian Expeditionary Force, 1914–1919 was invaluable, and I read it in its entirety. This was very moving for me as the book was, essentially, the early history of the hospital and university where I had trained and studied (Montreal General Hospital and McGill University). It was like reading about an extended family.

  “It was like reading about an extended family.”

  In Remembering the Bones, I continued to use my knowledge of the First World War and decided that Georgie’s late grandfather would be a war surgeon, and her grandmother a midwife. I located a copy of Gray’s Anatomy, 1901. I also have anatomy and physiology texts in my own library and was able to make use of these when checking diagrams and details.

  You have said that you write in an “organic way,” allowing the material to grow out of itself, and that you never begin a book with an overall plan. How did the material lead you in Remembering the Bones?

  I am never certain, when I begin a book, exactly which paths I will follow, and I don’t try to predict the ending. My initial concern with Bones was to create the character of Georgie. I wanted to know her well and I wanted to give her a strong voice. I also realized, early on, that I was writing about four generations of women. I was particularly interested in women’s lives in the twentieth century, and how women went about meeting obstacles that were invariably placed before them/us. As I began to know more about my character, I could see that Georgie was examining her life in the context of the possibility of imminent death. All of the edges are sharpened. As I always work from theme, my theme became the question: What is a life worth? But it was more than that, too. It was What have I done with my life in the context of what was available to women throughout this entire period of four generations?

  “My initial concern with Bones was to create the character of Georgie. I wanted to know her well and I wanted to give her a strong voice.”

  The novel comprises many small stories and these help to form the character of Georgie. One of the biggest rewards for me is that readers have written to me to say how well they know Georgie by the time they finish the book. She becomes a friend—as real to them as she is to me.

  The theme of female strength is woven through this story. What is the source of Georgie’s strength?

  From the time she is a young child, Georgie knows that she is surrounded by generations of strong women. The women in her family never say “can’t.” They know how to rely on their own resources, and they know what they have to do in life, and they get on with it. When she was six years old, Georgie watched her grandmother—a huge influence—as she wrapped her legs in cotton bandages, a daily ritual that had begun after she received news of the death of her warsurgeon husband in 1916. Her grandmother had made a decision about her life and how she would withstand grief and pain and still be able to move forward. Georgie also watched her mother rewrite her history after the death of Georgie’s father. Strength was an expectation. Georgie was expected to learn and to use it, and to “bear up” within it.

  You descend from a line of self-reliant women yourself, including your deaf grandmother, who raised eleven hearing children. How did your own experience of female strength influence your life?

  “Strength was an expectation. Georgie was expected to learn and to use it, and to ‘bear up’ within it.”

  I have been surrounded by strong women throughout my life. At some point, I began to understand that the caring voices of my mother (who raised five children), my maternal grandmother and my many aunts, all of whom were in the foreground of my childhood, were and still are some of the most important voices inside me today. As a writer, I can say only that I am thankful. I was a lurker, a watcher, a listener, beguiled by storytelling and enticed by the circle of love and laughter that surrounded me. The women who were my role models did not have easy lives. They worked hard, they mourned, they grieved, but they also knew how to laugh and love. In important ways, I was shaped by the collective voices of women who seemed, to me, to be able to do anything they set their minds to. What I did not know as a child, but recognize now, was that from my earliest years, I was watching and learning strength.

  You once said, “Creation of character happens at so many levels that it would be impossible to be definite about how all the musings, thoughts, dreams, imaginings while I’m out walking, et cetera, come together to make up credible fictional people.” Can you discuss the development of your characters in Remembering the Bones?

  “If a sister walks into my literary landscape, that’s fine with me. I know more than I wish I knew about loving and losing one.”

  Often, the development of both character and storyline depends upon how readily the voice comes to me. I was able to enter the voices of Georgie and Grand Dan fairly quickly but spent considerable time making decisions about Phil and Case, Georgie’s mother and daughter. Each character has a definite role to play in the structure of the novel, and the connections come through the fine detail. Aunt Fred, I had great fun with. I loved writing about her trials and her strengths. I also loved creating Georgie’s sister, Ally. I had a sister of my own, only one, and lost her to cancer twenty-four years ago. I seem incapable of writing a book that does not have a sister in it somewhere. I’ve stopped fighting this, and if a sister walks into my literary landscape, that’s fine with me. I know more than I wish I knew about loving and losing one. Each time I create fictional sisters, I feel I am honouring my late sister. I’ll never get over the heartbreak of her early death, but I am deeply familiar wi
th the joys and sorrows, the possibilities based on a shared background when young girls grow up side by side, and the subsequent carry-over of this unique relationship into adulthood.

  Georgie believed that her husband, Harry, “was terrified to unearth his own life. But once started, one memory yanked on another until his past spilled out like sheets tied together in an attic and tossed out a window for rescue.” In another context, Georgie’s grandmother said that an “unwiped slate” of a memory can be a curse. Do you believe that a long memory is a lifeline or a curse?

  “Writers are storytellers. We listen. We try to be truthful to our characters and we let our fictional worlds surprise us.”

  It can be either or both, but it will be what a person allows it to be. Certainly, I know people who have allowed memories of grudges to overtake their present lives—to the point where their happiness and ability to move forward are destroyed.

  For me, memory is all important. In particular, I call upon sensory memory for my fiction—how does something feel, taste, smell, et cetera? While creating scenes for my characters, I also call upon the memories of others, especially those who have lived through eras before I was born. I interview, and listen carefully to stories and anecdotes; I ask questions; I take notes. Sometimes, I request permission to use a particular story in my own way so that I can integrate it into the life of one of my characters. Writers are storytellers. We listen. We try to be truthful to our characters and we let our fictional worlds surprise us. We are limited only by our imaginations. Memory for me is about storytelling. I am completely delighted by the stories—past and present—that seem to be all around me at any given moment.

  According to Orson Welles, “We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone.” In what way have periods of aloneness—not just in the ravine, but at other times of life—made Georgie the person she is?

  Georgie looks back at the high and low points of her life, and she can define her losses as well as she can define her joys. At all times, however, when she sifts through memories of being a child, adult, wife, widow, friend, she knows she is the person she has become because of the people she has loved and the people who have loved her. Georgie would probably say that she knows what it is to be alone, but she also knows the importance of bridging between people. As my old teacher, the late W. O. Mitchell, once said to me, “Love!—it’s the only game in town.”

  “I believe [Georgie] is, and will be seen as, a survivor. It is, as the saying goes, ‘the journey that matters.”

  Ultimately, do you believe Georgie will be seen as a survivor?

  I believe she is, and will be seen as, a survivor. It is, as the saying goes, “the journey that matters.” I do not, however, discuss the ending of the book, which readers will figure out for themselves. I don’t see Georgie as a “victim.” She has bad moments, but she does her best to pull herself up and out of these. She understands the real dangers the accident has created and she is able to cast her hard-earned philosophy over her dire situation. While Georgie is alone in the ravine, she does recognize the importance of the love she has experienced throughout her life, and this helps to sustain her.

  Listen to Frances Itani’s interview on the HarperCollins Canada Prosecast: www.prosecast.com

  Read on

  On Writing Remembering the Bones: An Essay by Frances Itani

  My interest in creating a fictional character like Georgie goes back to the early 1990s when I began to save newspaper accounts of drivers who had gone over the sides of ravines or had crashed into undergrowth beneath overpasses, where their cars could not be seen from above. I read some remarkable survival stories and began to collect more and more articles about these and other accidental situations—articles with headlines such as:

  “I began to wonder what these accident victims experienced while doing their best to survive, alone.”

  WOMAN, 88, SURVIVES 5 DAYS ON WINDOW MIST

  “I SCREAMED, I RANTED,” SURVIVOR SAYS

  70-YEAR-OLD LIVES 3 DAYS IN BUSH WITH BROKEN HIP

  CRASH VICTIM SURVIVES 5 DAYS TRAPPED IN CAR

  ELDERLY WOMAN SURVIVES 14 DAYS IN STRANDED VAN

  DRIVER SURVIVES 24-METRE PLUNGE OVER CLIFF

  DRIVER CRAWLS FROM WRECK 4 DAYS AFTER CRASH

  83-YEAR-OLD SURVIVES 3 DAYS IN SWAMP

  MIRACLE SURVIVOR HOME AT LAST

  I began to wonder what these accident victims experienced while doing their best to survive, alone. What survival measures did they take? What were they thinking? Were they able to keep their spirits up? Did they re-evaluate their lives up to the point of the accident? Did they believe that they would survive?

  My book Remembering the Bones is set in Ontario in 2006 and deals with Georgina Danforth Witley, who is on her way to the airport to fly to London to celebrate her eightieth birthday at a special lunch hosted by the Queen. Georgie has known since she was a child that she and “Lilibet,” the Princess Elizabeth of York, were born the same day, April 21, 1926. Now, she is one of ninety-nine people who have received an invitation to share the Royal birthday celebration at Buckingham Palace.

  “Georgie examines her life and asks herself, ‘What has it all amounted to?”

  Moments after leaving her home, Georgie becomes distracted, and her car leaves the road and plunges over the side of a cliff. Thrown from the car and flat on her back at the bottom of a heavily wooded ravine, she is unable to move because of her injuries. In considerable pain and desperately hoping for rescue, she does her best to stay alive while considering her loves and sorrows, her family memories, her choices and regrets. A fan of Django Reinhardt, lover of poems, reciter of bones, descendant of a long line of strong women, Georgie examines her life and asks herself, “What has it all amounted to?”

  The book not only encompasses the lives of four generations of women but also includes considerable information about anatomy. One of my first acts of research was to contact a local antiquarian dealer and ask him to locate a copy of Gray’s Anatomy, 1901. Another book, Queen of Home, published in 1892, was given to me by a former writing student who knew I was writing about women of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This old text was a delight to go through, and I was able to draw on parts of it for detail. I also checked out women’s magazines from 1930 to 1950, and these provided details of a social and cultural nature as well as facts about various members of the Royal family.

  When my editor at HarperCollins learned that there would be references to the Royals in my novel, she mentioned that she had access to a cache of material collected by her mother. Every once in a while, packages would arrive by express post, and these contained memorabilia, matchbooks, menus, programs, itineraries, all to do with Princess Elizabeth—later Queen Elizabeth—her sister, her parents, her marriage, her children. One of the special books that arrived was The Princess Elizabeth Gift Book, published in 1935 in aid of The Princess Elizabeth of York Hospital for Children. All of these items were helpful while I built the childhood background of Georgie and her sister, Ally.

  “At the beginning, it is difficult to see where the journey will lead. At the end, I’m glad I’ve been aboard.”

  Of course, I was also interviewing along the way. My own mother is eighty-seven and I discussed roles of women with her; I also spoke with various women in their seventies and eighties and asked many questions. One of my main interests was to discover the ways in which rules and limitations were set out for women and the ways in which these boundaries were broken—or not.

  All in all, the writing of this novel, as for each of my books, has been a long and enjoyable journey. At the beginning, it is difficult to see where the journey will lead. At the end, I’m glad I’ve been aboard.

  An Excerpt from Deafening

  He had quickly learned that she did not need full sentences in order to understand, that her ability to focus the immediate was extraordinary, that with lightning speed she was able to fill in the gaps. He saw query on her face, her reddish brows forming th
e barely discernible frown.

  He watched her silence.

  But Grania knew when she was being watched.

  “Tell me,” he said. He wanted everything. He watched her brown eyes focus on his face, her glance as it darted to the background, right, left, back to his lips. What did she see? He wanted to know. “Tell me, so I’ll know. About being deaf. Start with the worst thing.” He leaned towards her, listening hard.

  They were sitting on the blue blanket where they had brought their trays and eaten their breakfast. They could not be seen from the street below. The late-autumn sun warmed the room and he saw the varying shades of red in her hair as light fell across her.