Hugh Maclennan Lecture - Louise Penny

good evening ladies and gentlemen my man room I'm chair of McGill's Friends of the library je suis tres horas de música y SS suave ECR Siegen are known not conference Hugh MacLennan the Duhamel dis vid knew some cats our second caption he sees as well he only start ant comes some patience that evident cannot recover last year at is Potter number a Fidel knew some trivia the presentation at conference annual important area of active festival literal Metropolitan's blue a satiny avec la terra no mage Quebec Louise penny this is the third year of our partnership with blue metropolis the blue metropolis festival and we are particularly thrilled to have as our guest speaker tonight the critically acclaimed New York Times bestselling author Louise penny who has drawn this enormous crowd Louise promises to enthrall us all with her topic murder for a living the Hugh MacLennan lecture series was founded in 1992 by the Friends of the McGill library in honor of the great Canadian Governor General's Award winning novelist and McGill English professor Hugh MacLennan we would like to acknowledge the generous sponsorship for this lecture series of Donald Walcott please stand for us [Applause] your ongoing support of this literary event contributes greatly to the intellectual life of our university and arts community we thank you the Friends of the library our volunteer group of advocates who work to nurture community interest in the rich resources and services of McGill's library through public lectures and fundraising activities we are currently supporting Miguel's Fiat Lux library project to renovate and reimagine the red path McLennan library complex into a technologically relevant Learning Center with spaces and services appropriate to meet the evolving needs of our twentieth first century users why not join us in this exciting project by becoming a friend of the library if you aren't already there are sure I'm sure we have outside at the membership pamphlets outside in the lobby as your program indicates there will be a short question and answer period following our talk this evening followed by a book signing by Louise here at the table to my right books may be purchased if you don't have one with you just outside in the main entrance lobby I would now like to ask Cameron Charlevoix board chair for the met blue metropolis literary festival to the podium to say a few words of welcome [Applause] thank you and that's the N Mo's walton mound we presidents can say the laFonda so metropolis blue we say 0 VAR e ce soir a LAN say L'Ouverture dos de festival de terre metropolis blue serve in cm it's young so this is about wiener it's a soft launch if you will of the 20th blue metropolis festival words of welcome from blue metropolis from my colleague William st. today I was the CEO and myself who is chair of the board a few words on blue met you know we're known as a festival you hear us on the radio with Michael Enright with Eleanor Wachtel and and and many others but in addition blue metropolis is a foundation that seeks to do good in the world quite beyond what we achieve in the festival the festival has many good events like roots the roots project and so on but throughout the rest of the year we have projects we have programs that work on homophobia on inclusion on social social inclusion generally anti-bullying and so on so it's a broader enterprise than the festival but the festival is our flagship and that's going to be starting as I say tonight's the kind of soft launch and it's going to be starting next week in full force I really want to recognize the partnership we have with the Friends of the library and and Cecil and and and Janet who we miss and it's been a fantastic partnership and has been blossoming over the past couple of years and it's really fun tonight that we are here with Louise because I've got a little bit of a story I knew Louise before I was ever involved in literature and I think even before you were involved in literature it was shortly after your time at CBC when you were thinking of getting into literature and you were with Michael whitehead and we're doing a massive renovation project on Whitehead Street in Dorval am i right and ran into a few problems with a contractor so they found me to help them with that because I was in the real estate business at the time and so it was all going fairly well until I got a call one morning from Louise and said the whole place has burned down and that was the end of the cottage on whitehead and then Louise and Michael became residents of the Eastern Townships shortly after that because they said hmm maybe we're not gonna rebuild this thing maybe we're gonna go live happily ever after in the Eastern Townships but I wanted to show this because after that we decide with Louise and Michael to resolve the insurance claim on the house and we developed a friendship at that time and at the end of it as you moved away this was salvaged from the house it's a sugar mold a wood sugar mold that they gave me as a gift for the work we did together and it was really really touching and I've kept it for since then Louise and I want to share it with everybody it was a fantastic gesture so I know you on another level than your books which I've read many of and Katherine and I have stated hubby manner not that long ago for a couple of times so it's really it's fantastic to have you here so thank you all very much for being here and thanks again to the Friends of the library for this wonderful partnership and enjoy the evening thank you [Applause] the friends thought long and hard about who should do with the actual formal introduction of Luiz and we decided because there was so much criminal activity in her books that we really should bring somebody in from the sort of legal end of things so without further ado I now invite our Dean of the Faculty of Law Robert Leckie lucky to introduce the Leif [Applause] thank you very much Ann and I'm really thrilled to be here at the 2018 Hugh MacLennan lecture like thousands of other members of the McGill community I'm a regular user of the libraries and so I'm a big fan of the terrific work done by all the library staff under the leadership with the trend home Dean of libraries Colleen cook and a fan of and room the energetic and visionary chair of the Friends of the McGill library so Ann mentioned she wanted someone criminal and I'm here under false pretenses and contacted me simply to have one of my criminal law professors come and introduce Louise tonight instead I told her that I was such a fan of Louise and I was lucky enough to meet her at a birthday party last fall I told her I would like to introduce Louise myself now Ann was too polite to do anything other than accept so what you have with you tonight is a mere specialist in family law and constitutional law by night and the university administrator by day now you're in for tremendous treat tonight with Louise penny speaking to you on murder for a living she's the author of 13 novels featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache it's been mentioned what bestsellers they are it's astonishing that her books have been published in 30 countries and translated into 35 languages and they've won many awards and she's had a number of recognitions of her in 2017 alone she received the Order of Canada and the origin S&L du Quebec for her contributions to Quebec and Canadian culture now Louisa said that her books have as their guiding spirit what she called their spine a few lines from WH Auden gsella G to Melville goodness existed that was the new knowledge his terror had to blow itself quite out to see and she's spoken of her books as being about goodness and kindness about community and healing even though of course many dark things happen in them or Drive the action now it's extremely dangerous if not impolite to quibble with an author about the meaning of her works although in my field of law there's a widespread practice of treating with some suspicious the drafters suspicion the drafters interpretation of her own text thus it's not the legislators reading of the text that prevails but the judges a step removed from the creative process in any case I think Louise's books and she herself in her public life also embodied courage including the courage to speak openly about struggles and loss be it the drug addiction of her characters yongi or the death of her husband Michael and I believe the courage she shows to speak up open space for others as well to find their own space to speak up at times in marvelous ways and of course another remarkable feature of her novels as many of you will know is their indomitable richly textured female characters biet Myrna Clara who can revie or Ruth in any case it's time for me to close and to wish you the best of evenings in the company of Louise penny [Applause] look at you all this is wonderful we want to thank and of course and the Friends of the library I want to thank blue met I want to thank you Robert for that beautiful introduction and thank cam not only for the beautiful in your words but for your help here's what you did not tell people and I will tell you now because I know you won't tell anyone else the way we were in like big trouble with this with this property that we were renovating and and we called cam in because we knew that he would kneecap people and shortly after we called cam in the place burned down so actually the insurance people it was so fortuitous that this place burned down that they actually thought that we had done it so they started an arson investigation I think I know for heaven's sake you some of you here know Michael or knew Michael that my husband and you know you have to just he's like it's like saying that Winnie the Pooh burned something down it's just isn't gonna me maybe damn absolutely but you did you helped us hugely and I'm deeply forever grateful and had I wanna see you had that not happened because funny the way things are and I might talk about this a little bit later out the confluence of events that have to come together for something to happen but had that place not burned down we would not have moved into the Eastern Townships and I'm convinced that these books certainly would not take the form that they they are right now so these something that initially appeared to be the very worst thing I remember going out to the fire and it was in the middle of winter and the place was still in flames but those heroic firefighters were trying to - to put out the flames and so it was and I described it actually in the second book where a place burns down in the middle of winter and this otherworldly almost mystical fire and ice at the same time that everything was covered in ice but there were flames coming out of it it was the most extraordinary thing I'd seen so that's really how the beginning of how these books came about but I do also want to say that it's just incredible for me to be standing here in front of 450 people when I met someone earlier today who works at chapters and I said no and he had met me and I asked well when when did we meet and he said oh just feeeeel shortly after still-life came out and I remember that event do you know why I remember that event because he was the only one there yeah I cannot begin to tell you when I first I I had had I was late in life I might the first book didn't come out till I was well into my 40s and I had wanted to be a writer since I was eight so I had had almost 40 years to imagine what it would be like to have a first book out and I have quite an active imagination that and first of all of course it was necessary to write the book which I will get into later how that came about but once once written I would lie in the bathtub and I would practice my interview with Oprah we would of course become best friends and she would fly me to her estates in her private jet and then I would have to unfriend her on Facebook we get a little cloying and but it would start with this interview I thought everything would be go good question Oprah and I would imagine what a book tour would look like and it would include of course private jets and and hotel suites penthouse suites and and millions of people and so that was about a week before still-life actually came out the first book and I still hadn't heard from the publisher and I thought well he's probably busy setting up this amazing tour so I called him up and I said mr. Martin I'm ready for my tour and he said who is this and I said well it's Louise penny and he said well nobody it's your first book nobody is gonna come out to see you nobody it's a debut they don't even know who you are and I thought now that doesn't sound right that just can't be true so I hung up the phone and I said to Michael do you know what we need to do is we need to take the entire advance for still life and with it we will buy lunch and over that lunch we will discuss sending me on tour I think god bless him he said yeah that sounds like a good idea so we went off to McDonald's and we organized we organized this tour went all over North anyone who would have us we went to and the publisher was right I heard the word if nobody showed up if nobody showed up it was humiliating but it was a private humiliation there was no one no witnesses and we could almost pretend it didn't happen you know like this the tree falls in the wood if it all 3 speaks to nobody it doesn't happen and I couldn't we can go up for dinner afterward and say well thank God this is all part of the long-range plan who wants readers at a book tour anyway the worst that happens is when one person shows up right sitting right where dawn is always takes the front row and they don't know that they're alone right you can see the moment when they do for you figure it out but it's too late now because there I'm up here they're sitting there we're staring at each other and frankly we both wish that they would just die so that was not just the first book the second book was like that too it was a slow grind slow hard grind and I did not as I said I had thought that it would be right out of the gate but it wasn't it was it took a long time for it to happen and I know that there you know there's a wonderful quote from Lester Mike Pearson's wife who was herself quite a character he was out she would go with him on on his campaigns political campaigns and he would at the end of one speech quite quite famously he asked if anyone would like to bring anything up and she said yes the last five cups of coffee but she also quite famously said that but behind every successful man there stands a surprised woman and I have to say behind me there are a whole bunch of surprised people myself included I think there are a lot of my friends here tonight who are thinking now how did she get up there but I want to do is tell you a little bit about how it happened how how I came to this beautiful night tonight and it is Monnaie daeun as a woman who loves reading and always has it's a fan of Hugh MacLennan as a writer it is an immense honor to be giving the MacLennan lecture so I want to thank you again for for inviting me but there's a far side cartoon which I love the far side do you'd like the far side my favorite cartoon and I actually got this on a t-shirt for Michael I was actually a sweatshirt and it's a cartoon of two scientists and they're side by side on at a blackboard and on one side there is a formula and then there's a blank spot and then on the other side there is the the conclusion I'm the one scientist is saying to the other I think he's pointing to the blank spot think you have to be a little bit more specific about this because in the blank spot the guy is written between formula and conclusion and then a miracle occurs and Michael who is a doctor and a scientist loved that and I love it and that's what I think when I think of my life wanting to write dreaming of it and then getting to here how does that happen I work as hard as anyone else but there are people who work harder who are in fact more gifted and I often think the key is and then a miracle occurred and generally when people ask how did it happen and I'll say well it's hard work and it's it's lock in its inspiration and meeting the right people and all of that is absolutely true but I very rarely tell people the other half of the story the miracle and I'll but I'll tell you that tonight what happened and in order to do that though I have to go back to to my childhood which make it sound like I'm going to be talking forever which I might fortunately for you it's riveting as I said I wanted to be a writer since the age of 8 and I could still feel the the the bedspread underneath me when I was I was reading Charlotte's Web but I was a very fearful child I was afraid of everything I was afraid of heights I was afraid of holes I was afraid of the sunshine of the nighttime I was really afraid of other children and the only place I ever wanted to be was in my bedroom reading and I have to say there's still my favorite place and my favorite thing to do Michael used to call me a horizontal list spend most of my day trying to get my feet horizontal preferably on bed with a with a with a book so I was in the bedroom reading of course that I was reading Charlotte's Web the thing that I was most afraid of in the world my cardinal fear were spiders I don't think I'm alone in that certainly not unusual for a child it's possible I was also a fairly slow child because I was about halfway through Charlotte's Web before I think it actually sunk in that Charlotte was a spider not to be fair to my eight-year-old self I'm thinking I may be not quite that thick but I think what happened in that moment and and it was a seminal moment for me was that I realized that I loved Charlotte and I didn't want anything bad to happen to her and for a child whose entire day was prescribed by the least fearful thing to do in that instant my main fear was lifted and for me that was a miracle that was the first recorded miracle in my life of what I now see is actually many and I understood that it was because of the power of storytelling it was the power of the word and from that moment on I think I always would have been a life long dedicated reader because because of what what books what stories can bring to our lives the richness they bring to our lives far beyond the story itself but if reading was that powerful can you imagine how powerful writing would be so I wanted to be a writer from that moment on now I as a fearful child I became a slightly less fearful teen and and slightly less fearful adult but I was still fairly fearful and as I said I was I was I pretty much afraid of everything and I think one of the main things I became afraid of was failure I was afraid to try to write in case the one thing I always wanted to be I couldn't be I was like Waiting for Godot where someone of the subtext is maybe it's better to not try out the dream because if you fail then you lose not only the dream but you lose that that version of yourself so I took the ancillary route and became went to the CBC became a journalist and loved it I had just the best time and I think again that was one of those things that could have appeared to be a sideline but actually really fed so perfectly into the books odd the books would not be what they are today had I not had years at CBC to travel around to try to understand the the the French aspirations the English pain how the two come together the the politics the the culture and also the the healing that has happened and the forgiveness that has to happen on a political level but also and I'm for me a more profound level I I you know I know a lot of you probably saw me or listen to me on radio and so you know I listen I interviewed a lot of politicians and a lot of people in the news heard a lot of people screaming at each other what I remember most aren't the screams it's not the fights it's not even I mean I remember of course the referendums which are heartbreaking it was just soul destroying for everybody I think everybody came away from from them just seared no matter what side of the debate you were on remember most are the unexpected moments and there's one woman in particular I interviewed who's whose daughter had been killed and she said that she had forgiven the killer and I remember to this day looking at her and being so in awe that I couldn't think of the next thing that this after five ten seconds of silence alarms start going literally alarms start going off at the CBC and I'm sure alarms were going off and they were going off in my head because you have to say something say something to this woman but what do you say after that but to this day and that's why so much of my books are about they're about murder but they are about forgiveness and the power of forgiveness and I know that it's possible because but because I myself have feel that I could do it but because I've witnessed it firsthand and that's what I strive for in the books but I became as I say a journalist and I III I started drinking I don't know why I hesitate I mean you talked about this before and it is something that I feel important to talk about it's especially in terms of of how I got here and why the themes of the books are so important to me but I I I became so afraid and so isolated that the only way out for me and the only way I felt natural and normal was to drink it was my solution to the problems and I know what you're thinking you're thinking so she had this huge problem and she found a solution how smart is she not so smart so I drank myself to the point where I was so isolated and so lonely but I couldn't show anyone that I had to keep up the veneer the veneer of success that I had a great job I have a house that I own I have lots of fictional friends that I make up not the friends in the books this was way before that and so I I I created this false life this veneer and inside the shinier the veneer the harder it was the higher it was the more success I projected the hollower I became until finally I just I couldn't stand myself anymore and I thought I was gonna kill myself I know he thought I was gonna kill myself I I was 35 and I could not imagine living another 35 years the way I was it was loneliness that brought me to my knees and I knew something had to change and what and this was the next miracle in my life was that instead of being the willful person I had been all my life making up my own decisions which had brought me to the brink of of self-loathing I reached out and asked for help and that has been a key in my life is not to be afraid to ask for help I asked for help and help was there in the form of a 12-step program and I went from that first meeting of a a I went from in a church basement not far from here I and this was 23 years ago I went from wanting to die and unable to stop drinking to wanting to live in one meeting in one hour and from that moment on I have not had another drink it has been the process of course thank you that's why I'm I'm just the it breaks my heart when people can't ask for help and when they they take that final irreversible step because I know I was on the verge of it I knew the best was behind me I knew it at the age of 35 I knew it and Here I am today the best I couldn't even imagine how great my life was about to become and within a year I not only was well on the way while I was sober but it's a process as you know ongoing process but I had met Michael within and within a couple of years we were married within five years I had started writing the books within seven years I was on that terribly unsuccessful book tour and I honestly could have had a drink would have been nice but you just you just don't know what's around the corner you don't know and just if you can hang on if you can ask for help and I know that I'm not the only person who's been through this so that was that was one of the miracles the other thing that had to happen and there are a number of them and I won't go into them now and I do want to open it up for questions what's it I was at CBC Michael and I were were getting married and he said the most wonderful thing Michael was the the chief of hematology at the Montreal Children's Hospital and just a lovely lovely man brilliant brilliant man but he said he saw me coming home one day after the referendum and he said if you would like to quit work in order to write a book that book I know you've always wanted to write what he said next was almost as good as the first time he said I love you almost as good he said I will support you I will support you I know isn't that beautiful and I have friends who are men and women who are creative who are brave I can see the difference we can all see the difference between those who have a supportive partner and those who don't and the line support often isn't outright insults it's the sly look it's the knowing smile it's its tape the treating them as though it's a hobby it's it's the patronizing attitude that we all feel michael never did any of that but thank God when he said I'll support you he meant financially we I can't tell you for how many years after I started writing and even after the books came out when we would go at this time of year to the accountant and we'd go over everything in the accountant would look up over his reading glasses at me he said how long do you think you will be a tax deduction Michael Michael did and that was that was huge for me then I suffered five years of writer's block so the poor man right I quit work and I may have even told people at the CBC on-air that I was quitting work not just to write a book but to write the best book ever which turned out to be a mistake because then people some of you perhaps for years would come up to me on the streets of West Mount where we had a place at the time and ask how's the book going dear now working the CBC I I learned how to lie so I would invariably say it's going very well thank you for asking what really had to happen there were a few things that had to happen to break that and again I I see them all as miraculous you know you may not I don't care we moved out into the country I think that was necessary to be honest I don't know why but I don't think I could have done it in Montreal we moved into the Eastern Townships again in just by great good fortune we found a place and a community that welcomed us it felt like they had always kept a seat at the table for us I fell in with a group of women who are extremely creative and they asked me to join them and each of them was I was gonna say successful they're participating in their own field which would have which was dance and and and visual arts and poetry playwriting and they were all actually doing it and I wasn't so I had to say think I'm so glad you asked me to join you but I'm not actually a writer and they said well or I'm not writing and they said well do you consider yourself a writer and I said yes and they said well nobody else gets to define you you say you're a writer your writer you're welcome at the table they were so generous and I got to see we would sit around and they would talk about their process wouldn't ask for advice necessarily or sometimes they did advice was never offered we just listened to each other and I got to listen to how they got to where they needed to be how they created the the challenges they had because I thought that you had to start writing and every word had to be perfect it had to be not only right from the beginning but perfect from the beginning which was paralyzing and I saw that each of them it was a process and that they would try something and it would fail and they'd go down that road and try another road and try another road until it felt right and then I was invited to their art shows and their Verna Sascha's and their there their dance recitals and their music concerts and I saw huge successes but I was saw things that really by any standards probably did not work but you know what they still got up out of bed but their clothes on walk down Main Street magnificent we all want to be successful of course but what I learned from them that whatever happened the night before whatever the judgment of others was it did not affect them that the trying and not succeeding wasn't gonna kill them the not trying would and that's where I was I wasn't even trying and I understood then that I had to at least try and that this the idea of failure was would be in someone else's eyes not mine the last thing that had to happen was it again sitting on the bed preparing to become the horizontal list I looked at the bedside table this is so embarrassing because it's so so obvious it's so self-evident I looked at the bedside table and like most of you I suspect my to be red list is small see Catholic it is fiction it's nonfiction it's speculative fiction it's all it's it's literary fiction oh and and but very well represented it was crime fiction and I got it at that instant that aha moment of that's what I should be writing the other thing I understood in that moment was that the judgment of others my fear of the judgment of others not it wasn't even so much the fear of failure it was the fear of this of not succeeding that I needed that applause from others and that's why I needed to write the best book ever and that's what was paralyzing me I needed to write a book that my mother would love that my brothers would finally think I wasn't a complete that the professors would applaud that my former colleagues even better would be jealous of that the woman who voices the GPS would be recalculating but it was always someone else had to give me it was approval that I yearned for all of my life I didn't realize I hadn't put it all together until I was as I said well into my 40s but then I got it all I needed to do was write a book for me not for anyone else a book I would read that's it the contract with my eight-year-old self wasn't that the book be brilliant not even that the book be any good not even that the book be published just that it be finished and then if it wasn't published I would have some disappointments but I would have no regrets and that was the last thing that had to fall into place and I went right down to the kitchen table and I drew a map of Three Pines and I create and I still have it it's in my study and I like the first thing I created was the bookstore because what's the most important thing in any community it's the storytelling it's the books so it's the bookstore very hard on that was the Bistro because you have to have somewhere to read the books and then the bakery just in case the bistro runs out of questons if you always need a plan B and so on so I created this this village I would love to live in I people did with characters I would choose as friends and then the final element was Gamache the main character and III sort of thought I had heard that Agatha Christie had grown weary of Akhil Paro I don't know if that was true or not you may have heard it as well and I thought that's so sad that the whole world loved this character except his mother and then she apparently found him kind of banal that he didn't evolve he didn't grow up but Frank I don't think you can blame Poirot for that but she grew tired of him and I thought now I don't want that to happen if I am lucky enough to be published I thought how am I gonna make sure that I don't grow tired of my main character I I thought I know I will create a character I would marry and I thought you know I started writing the books and I'm feeling very proud of myself very good about myself and I went down to breakfast one day Michael was there and he was talking about world peace or something damn I didn't create this man I transcribed him Michael what's good mash the books they say they're there about many many things least among them is murder at least among them is death they're about life they're about choices they're about duality that that public veneer and what's actually happening inside the gap between what we say and what we're really thinking between how we feel what we think and how we feel that that duality between the beautiful intentionally idyllic village of Three Pines and and what is happening behind the closed doors that we don't see between the that we think we know what someone is thinking when in fact we actually don't and it is such a such folly to believe that we do so the books are about that but they are as Robert was saying even more than that they are about kindness the courage to be kind I know from my life having lived a number of years in despair having been very cynical and sarcastic very dark and not liking that about myself I understand now how much courage it takes to be kind how easy it is to find fault doesn't take any great skill it takes no skill at all to find something wrong with someone we can all do that it takes so much courage and and so much character to be kind to be good especially when the flaws are so obvious to choose the other route and people ask me sometimes in fact quite often whether Three Pines exists and where they could find it in fact fairly early on we would get emails or messages from people from all over the world act it was kind of it was kind of shocking and they say we're coming to Quebec and we'd like to stay in Three Pines could you tell you know give us the coordinates so I'd say to Michael you know what we're gonna have to open up a B&B and one of us is gonna be Olivier and one's gonna be Gabourey so you get you get to choose but what I what I do tell people is is I know people this isn't what they want to hear it's the Three Pines exists in ways that I think are much more meaningful than a physical place that I think of three and I genuinely do think of three Pines Pines is an allegory three Pines is a state of mind Three Pines exists for me when I choose to be kind when I choose to be decent when I choose a path of integrity and I don't always but I now I know when I'm when I am beyond the pale I know when I've left the village in my heart and I can always find my way back and so I carry three Pines with me no matter where I am whether I am in the townships whether I'm in in Barcelona or New York or anywhere and when I am feeling down and I'm feeling sad and I'm feeling empty and lonely I can visit Three Pines because I can think of I can I can do some good I can do something decent for someone else and then I can get back there and that's it's an amazing thing to to create this this this entity for one reason and then to have a whole other unexpected reason take over and when Michael was he was diagnosed with dementia a few years ago and then it got worse and we sold the main house and moved into Knowlton into a condo where it was everything was on one level because by then he was in a wheelchair and he really wasn't able to communicate very well and and I promised him I would keep him at home which we were very lucky to be able to do and most people can't do that I don't know how some people do it I'm in awe of caregivers but I was lucky to have be surrounded by loving neighbors and friends and and have the financial support the financial wherewithal to be able to do it but I I I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to write anymore because I would be exhausted and overwhelmed because Michael was Gamache but I found that instead of of of losing Gamache I found a whole other other aspect to him so I would get up in the morning I'd look after Michael and then I would I would lean down I'd tell him I loved him and tell him how brave he is and and and what a fine a husband he is all those and how much he's loved and then I would go down the hallway and I would start writing and I would get back into three pines where goodness exists and where my terror could blow itself quite out and it did and I'm so grateful to Michael I am so grateful to the universe for all of these gifts I am I am grateful to be standing here today in front of more than one person and to be giving the Hugh MacLennan lecture to be talking to all of you tonight I'll tell you I wish my eight-year-old self I wish my 12 year old self wish my 35 year old self could have known this but of course had they then I probably wouldn't be here today they want to thank you profoundly for this evening and I'd like to open it up now for questions if any of you have questions [Applause] yes yes so we have a microphone over there do we have another one over there yes and the only thing I would ask or a couple of things is some people tend to make statements rather than ask questions now if your statement is how wonderful I am that's fine but anything other than that refrain and if you ask or when you ask a question if you could try not to have any spoilers you know why did so-and-so was the killer so on and some people ask those not realizing what they're doing so it because we'd have to close the door and kill you of course and I know how sadly clearly I have no idea how to get away with it since they're always caught what did I come over here and then I'll do you hi um you have a spectacular relationship with Berlocq books and Danny and Lucy and I'm wondering could you just talk a little bit about the evolution from when really nobody knew you to what it is now which is amazing yeah Romek books is the local book store in in Knowlton and they hosted the first event for me where again you know it was it was family and friends and and and clearly that was that was all but they kept at it and they kept at it and they have been supportive all the way along they are remarkable people they are really the heart the hub of that community and their young family they did this while raising three sons as well and now the boys come out and I knew them when they were born and now the boys come out and they help lug the books and and whatnot but you know bricks and mortar stores we have to have like paragraph we have to support those bricks and mortar stores it's it's vital thank you hi my name is Melissa Yee thank you so much for coming thank you I have a big question which is the miracle yes I need the middle blackboard how did you get from your one to two people coming or zero people coming to your event - 450 people well I sort of hope I answered that in the talk did I it was always a series of miracles it was not wasn't just one big one it was being able to ask for help it was getting sober it was meeting Michael and falling in love it was having Michaels say that he would support me it was meeting this group of women who you know had I not met they called the girls and we got together once a month and had I not met them I don't think I would have found the courage to to start writing to understand that that it's not about failure it's about the trying that matters I think that was the miracle was okay but if I could just ask that's how you got to your fertile writing right right but then how did I get to so successful yes well because I'm very good [Applause] actually I will answer that in there was another kind of miracle actually that did happen and there is there's because I've chug along and work and work and work and there was a growth there was but it was it was not huge but we were getting their little by little the books were much bigger in the States and they ever were in Canada they were on the New York Times bestseller list before they even made The Globe and Mail list but when I was working and working away at it and then the fifth book which is the brutal telling was chosen by Barnes & Noble the biggest chain in the United States to be there Barnes & Noble recommends for that season and I remember getting that phone call you know you you can remember some things that the where you were that that moment and I remember getting that phone call I was in Montreal at the apartment we kept apartment here for a long time getting the phone call from the publisher to say they chose you I knew it was down to three books and that they would choose mine seemed unlikely because I was Canadian wasn't hugely successful yet so on but they chose the brutal telling and that that made all the difference it didn't didn't explode a man didn't sell a million write right off the bat but it lifted it to a whole other level and it got a recognition that it wouldn't normally have had so that was that was that miracle yes I was wondering if you had a plan for how many books there might be no I what I don't plan to do is stop writing so I think we'll leave that up to the universe as well you know after Michael died I plan to take a year off because I thought I just can't anymore I just I just need to regroup I need to take a deep breath in I need to reconnect with my friends I was exhausted and and I was sad about Gamache and I thought maybe I had lost him and so I took a couple of months off I told the publisher there wouldn't be a book this this particular year then I realized after a few months that I love writing and I love Three Pines and I love the characters and and and that Michael might be gone but in Gamache he is eternal he is immortal so I get to visit with Michael every day when I write so it was that was that's how a book this year ended up coming out and they'll be a book next year and next year God willing it's my neighbor I have a statement which I hope you'll allow I've read all your books and I think they're wonderful and I'm so glad to hear you're gonna keep writing but there are things that surprised me about your books you know how the main characters you expect will always be there will always do the right thing and then you do have main characters that become the bad guy yeah or they get murdered I mean have you ever regretted murdering anyone no I I have no conscience at all no no I but it's an interesting question because some carrots some series books authors Janet Evanovich furs and some others kill off main characters Elizabeth George and and the the readership just never really quite recovers from that and I I think what they're trying to do and I'm very aware of this as well is that when you're writing a seer and you're writing essentially the same characters in pretty much the same location all the time you don't want to be writing the same book over and over again by mistake you don't want to fall into into it becoming rote and predictable so what you do is you start evolving the characters and that's why for me it's really important that that the themes be different in every book and that people understand that no character is sacrosanct anything could could happen except to the doc but just you know any that because it's because that's life isn't it and that's why the books aren't you know that they're not funny they're not human but they're that there are elements of humor there are elements of police procedural they're elements of traditional like Agatha Christie there's poetry there are I hope literary elements to it because that's what our life is I remember being at my mother's funeral and laughing not not because it was a human but because something had struck me as funny and that's life in from moment to moment with Michael we laughed so much and then cry and then laugh again and then then didn't count our blessings and that's what a normal life is like and that's what I try I hope I try to bring to the books is that that these people and their lives are believable and the reactions are believable yes hi thank you so much for doing this my question is you said you did a lot of reading when you were young and you were CBC journalist so you've had a lot of contacts if somebody wanted to write but hadn't had all that background what would you say to them well it depends on what stage of the writing I would say again just write a book that you yourself would read it's what I would say to them don't worry about being published no genuinely do not worry about being published okay but if if that person has already written the book how to get it the next stage there are I I ended up getting published because I had entered contest and and I didn't win the contest but it came to the attention of a literary agent who then took me on so just go to go to literary conferences meet authors meet agents send out queries to everybody mostly agents you have to get an agent first really these days I have I was saying to someone earlier who was an emerging writer and I was saying that that in front of me I write on the the dining table and in front of me I have a big poster across the room on the wall and on it is the the last words of the Irish poet Seamus Heaney and on his deathbed he said to his wife Noli to marry which means be not afraid and I look at that every day and I say be not afraid you can do this so that's what I would suggest so I found through reading your books I learned a lot about Canadian history art and culture and I guess I wouldn't have expected that for me a book about crime so I'm wondering if you could talk about the importance of art in your life and how you work it into your writing and inspiration in your stories yeah are you an artist I was a dancer oh really art visual arts a the paintings and whatnot which do play quite a role i I live in or lived for many years with Michael in Sutton Quebec which has the highest per capita representation of artists apparently in Canada it's this it's it's like this this microclimate of artists it's an it's an amazingly creative space so that helps I met a lot of artists Michael my husband's grandfather was an artist so we have a lot of that and Michael himself was it was a gifted artist but art wasn't part of the conversation in my family growing up at all I mean we practically had you know dogs playing poker on the on the literature was but but not art it wasn't till I met Michael and Michael when we traveled we would always go to the great galleries he would look I swear to God he'd looked at every picture and I'm like they're just they're just in the way on the way to the gift shop I would I and he would explain to me why and why it was so great and I just I would listen I would try I God knows I tried and I tried and I just couldn't get there it would never mean as much to me as it as it meant to Michael then one day I was stepping back waiting for him to finish looking at the hundredth picture and if one of those aha moments again where I realized that for me the the art wasn't and the masterpiece wasn't what was on the wall it was watching Michael appreciating it and if you notice in the books I rarely really described the art in great detail to sort of in broad strokes and let the readers fill in the rest of it the details but what I talk about are the emotional reactions of people to the books because of to the art because that's what I understand and that's what I got from Michael the other thing that happened in my own life was oddly enough for this family where art was not part of the conversation after my father left my mother and we went from being really affluent to nothing and my mother had to go out to work and and we had no money we had nothing wait we would eat peanut butter sandwiches and she came home with the first paycheck and we thought oh meat on the table tonight and she said no come on I'm gonna take you somewhere and we thought restaurant dinner great burgers if we got on the bus and we went down and we went the same route she walked to work every day she passed an art gallery and with this she took her her first check she took us and we went into the gallery and with it she bought a work of art the work of art she passed every day on her way to work and she said now you must remember that that there is a place beauty in your life and you need to value that and after she died and we all got to put twos one thing it was the one thing I chose of moms and I still have it that piece of piece of art that was a long answer I dare someone to ask another question before I asked my question your comment about winning a contest reminded me some about something about 50 years ago I to entered a contest from a comic book with you if you drew pinky the dog you could go to art school sure there are others who drew pinky the dog and did you try well it was a scam to get my parents to pay for art school but anyway the question is is who do you like to read and what are you reading now and are there mystery writers that you do read or you don't we taste rewriters I the only sadness in a career that has far outstripped anything I had a right to expect is that I can no longer read my contemporaries because I'm just I'm afraid of having it influenced what I'm writing and I'm not sure if that's even legitimate anymore I think it was at the beginning but I just don't want to run that risk so I don't I read some of my friends if they ask me to read their books and with a view to endorsing them I will but I don't voluntarily read the other reason I don't really read them anymore is that it's a bit like work for me now and that when I'm reading something that's really good I'm trying to figure out why it's really good if it's not working I try to figure out and I like to read for relaxation and for pleasure so right now I'm reading with some I would I would recommend I love and Cleves for instance her her Varys series and her Shetland series brilliant and she's also a good friend Lisa scottoline II is a genius Peter Robinson of course he's great yeah I'm now reading an Australian writer nonfiction Helen Gardner Joe sink searching quiz consolation it's about a murder trial that happened it's nonfiction though thank you you spoke eloquently about living but you really didn't say anything about murder and I'm just wondering if you could say your thoughts on the subject and the various forms that can take metaphorically or otherwise yes yes well there is character assassination that that we've all been seeing recently and that it's so easy to do it is so easy to do isn't it to undermine someone else with just a word I think I think my thoughts on murder are probably similar to yours that that it is a line that can never be uncrossed that there are many many things in our lives we can undo by making a profound and sincere amend you can never make an amend for murder III what interests me isn't the act itself but how a human being gets to that stage where killing someone is the answer and I what I want to know is what's the question if that's the answer and that's what I struggle in the book to try to understand what happens to someone Gamache believes and probably not coincidentally so do i that murder is is about unless it's a someone just off the cuff and just loses it it's it's it's about an emotion that has gone rancid that something something has hurt someone so badly that they have that it has that is it just turned rotten inside them that eaten them out inside out and become almost inhuman and that that's led to murder so those are my thoughts but can you ever can you foresee a situation ever where it's justified yeah I can i I think we all can you know where I don't know that others would agree that it would would be justified I think most people who kill think they're justified in doing it but yes I could see the circumstances under which I would I would commit murder thank you do we take can we take one more yes hi I love one of my favorite books if not the favorite was bury your dead that was set in Quebec City and the Anglophone community there partly because some of my family came from Quebec City so can you talk a little bit about what was the inspiration behind setting that book in Quebec City great I won't talk very long because we are going a little long but I worked in Quebec City for many years loved Quebec City had been invited back to do an interview and I think I was writing the third or fourth book at that stage and I think I had forgotten how spectacular the city was and it was it was at carnival that Michael and I went back for this interview just for a day or so and I thought I have to set a book here I want one of the great joys of writing and having an international audience is that these books have become love letters to where I live to the smaller community of the Eastern Townships and to my friends but to Quebec where I have found a home I could live anywhere I choose to live in Quebec I'm an Anglo from outside of Quebec but I choose to live here because I found a home here so I wanted to I love being able to transmit my passion for this place to others around the world and we're better than Quebec City which is such richness but when I was trying to figure out what to do when I was there as a journalist there was I don't know if any of you remember the archaeologist rené lévesque no not not the premier which was very confusing because there is the premier of course Rennie Levesque and at the same time there was this kinda goofy archaeologist amateur archaeologist who's he was monomaniacal in his passion for wanting to find Champlain because we don't know where Champlain is buried which seems incredible when I tell that to Americans like Wow what do you mean you don't know you've lost the founder how can you lose the founder I mean we know they know where everybody's everybody's varied except Jimmy Hoffa so they're completely baffled by that but I thought that's that's a great story so that that informed the main plot for bury your dead so thank you so much for coming out I would like I would like to ask Kate Williams a dedicated board member the friends the library to come up and give a formal thank-you to Louise Budi school I'm quite honored as a member of the board of the Friends of the library to be able to say thank you and I have a confession to make I am on a clandestine mission which I haven't told the library about I'm here also to represent the town of Sutton the other town that what we listen Knights like to think of as the true heart of true Three Pines I won't say that we are jealous of Knowlton even though that's where Louise penny now lives and where the wonderful bookstore has a dedicated reading nook dedicated to her her knee in her name but I want to say that if you ever hear about hills or mountains or anything like that it's our town that she's talking about that's a thing about Louise penny everybody wants to clean her she really is somebody worth claiming and tonight she's transcended the specific geography of time and place and character and she has invited us into this world that she by talking about her background and shedding light on your personal experiences have really brought us all together into one as you say healing and one community so I want to thank you for making each one of us feel as though we are citizens and neighbors of Three Pines [Applause] thank you thank you so much and yes I'm very happy to sign any books [Applause] thank you much very very much Louise thank you all for coming I hope you've enjoyed the evening from the Friends of library I encourage you to join so that you'll be first to hear about anything we have coming up I will tell you that our next lecture will be this coming September where we have McGill principal emeritus Bernard Shapiro coming to talk on campus on the topic of freedom of speech on university campuses it promises to be a riveting evening so Louise penny as she has mentioned will be signing more books over here on the right so please line up in an orderly fashion and get your books on thank you very much for tool [Applause]

Channel: McGill University

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Length: 68min 47sec (4127 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 19 2018