goddess of death.
Q: Why are these stories important today? Why would you make allusions to them in a contemporary novel?
These stories give us images of women who seize their own powers. They are especially interesting because they show us women who do not find their identities primarily as spouses and mothers. Demeter, Persephone, and Inanna are characters who are willing to set relationships aside in order to explore their own strengths, and yet they are deeply related to the people around them, especially Inanna who is the subject of intensely erotic love poetry. At the end of her love affair and marriage is the line “The marriage bed was not wide enough for Inanna,” and at this point she sets out to conquer death and find her own immortality. Contemporary women continually explore their different relationships and struggle to make room for themselves to develop their passions, whether they’re directed toward their mothering, their work, their art, or their erotic relationships.
Q: There is so much music in this book. Why? Are you a musician?
I love music. Fortunately, writing about music doesn’t require being a musician! For me, one of the greatest pleasures of writing is research, and I learned about the double bass and the piano and fiddle by reading and talking to musicians. I was particularly helped by the double bass player Joel Quarrington, who introduced me to his large repertoire and showed me how, through a different tuning technique, he could get a truer sound at the deepest, sometimes almost inaudible registers of his instrument. I also did some research into musical composition and was especially helped by the composer Ann Southam. Working with these artists gave me insights and new ideas about how to work with language.
Q: Which reminds me, the language in your book is full of odd words and expressions.
Yes. Although Millstone Nether is a fictional place, it is set in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and to find the diction for this book I read an amazing dictionary, The Dictionary of Newfoundland English. This book was created by collecting the oral language of fishermen, old politicians, and the women who salted the fish and tied the nets. Entries are accompanied by excerpts from old newspapers and quotations from storytellers, so each word is explained with little stories of the place. I loved the feeling of a living language developed by immigrants from Ireland and Scotland, and later by people born in the place. I was fascinated by how language shifts shape to express the experiences of the people on the land, their hard work, their survival of the sea, their pleasures.
Q: It is true that the Nolan women experience a lot of hardship and yet seem filled with joy, through death and blindness and betrayal. Does this come from the land too? Is their suffering the reason for their strength or a consequence of it?
I think it comes from their spirits, and their hard loving. They each have an irrepressible commitment to their own creativity: Norea to her daughter, Dagmar to her gardens, and Nyssa to her fiddle. When a man, or a member of the community, threatens that creativity, each woman searches for a way to keep loving and to honour her own needs. And each woman is connected to Moll, who embodies the forces in our lives that are beyond our control. The Buddhist phrase “With the body comes suffering” is another way of thinking about this. We are all subject to the pressures of our particular history and circumstances. How we live through suffering, how we retain our joy, is an expression of our spirit, and shapes who we are continually becoming.
Q: So would you say religion and faith are important to the people of Millstone Nether?
Not organized religion. The characters in this book are driven by the need to survive, by the demands and joys of their community, and by their shared love of kitchen parties and music. I wanted to create a community not formed by religion but made alive by spirit. The people express it in their music and in the creativity they bring to their daily lives. Meggie Dob is a woman who is made fertile by Dagmar’s empathetic tears, and her children are Donal, the double bassist, and a strange misshapen daughter named Madeleine. This little daughter is compelled to paint on any surface she can find. We see that her inborn creativity comes from faith in life itself. Throughout the story we see women overcoming hopelessness: a woman who can’t have children has twins, a child without paint becomes an artist. I have seen this in my own family and in people in many places in the world, the astonishing human capacity to express oneself in defiance of obstacles, sometimes with a kind of humble joy, sometimes with fierceness. I think we all have this potential if we are loved by just one person.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Discuss Moll’s symbolic role on the island. How do you see her?
Norea and Colin do not live together in a traditional marriage, yet they remain in love and raise their children together. What do you think of this relationship?
Do you think Donal’s affections for Nyssa are based on his love for Dagmar? How did their relationship make you feel as a reader?
Music is a central part of the story, almost an additional character. How did the music add to your reading experience?
Discuss the following quotation as it relates to the book and to your own life: “Never are we closer to our own godliness than in loss.”
Discuss the book’s symbols and their significance.
Did you believe Dagmar’s powers to be real or symbolic? Why do you think she has these powers while the other women in her family do not?
Norea shows kindness to Moll, even after Moll causes her to go blind. Would you do the same thing in her shoes? Why does Norea do this?
The community of Millstone Nether is rich in music and art, which is reflected in the author’s poetic language and vivid metaphors. Did the way the story is written affect your experience of the narrative?