DANIELA KELLOWAY

On a sun-drenched Sunday evening last weekend, over 20 guests met in the Barlow Room in The Royal Annex for the first in a new series of lectures and appearances by authors, artists and historians, the product of a partnership between The Royal, House of Anansi Press and Books & Company.

The audience in the Barlow room at The Royal Annex. (Daniela Kelloway for the Gazette)

The room is full of chatter, each guest holding a copy of The Librarianist, by critically acclaimed, bestselling author Patrick deWitt, who was hot off an appearance at the Kingston Writers Fest that morning.

As Books & Company’s David Sweet, who introduced the author, put it, the series will, “bring collaborations that spark interest and creativity.”

The conversation was moderated by author, professor and CountyFM radio DJ Ken Murray. A signed copy of deWitt’s newly released novel, The Librarianist, was included in the $45 ticket price. A portion of each ticket sold was donated to the Picton Public Library.

de Witt has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and the Scotiabank Giller Prize. He won the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and  his career includes the bestsellers The Sisters Brothers and French Exit, both made into Hollywood movies. Born in B.C., deWitt now calls Portland, Oregon home. This was his first time in the County.

His latest novel was inspired by time he spent volunteering at Murray Smith Centre, a seniors’ centre in Portland. He read to the inmates and chatted with them regularly. This is when the notion of writing a book centred around a 71-year old character came to him.

“To sit with them and to hear their stories and understand the depth and breadth of their experience, I kept coming back to the idea, why aren’t we using the collective stories of the seniors of our society? I don’t know why. Young people are the focus in all the arts. We don’t give the seniors of our society their due,” says deWitt, to an audience nodding their heads in agreement.

The international success of Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club series, which features a group of 80-somethings in an English retirement village who start to solve crimes together, suggests an overlooked demographic: retired readers, not to mention comedy lovers. Both The Librarianist and the Thursday series are extremely funny.

deWitt spent three and a half years writing the novel. When asked about his process, he smiles, and gives a glimpse into his everyday, “I write in the morning with coffee, and then at night I take a hit of weed and I look at what I did that morning and then I fiddle with it.” He chuckles and adds, “Ideas come and then in the morning I wake up with a coffee and I look at the mess that the stoned person wrote, and I try to clean it up.”

For his part, the author was pleased to discover Picton.

“I just walked up and down the street. I went to the bookstore, it’s an excellent bookstore. I was really impressed with the titles they have there, obviously the people working there are very serious readers. That is so important for any community to have. Access to work of that calibre.”

“Just to see that this many people came out to listen to somebody talk about a book they haven’t necessarily read yet, is really promising and speaks to a healthy curiosity and a gameness to take part, which is very important in any community.”

“I can get a sense of optimism and growth here. It’s a place I’d like to investigate more and get to know better.”

Bloomfield resident and brewery owner, Steph Vandermeulen of Dune Hopper Brewing, was thrilled to  meet one of her favourite authors.

“I love his writing, I’ve read all his books and I love everything he has written. I did meet him before in Toronto at a breakfast event.”

“An event like this allows us to have a little piece of things that mostly only cities get, we get to be a part of it now. Arts and culture are here.”

The next In Conversation With features local historian Peter Lockyer and a photo retrospective of the Royal before it was rebuilt.

The Librarianst is available for purchase at Books & Company.