Questions for Shandi Mitchell?

[JeniferKAllison]

This reminded me of something my son and I do, in the spring after the rain when the earthworms come out on the side walk, and then the sun comes out and the worms 'fry'; my son was sad for the worms.  So on our walks he would 'rescue' any worm on the sidewalk not yet fried by moving it to the grass.

Quoting Zeal: 

Shandi,

I had a moment such as this with my children.  My daughter was very interested and enthralled by an earthworm on the pavement.  She was crouched down studying it and its movements when my son, then two, came along and stomped on it, saying "Dead!"  My daughter was horrified and cried.

[literature]

Hi Shandi,

Eating breakfast this morning, I'm rereading the Fall section, page 151, where Anna goes outside to feed the coyote.  "She wasn't paying attention as she approached the twisted poplulars.  She was looking at the charred trunks to the left, wondering why the hollow had escaped the flames."  I was thrilled to find this mention.  I don't get any Kudos because I read the book straight through.  Why, because I was addicted.  I just wish I had more time to start the book over again from the beginning but I will do that on my next airflight.

literature wrote:

Because I hung on every word you wrote, a noticed a repetition of words, phrases and/or expressions that you used that would set the stage for something later on.  You mentioned "in the crook of the two twisted trees" a number of times and I was sorry that I hadn't noted under which circumstances you used them each time.  Then, at the end, it becomes an important place for Teodor. I wonder if you put clues there each time for us leading up to Teodor's final act.

Message Edited by rkubie on 08-05-2009 02:10 PM

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Dear Literature,

Thank you Literature. Wonderful questions! I will answer one now and return to the others later. 

My screenwriting background influences my prose writing. In film, you have so little time to tell the story (90-120 minutes) that whatever you include you want it to inform and/or advance the story either through plot, emotion, theme, or character. I think I bring this style to fiction writing. The two trees do appear several times and/or are referenced by various characters: Anna, Katya, Myron, Teodor, even the coyotes. I am intrigued by the lives that played out around these trees.

I remember once listening to someone argue that only contemporary society romanticizes nature and the woods. They argued that in the past, the woods were feared. Settlers didn’t wander off into the woods for calming, meditative walks. The woods represented the wild. The unknown. Interesting idea. 

[dhaupt]

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Shandi-Mitchell wrote:

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dhaupt wrote: 

It astonishes me how cruel the past governments were to the very people responsible for creating those countries of today and it's always astonished me to find out that everything I read in school in text books and history books were often either false or didn't include enough of a "real history" for the students to really know the truth. That's how it was in the US growing up and I wondered if growing up in Canada was any different or did you know your family history from a young age. 

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RESEARCH

There have been a number of questions regarding research and how I moved from historical research into the fictional world and where my personal family history fits in. If I was technologically savvy, I would string all your posts together. But alas, I am not. Instead, I will try to answer by chatting about my research process and hope I touch upon a number of your questions.

 

When I turned eighteen, I learned a couple facts about my grandfather’s life. (I will share them at the end of this book club session) Those facts would frame the story and become my starting point and end point. I never met my grandfather. My grandmother didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak Ukrainian. I knew nothing of her life. She died when I was sixteen. There were no family stories passed along.

Initially, I began my research for personal reasons to learn about my family’s past. But along the way, I became intrigued with other forgotten stories.  The history lessons I had been taught in school did not resemble the stories I was discovering. Research led me to a time and place I did not know. I began to wonder if I could have survived those times or would I have broken in a land of freedom? I suppose this was the first seed of the story. 

During the course of my research I discovered newspaper clippings and medical examiner reports. It is a haunting experience to reach back in time.  I also read first person accounts of the 1930s in Canada and America.  I looked at many, many photographs. They were a great inspiration.  I read about Ukraine and the famine. I went into virtual archives containing thousands of photographs of the famine. I read personal accounts by survivors. I watched films documenting the times. I drew from every part of my own life experience and offered it to my characters.

My research process is rather odd.  Initially it is very general.  I try to understand the atmosphere of the setting and time frame. I work more from photographs than documents, probably because of my filmmaking background. I don't want mycharacters to be overwhelmed by historical facts.  I just need to place them in a world. Then I start to write. I follow the characters. If the characters bring something into the story, then I veer off and research the details: how to birth a calf, plow a field, plant a garden, how does a man pee, what is the cost of a girl's velvet dress in 1938, how do you make wheat wine…? Though I try and get the details right, I am more interested in knowing the human heart.

I have very few items from my grandparents’ lives. I have an Austrian coin (dating from WW1) that my grandfather had drilled a hole through and worn strung around his neck.He had been a German POW when he was probably seventeen or eighteen years old.  From my grandmother I have a glass-domed cup, used to draw out sickness. I have a hand-written, partial recipe for Wheat Wine.  And I have a photograph. It is the photograph that is described in the opening of the book. Funny how so many of the items managed to find their way into the story.

Do any of you have such token representations of your ancestors' lives?  No context. No story. Just an item? Do you ever conjure a story around that item?

 

 

 

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Thank you Shandi, it did answer the question.

And I too have mementos of my grandparents, but unlike yours mine spoke English and were very good story tellers so I have not only the items but the meanings and stories behind them. I guess since I'm 3rd generation American that made it a little easier for me it was my father that had to deal with non-English speaking Grandparents. 

[Shandi-Mitchell]

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michaelsjlrc wrote:

Hi Shandi,

For the most part I am enjoying your book. I'm sticking to the reading schedule, so I've only finished Spring and Summer, but there was one thing that bothered me and I was wondering if you could explain it.  On page 121, when you are describing the fire scene, you have Myron use the f-word.  This seemed totally out of context for me (was that really a word used in 1930's prairies of Canada?).  It jolted me out of the scene and really ruined the imagery for me. Up until that spate of cursing I was very much engrossed in what was happening, but that ruined it for me.  Why was this use of language necessary?

Thanks

Jenny

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Hi Jenny

Yes, my mom didn’t like the use of that word either. But they are Myron’s words. It is the moment when he betrays his father and wishes he were dead.  It is a shocking condemnation. Myron is angry and hurt. It comes from the frustration of a boy wanting to be a man and being treated like a boy. It comes from not being able to prove to his father that he is an equal. It comes from the disappointment in the man you have set up as a hero. It comes from being kicked. Myron will have to live with those words.

I noticed a quote at the bottom of someone's post (I'm sorry I can't remember who and I will paraphrase it poorly) but when I am inside a character, I just "try to get out of their way." Their words are theirs. If it was up to me, Shandi, there are so many places in the story that I would have made the characters make different choices. There are times when I did walk away from the story, because I didn't want to go where I was being taken. The characters kept breaking my heart. But it is their story, I see it as my job to let them tell it.

 

[Shandi-Mitchell]

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Sunltcloud wrote:

Ms. Mitchell,

Design. Acts. Scenes. Spikes. Sentence structure. You've given us a film that mirrors the merciless fury of the "unbroken sky." Though I am reading within the confines of the assigned seasons and don't know the resolution yet, I am pondering questions of redemption and the eternal solace that same sky can provide. As I am reading I feel as if I were one of the children blinking a piece of broken glass into the brightness of the sun and receiving blinding signals of universal truths. Without embellishment. The organic connection between sky land and human.

 I used the word film rather than the word novel, because the story reads like a movie. Scenes like those of the fire are the most detailed and most awe-inspiring I've read; they trigger my imagination and project themselves like colorful images in front of me. And they make me wonder, did you as filmmaker, walk around with a vision of the full story before you started to write, or did single scenes pop up here and there, and you grabbed them, wrote them, hung them together, allowed them to form their own cohesive picture in the end?

Congratulations on an inspired book and thank you for allowing us to be the first to get a look at the lives of this immigrant family.

Gisela F.

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Beautiful words Sunltcloud Gisela. Thank you for all that you are sharing. 

 Hmm- good question.  When I write I tend to have guide posts, places I want to get to in the story, but how the characters get there is up to them. In the case of this story I had an ending, really just an action, and I had a beginning, or rather a fact; everything in between I had to wait and see.

The first voice that came to me was Teodor’s. These are the first words I ever wrote for this story:

Prince Albert Penitentiary, Saskatchewan

March 23, 1937   

He forgets to ask what day it is. Three hundred and ninety five days and nights reduced to scratches on a wall.  He wants to know what day he is being born again.

He ducks as he steps through the cell door. His hands cuffed in front of him. The leg irons measuring the length of his stride, he follows Shiny Boots. His head low, eyes down.  He knows what he wants to say to them once they open the massive iron gate. He has practiced, made sure the English words are right. He will hold his head high and tell them:

  “My name is Teodor Mykolayenko.”

I wanted to know who this man was, so I followed him.

When I am writing, I often walk around my writing space playing out a scene, visualizing where the characters are and what they are feeling; mapping their actions in my mind; searching for the right words that describe a hand gesture. Sometimes, I place myself in the elements of the story. I've run through a blizzard and dropped to my knees. I've made dill pickles, pyrohy, and holubtsi. (Oh I believe this might answer a question from nbmars!)  I've planted gardens and watched them wither. I've shot a .22 and helped butcher chickens. I dream about my story, and sub-consciously, I must be mapping it. I don’t write out of order. Each scene/ chapter leads to the next. The novel is in the order that it appeared to me. One scene at a time. I simply ask, “And then what happens? And then what happens…” until I reach the end.

I have a vague memory of a 3-D chess game in the original Star Trek television series. It had multiple levels and glass boards that you peered down through to see all the connections and moves of all the pieces (perhaps this is a false memory). But that is how I visualize the inter-connectedness of story.

 

[daisy03]

Shandi,

First I'd like to say thank you for such an emotionally touching story.  For the first time in a long time I found I had to stop reading because I thought my heart would break, but I had to continue so I would know what happened to these people I cared so much about.  I just felt like they were my family, and hope all goes well for them. 

My question for you is, do these characters continue to live on for you?  Do you know what happens to them after everything is said and done?  I just thought if the reader has such a vested interest in these people I can't image what the writer who created them must feel.....

Thank you again for a story that feels as if it could be my own family history.

[literature]

Shandi, 

Taking Daisy03's post one step further...

As I'm reading all the posts I was wondering if you felt deserted after the book was finished since all your "children" were not part of your daily routine anymore?  Does it sadden you to think that they will never grow older or ever experience anything new in life again.  The cure for that, of course, is the sequel.  I'm sure we can all give you some ideas to incorporate into the next book. 

 ________________________________________________________________________________

Daisy03 wrote:

Shandi,

First I'd like to say thank you for such an emotionally touching story.  For the first time in a long time I found I had to stop reading because I thought my heart would break, but I had to continue so I would know what happened to these people I cared so much about.  I just felt like they were my family, and hope all goes well for them. 

My question for you is, do these characters continue to live on for you?  Do you know what happens to them after everything is said and done?  I just thought if the reader has such a vested interest in these people I can't image what the writer who created them must feel.....

Thank you again for a story that feels as if it could be my own family history.

[Shandi-Mitchell]

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literature wrote:

You also used colors to describe the sky and the land a lot, especially when referencing good things.  "The sun rising orange, scalloping the clouds red."  When Teodor moves his family to their new home "The white cloud plumes upward, drifting across the skyline."  During the fire, "The water glows red."  Then, "After the fire, in the south the sky glows red."  "Ivan's cheeks are red."  "Petro's apple is red and shiny."  When Teodor finds Petro and wraps him in a blanket, you write "white to black".  When you talk about an animal dying, you said "white on white, red on white, red on red".  When Anna has her baby and Petro sees the new born baby, Petro goes outside, wipping himself with snow, tryijng to get back to his place of whiteness.  Afterwards, you write "the night is blue and stiff".  When you wrote  "The Story Behind The Book" page, you mentioned that when you needed to remember details you went to the prairies and stood in the endless fields...tried to remember the light and color.  In each of these instances color was used as a means for transferring feelings.  I don't believe I am overanalyzing  the use of colors.

Great analysis! Colour is important to me. In film, colour is a tonal language. It can evoke mood and feeling, both internal and external. It can be a symbol or a motif. I think it can even tint the theme. In one of the Autumn threads, I noticed an analysis of colour for that section (perhaps by Wisteria?). I am so impressed with the depth of everyone's interpretation.  In the case of “white on white/red on white/red on red”…I tried to be inside a child’s mind, unable or unwilling to comprehend all that is being witnessed. By reducing the event into a minutiae of detail, it creates a disconnect that allows the reader to envision their own scene (hopefully). Perhaps, I am playing with the minimalism of expression. How small can a detail be and still connote meaning? Other times, I use it to express the inner state of a character. Sometimes, I am just trying to capture the beauty. Colour, for me, is sensory. I like to give the reader a brushstroke and then leave it open for them to interpret.

[Shandi-Mitchell]

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aprilh wrote:

Hi Shandi! First off, I would like you to know that I am loving your book! It's an amazing story and you've done a wonderful job telling it. Thank you so much for sharing it with us all here. My questions for you are:

1. While answering questions for the first two sections, we discovered that Rachel and Paul's (the moderators here) arcs have different characters names in them than ours. We've found: Theo - Teodor, Miron - Myron, Xanka - Dania, Mysha - Lesya and Piotr - Petro. I was just wondering why these names are different. Did the characters all have different names to begin with? And, if so, why were they changed?

2. Who is your favorite character in this story? I couldn't choose just one, so my two favorites are Maria and Lesya because of how strong they are. They seem like the type of people to never give up no matter how hard life becomes.

Thanks for answering our questions and for joining us here! Hope you enjoy this experience as much as we do!

Thank you April. I am truly enjoying this experience.

To answer your question about the names:

Well…

The very last copy edit pass on my manuscript was by a Ukrainian expert. I have no knowledge of the language and as it turns out there was debate even among the experts. Ukraine was a conquered country throughout history. The joke is that some families lived in the same house for a hundred years, but the birth certificates for individual family members could be Polish or Ukrainian or Russian or German and on and on depending on the year.  So language and customs fused.  There are Russian spellings and Ukrainian spellings and there is now great national pride that the true Ukrainian spelling be used, which was the case for Piotr (Russian) when it needed to be Petro (Ukrainian). Xanka changed to Dania to make it easier to pronounce for an English reader. The name change from Mysha to Lesya was a struggle. The character had always been Mysha to me (‘little mouse’ is the translation), but when Ukrainian readers read that name they were mortified. It was seen as derogatory rather than as a nickname.  I had to find another name that felt small and soft, and so she became Lesya. It was a long search. I had picked the name, but was still trying it on, when I learned about an infant girl who didn’t survive in Ukraine. Her name was Lesya. I knew then for certain, that her name would be preserved in this story. 

As to which character is my favorite:

Oh I have no favorites. I love them all. Even in their failings.  There are characters whose choices pain me the greatest, but they are all part of me.

[kpatton]

My question is similar to JoyZ's.  When Teodor tries to pay the $10 for the land that Anna purchased for him, the land is listed under her name.  I was surprised that women could own land in the late 1930s.  I had assumed that Stephan's name had been used.  Question- could women own their own land?

Kathy

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JoyZ wrote:

Another question I have for you Ms Mitchell is how did Anna come to own the land.  Did Teodor write it over to her since he could no longer own the property while in jail?  Was it family property for the 2 of them?  Thank you again for a beautiful story.

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[eadieburke]

Shandi wrote:

Do any of you have such token representations of your ancestors' lives?  No context. No story. Just an item? Do you ever conjure a story around that item?

---

My dad showed us a picture of his mom and dad who came from Croatia. His dad, Samuel, left Croatia due to The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria on June 28, 1914 which led to the outbreak of World War I.

He was in the Austrian navy and would have be drafted again. He left Croatia on a Merchant Marine ship and walked off the ship upon it's arrival in Philadelphia and then sent for my grandmom, Mary, who came thru Ellis Island in 1920, six years later.

They were married when Samuel left but he contacted a Croatian family who was already in Philadelphia and they took him in until he could get a job. He got a job as a painter and helped to paint the newly built Benjamin Franklin Bridge.

They later bought one of the oldest homes in center city Philadelphia where a group of carpenters, who built Carpenters Hall, had added different aspects to the home. My parents lived there with my grandmother when my 2 brothers and 1 sister and me were born in the 40's. I never met Samuel - he died before I was born.

My daughter, who was doing an immigration project, wrote a made-up story about how Mary felt leaving Croatia in 1920 to meet up with her husband who left in 1914. While reading her story, you could actually feel what Mary when thru on her arrival at Ellis Island.

On another note, my grandmother, Mary, went to early grade school in Croatia with a very famous dictator, Josip Broz, who became Marshal Tito.

I wish I could write as well as Shandi - seems like we all could have a family story to tell!

Message Edited by eadieburke on 08-11-2009 02:33 PM

[Sunltcloud]

Thank you, Ms. Mitchell, for your detailed answer to my question about your writing process. When I read the first words you ever wrote for the story I was reminded of the phrase, "late in and early out." So many wonderful words that later only are remembered as "note to oneself" and never show up in the novel.

Acting out sounds familiar. I once wrote my own death scene (a practice piece) and slid from sofa to floor, crouched, crawled, reached etc, in other words went through the scene to make sure I wrote down the right movements. 

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Shandi-Mitchell wrote:

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Sunltcloud wrote:

Ms. Mitchell,

Design. Acts. Scenes. Spikes. Sentence structure. You've given us a film that mirrors the merciless fury of the "unbroken sky." Though I am reading within the confines of the assigned seasons and don't know the resolution yet, I am pondering questions of redemption and the eternal solace that same sky can provide. As I am reading I feel as if I were one of the children blinking a piece of broken glass into the brightness of the sun and receiving blinding signals of universal truths. Without embellishment. The organic connection between sky land and human.

 I used the word film rather than the word novel, because the story reads like a movie. Scenes like those of the fire are the most detailed and most awe-inspiring I've read; they trigger my imagination and project themselves like colorful images in front of me. And they make me wonder, did you as filmmaker, walk around with a vision of the full story before you started to write, or did single scenes pop up here and there, and you grabbed them, wrote them, hung them together, allowed them to form their own cohesive picture in the end?

Congratulations on an inspired book and thank you for allowing us to be the first to get a look at the lives of this immigrant family.

Gisela F.

---

Beautiful words Sunltcloud Gisela. Thank you for all that you are sharing. 

 Hmm- good question.  When I write I tend to have guide posts, places I want to get to in the story, but how the characters get there is up to them. In the case of this story I had an ending, really just an action, and I had a beginning, or rather a fact; everything in between I had to wait and see.

The first voice that came to me was Teodor’s. These are the first words I ever wrote for this story:

Prince Albert Penitentiary, Saskatchewan

March 23, 1937   

He forgets to ask what day it is. Three hundred and ninety five days and nights reduced to scratches on a wall.  He wants to know what day he is being born again.

He ducks as he steps through the cell door. His hands cuffed in front of him. The leg irons measuring the length of his stride, he follows Shiny Boots. His head low, eyes down.  He knows what he wants to say to them once they open the massive iron gate. He has practiced, made sure the English words are right. He will hold his head high and tell them:

  “My name is Teodor Mykolayenko.”

I wanted to know who this man was, so I followed him.

When I am writing, I often walk around my writing space playing out a scene, visualizing where the characters are and what they are feeling; mapping their actions in my mind; searching for the right words that describe a hand gesture. Sometimes, I place myself in the elements of the story. I've run through a blizzard and dropped to my knees. I've made dill pickles, pyrohy, and holubtsi. (Oh I believe this might answer a question from nbmars!)  I've planted gardens and watched them wither. I've shot a .22 and helped butcher chickens. I dream about my story, and sub-consciously, I must be mapping it. I don’t write out of order. Each scene/ chapter leads to the next. The novel is in the order that it appeared to me. One scene at a time. I simply ask, “And then what happens? And then what happens…” until I reach the end.

I have a vague memory of a 3-D chess game in the original Star Trek television series. It had multiple levels and glass boards that you peered down through to see all the connections and moves of all the pieces (perhaps this is a false memory). But that is how I visualize the inter-connectedness of story.

---

[Sunltcloud]

I found the problem with the names very interesting. My daughter recently spent several months traveling through Middle Europe and found names of places very confusing due to the multiple layers of history and languages. When she traveled from the Tatras Mountains to L'viv, she wasn't sure she would arrive in the right place. Even getting from the Slovakian train car to the Ukrainian train car was a daunting event.

Lvov is what they call the city of L'viv in Slovakian. Her train ticked said Lvov. But there is also a small town on the way to the Black Sea that is called L'vov. She wondered where she would end up. But in the end it was L'viv and she had a great time with new friends Oksana and Maria. They shared a table at a chicken place where they only serve beer, but Maria went next door and came back with a bottle of vodka and three shot glasses. "We drink three times to love" she said. And so they celebrated their newly found friendship.

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Shandi-Mitchell wrote:

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aprilh wrote:

Hi Shandi! First off, I would like you to know that I am loving your book! It's an amazing story and you've done a wonderful job telling it. Thank you so much for sharing it with us all here. My questions for you are:

1. While answering questions for the first two sections, we discovered that Rachel and Paul's (the moderators here) arcs have different characters names in them than ours. We've found: Theo - Teodor, Miron - Myron, Xanka - Dania, Mysha - Lesya and Piotr - Petro. I was just wondering why these names are different. Did the characters all have different names to begin with? And, if so, why were they changed?

2. Who is your favorite character in this story? I couldn't choose just one, so my two favorites are Maria and Lesya because of how strong they are. They seem like the type of people to never give up no matter how hard life becomes.

Thanks for answering our questions and for joining us here! Hope you enjoy this experience as much as we do!

Thank you April. I am truly enjoying this experience.

To answer your question about the names:

Well…

The very last copy edit pass on my manuscript was by a Ukrainian expert. I have no knowledge of the language and as it turns out there was debate even among the experts. Ukraine was a conquered country throughout history. The joke is that some families lived in the same house for a hundred years, but the birth certificates for individual family members could be Polish or Ukrainian or Russian or German and on and on depending on the year.  So language and customs fused.  There are Russian spellings and Ukrainian spellings and there is now great national pride that the true Ukrainian spelling be used, which was the case for Piotr (Russian) when it needed to be Petro (Ukrainian). Xanka changed to Dania to make it easier to pronounce for an English reader. The name change from Mysha to Lesya was a struggle. The character had always been Mysha to me (‘little mouse’ is the translation), but when Ukrainian readers read that name they were mortified. It was seen as derogatory rather than as a nickname.  I had to find another name that felt small and soft, and so she became Lesya. It was a long search. I had picked the name, but was still trying it on, when I learned about an infant girl who didn’t survive in Ukraine. Her name was Lesya. I knew then for certain, that her name would be preserved in this story. 

As to which character is my favorite:

Oh I have no favorites. I love them all. Even in their failings.  There are characters whose choices pain me the greatest, but they are all part of me.

---

[Shandi-Mitchell]

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EbonyAngel wrote:

Hi Ms. Mitchell.  What a great book, thanks for sharing with us.  I tried to stick with the reading schedule but it got so good, I couldn't stop

Right now I only have 1 question.  Would it be possible to have a short glossary?  Some of the words used and food items I was unfamiliar with.  (I did look them up for myself though.)  Stuff like pyrohy.

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Hi EbonyAngel

I love when people can't stop reading. Do you think you still need a glossary? I noticed that someone had posted a fabulous glossary in thediscussion boards. Let me know.

 

[Shandi-Mitchell]

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Susan5847 wrote:

Shandi - I am wondering how long it took you to write this novel.  How much time did your research take?  I can tell that the book is well researched as everything in it rings true for the time period that it is set in.

Thank you Susan for your warm words. 

It took me a year to write the first draft which I sent out to agents. That was working full-time (3-4 hours a day) and toward the end of the novel I had moved into ten hour days. Mind you, there are many revisions in that first draft. I don't move forward, until I think I have taken the chapter or scene as far as I can. 

There were maybe two months of edit time with my various editors from US, Canada and UK. Luckily for me, they were very happy with the submitted manuscript. Still, each editor asked amazing and insightful questions, which helped me find more within the story.

There were probably another 4-6 months of accumulated copy edit time: grammar, punctuation, translations, adding a few more pages, cutting a couple of pages, and correcting research errors. 

And the research…well, that was gathered over years. But initially, I didn’t know I was researching.

 

[literature]

Shandi wrote...Do any of you have such token representations of your ancestors' lives?  No context. No story. Just an item? Do you ever conjure a story around that item?

a pair of candlestick holders and a spoon

Both items came to America a little of 100 years ago and, yes, I can visualize my grandmother using both items.

[literature]

Shandi wrote...

As to which character is my favorite:

Oh I have no favorites. I love them all. Even in their failings.  There are characters whose choices pain me the greatest, but they are all part of me.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shandi, I have to laugh at what you said "There are characters whose choices pain me the greatest, but they are all part of me."  I laugh because it's your story and you could have developed them any way you wanted.  But being the true mother that you are, you guided them and let them develop in their own way. Shandi, you are a gem!  P.S. I'm glad you did.

[Shandi-Mitchell]

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marciliogq wrote:

Shandi,

3 - I particularly liked the way you narrated Teodor's days in prison. The use of numbers to remember days, hour, minutes,and fragmented images in his thoughts formed an ambience of desperation, like a tic tac clock. Was that your intention?

Thanks!

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Hi Marcilogq

Yes, partially it is a ticking clock to mark off mortality. A lifetime reduced to the tick and tock. Psychologically, it is also a grounding in time, something small and tangible, to hold onto and keep sane. Perhaps, it is also a count down to Teodor’s return to life. But, I think the clock also keeps ticking upon his return. It is still counting how much time this family has left. Time is both long and short in this story.

I once read about a prisoner in solitary confinement who kept sane by never stopping to think:  recite, recite, recite the things you know are true—it’s a way to hold onto yourself. My name is…my house is…my car is…the grass is green…the sky is blue…I believe it is a survival technique taught in the military. The moment that you falter is the moment you are lost, and then psychologically you must fight your way back. 

[Shandi-Mitchell]

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Wisteria-L wrote:

Shandi....

1)Would you give us some input about our title?  I have my own opinion and there may be many different ways of looking at this,but I'm sure you had something in mind. I know there was a passage in the book refering to it.  Would you offer your thoughts please?

2)I noticed from the very beginning that you broke down time, distance and space into segments that were very specific. 

Why are you so precise in your descriptions with quantities of items and measurement in steps, number of days, distance to and from. Everything is described with the such precision and order. Would you talk about this?

Thanks, Wisteria

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Hi Wisteria, you with the many questions that require me to think. 

I like the idea of precision and order in a world that is so imprecise, unpredictable and at times chaotic.

I like the idea that on ground that is millions/billions of years old, we stake out claims and put up fences and carve out our ownership for our short lifespans. We draw lines on a map and change the world. Yet, there also seems to be a need to count the steps, the days, the progress, to work toward something that is ours...for our own mortality or immortality? We need something tangible to hold onto and anchor us in the immensity of time. Humans do not seem to exist in the present, unlike, say animals. What do you think? 

And in this story, I think it is essential to count what you have in order to survive.  

 

 

[Shandi-Mitchell]

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kpatton wrote:

My question is similar to JoyZ's.  When Teodor tries to pay the $10 for the land that Anna purchased for him, the land is listed under her name.  I was surprised that women could own land in the late 1930s.  I had assumed that Stephan's name had been used.  Question- could women own their own land?

Kathy

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JoyZ wrote:

Another question I have for you Ms Mitchell is how did Anna come to own the land.  Did Teodor write it over to her since he could no longer own the property while in jail?  Was it family property for the 2 of them?  Thank you again for a beautiful story.

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Hi JoyZ and Kathy 

Yes, according to my research, women could take out a patent on land in Canada in the thirties. Not a single woman, but a woman who was the sole support of her family.

However, I know my great-aunt had patent on a homestead, but she also had a husband. When I look at land maps in mid to northern Alberta in the thirties, there are many patents held by women on undeveloped quarter sections of land. Some families appear to have claims on multiple lots (often in the wife’s maiden name). I think it might have been a loop-hole and because of the remoteness and rural nature of these areas the government wasn’t able to or didn’t bother to monitor the patents. It’s also possible that the land offices looked the other way, because if the land wasn’t developed in a certain amount of time, patent was revoked and it could be put up again. A bit of a money maker. The odds of one family being able to develop two quarter sections and make the necessary improvements within the required time would have been very slim. When I look at subsequent land maps, the names attached to these quarter sections keep changing.

Perhaps Anna, during one of those stretches when Stefan was away, filed a patent on Teodor’s behalf and claimed herself as the sole support for her family. Maybe in some small way, it was her exerting some power or independence over Stefan. Would she do that to help her brother?