ld Ottawa South author Elizabeth Hay discusses her environment and her writing with OSCAR contributor Stephen Haines.
OSCAR: You've lived in many places - Yellowknife, Mexico, New York City. Why did you choose Ottawa?
Hay: We were living in New York and I wanted to come home. (Her husband) Mark was drawn to Montreal. I thought it would be easier to find work in Toronto. We compromised and came to Ottawa. That was in 1992. At first we lived near Main and Lees, but since 1996 we've been on Carlyle Avenue. It's a wonderful neighbourhood. It has the library, the Mayfair, the fruit and vegetable store. I take exercise classes at Carleton University, and go for walks in the Arboretum. I have good friends who keep me company and also leave me alone. I like it here very much.
OSCAR: Has living here had an impact on your writing?
Hay: I had started The Student of Weather when we were living on Rosemere Avenue. We found our house on Carlyle quite by chance. But when I discovered that the house used to belong to Dr. Bill Dore, a scientist at the Experimental Farm who specialized in grasses, it seemed like a marvelous coincidence. I felt confirmed in what I was writing. It seemed quite natural to call one of my characters Dove, and to make him knowledgeable about grasses. Dr. Dore is a strong presence in the house and in the garden. For the first few summers, I felt like his slave as I weeded the flower beds, afraid that I was pulling out something precious.
OSCAR: Were you able to work in any of your OOS neighbourhood into the book?
Hay: I used the geography of the neighbourhood, but the characters are invented. Maurice Dove is fictional, but he lives in a house that occupies the spot where my house is. I enlarged his house and gave it a different layout to meet the needs of the story, but the location is the same and the sloping garden is similar.
OSCAR: What prompted the novel, people or environment?
Hay: I think the contrast between my environment in New York and my environment here might have prompted the book. In New York, we lived in a dark, cramped apartment, and it left me feeling claustrophobic and deprived of weather. Then we moved here and I'll never forget what a relief it was to be able to step outside without having to unlock three doors first.
OSCAR: Your characters have a firm basis in reality - none are absolutes or role models.
Hay: I wanted each of the characters to be a mixture of good and bad, appealing and unappealing. I didn't want to have a good sister and a bad sister, but to have two sisters who would make mistakes, and then have to struggle with the consequences of those mistakes. I wanted to follow their relationship over a long period of time, and watch them be frugal or extravagant in their emotional attachments.
Many readers have told me that they don't care for Maurice at all. I must say I understand his charm. And I always remind people that he was the only one who was the least bit interested in Norma Joyce when she was a girl.
OSCAR: Do you maintain total control over your characters, or do they run away with the story, as some authors have complained?
Hay: I heard Alistair MacLeod say that if a character tried to take charge, he'd kill him. My characters don't run away with the story. They keep me company as I work and we try to figure out the story together.
OSCAR: What can you tell me about your next book?
Hay: It's very different from The Student of Weather. It's a novel called Garbo Laughs and it's set in this neighbourhood around the time of the Ice Storm. Really, it's about movie love and movie lovers. It will be out in September.