by Glen Huser
4. Through much of the novel, Curtis reveals himself as extremely shy and unaccepting of his sexuality. Projecting from the 1960s/1970s to the 2020s, do you think a Curtis growing up today would have been more comfortable with himself? Would Walter have been any different in today’s social environment?
5. “Negative space” is a term artists use in composition, one that Curtis employs with his junior high art club. How does the term expand as a metaphor for other things happening (or not happening) in the novel?
6. We discover that Harriet can be unreliable in recounting some of her experiences. How do other characters choose to cover for her, and how do these choices serve to foster Curtis’s unblinking acceptance of her stories?
7. Although there are hints early on about what happened to Phillip and Harriet in December 1917, why do you think the author chose to use the closing chapters of the book to detail the Halifax Explosion?
8. When did you first learn about the Halifax Explosion? Do you think this is an incident not very well known outside of Canada (and possibly unknown by many Canadians)?
9. How does music resonate throughout the novel? Were you spurred to track down and listen to any of the classical pieces mentioned? Which do you think would best serve as a musical accompaniment for the “Love Has Me Haunted” poem that prefaces the novel?
10. Canadian art is another crucial strand in the narrative. What was distinctive about the landscape art of Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven? Is there any resolution today about the mystery of Thomson’s death?
12. If you were to cast a movie of Burning the Night, what actors would you pick to play Curtis, Walter, Aunt Harriet, Harriet as a young woman, Phillip Pariston, Per, Edwina, Radcliffe Malthus, Tom Thomson, Carroll Carmody, Moira Greckel, Curtis’s mother?
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I AM HUGELY INDEBTED TO THE RUTHERFORD LIBRARY AT the University of Alberta in Edmonton, which allowed me access to its newspaper archives on microfiche. I am also indebted to the many who have written about the development of Canadian art in the early years of the twentieth century, the life and work of Tom Thomson, the home front and the battlefields of World War I, histories of Vancouver, Toronto and Halifax, and the historic explosion there. Some of these key materials are listed below.
Edmonton colleagues read earlier drafts of Burning the Night and provided valuable feedback. Thanks to Caterina Edwards Loverso, Robin Hedley-Smith, Sandra Mallett, Helen Rosta, Ilona Ryder, Greg Randall, Kay Stewart, Dianne Linden, Jocelyn Brown, Norm Sacuta and Doug Schmidt. I’m grateful to NeWest Press editor Sheila Pratt for suggesting ways to tighten the narrative and strengthen character relationships. Thanks as well to my sister Karen McFarlane for her close reading and editorial notes.
When my partner, Ellis Canning, and I toured the Atlantic provinces in the fall of 2015. We were hosted in Halifax by Ellis’s good friend, Wayne Rogers, who lives directly across from where the explosion occurred. Wayne drove us through the parts of Halifax that had been most impacted and we spent some time in the military park where a sculpture commemorates the disaster, watching the sunset over the harbour. I could breathe the air and walk where I had led Phillip and Harriet. Thanks, Wayne!
I am indebted to the Canada Council for the Arts for the grant I received as I embarked on this project.
Here are some of the books that served me well:
Bindon, Kathryn M. More Than Patriotism: Canada at War 1914-1918, Nelson, 1979.
Davies, Blodwin. Tom Thomson. Mitchell Press, Vancouver, 1967.
Kitz, Janet F. Shattered City: the Halifax Explosion and the Road to Recovery. Halifax: Nimbus, 2008.
Little, William T. The Tom Thomson Mystery. McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1970.
Looker, Janet. Disaster Canada. Lynx Images, 2000.
Man Along the Shore! The Story of the Vancouver Waterfront as Told by Longshoremen Themselves, 1860-1975. ILWU Local 500 Pensioners, Vancouver, 1975.
Murray, Joan. The Best of Tom Thomson. Hurtig Publishers Edmonton, 1986.
Newlands, Anne. The Group of Seven and Tom Thomson. Firefly, 1995.
Rasky, Frank. Great Canadian Disasters. Toronto: Longmans, Green & Co., 1961
Smedman, Lisa. Immigrants: Stories of Vancouver’s People. The Vancouver Courier, 2009.
Yesterday’s Toronto: 1870-1910. Prospero Books, 1997.
From his earliest years, GLEN HUSER has loved to write and read and draw and paint. That’s when he wasn’t losing himself in the dark cocoon of a movie theatre or picking out old-time radio standards and Broadway musical hits on the piano. As a teacher and school librarian for a lengthy career in Edmonton, he worked his passions for art and literature into school projects such as Magpie, an in-house quarterly featuring writing and art from students. In his off hours, he wrote movie reviews for a local weekly, children’s book reviews for the Edmonton Journal, and got his small ink landscapes into galleries. As he worked on a degree in Education and then a Masters in English at the U of A, he had the good fortune to work under the tutelage of Rudy Wiebe, Margaret Atwood, and W.O. Mitchell. For several years he was a sessional lecturer in children’s literature, information studies and creative writing at the U of A in Edmonton and UBC in Vancouver. His first novel Grace Lake was shortlisted for the 1992 W.H. Smith-Books in Canada First Novel Award. He has written several books for young adult readers including the Governor General’s Award-winner Stitches and the GG-finalist Skinnybones and the Wrinkle Queen. Short stories have appeared in a number of literary magazines, most recently Plenitude and Waterloo University’s The New Quarterly. Glen’s current home is Vancouver where he continues to write as well as pursue interests in art and film studies.