The appeal of islander life with Pat Carney

After nearly an entire year on the BC Bestseller List and being shortlisted for the BC Book Prizes, author Pat Carney is a bit baffled by the success of her debut collection of short stories. But clearly, readers love On Island: Life Among the Coast Dwellers (TouchWood Editions).

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“The success of On Island: Life Among the Coast Dwellers reads like fiction: author’s first book of short stories tops BC Books bestseller list for 2017, despite a total lack of the elements deemed essential to success—porn, sexual misconduct, and/or violence.

So why do readers report they enjoy my stories about the drama and disputes among people in coastal communities and the tidal tugs of their lives? Their comments and emails echo some common themes.

They think they know the unnamed character I am writing about. It is their neighbour. On Saturna Island, my home, the pub lunch crowd argued about which local islanders are portrayed in the book.

They are wrong. With rare exceptions—Blondie is one—the characters are fictional. But readers relate to them because they know people like them in their own communities. As the manager of Talisman Books on Pender Island says: ‘It’s us!’

The success of On Island reads like fiction despite a total lack of porn, sexual misconduct, and/or violence.

Readers also relate to the events in the stories because they reflect similar ones in their own communities. Many coastal communities have a free store, recycling depot, or pet show. ‘I didn’t know you lived on Hornby Island all these years,’ wrote one. I have never lived on Hornby.

But if I heard similar stories in three communities, I felt free to weave it into the lives of my characters—a reflection of my journalist training.

Touring one coastal inlet, the boat operator gestured to the shore. ‘See those homes? Two sisters married two brothers and fought over the boundary line.’ I know at least three other communities where similar family feuds happened. I opened my notebook.

‘But didn’t anyone accuse you of putting him or her in your book?’ asked one reader.

Actually, yes: my own daughter, a coast dweller. ‘Someone told me you wrote about me in “Harbour Girl”,’ she accused me on the phone, referring to the possibly promiscuous heroine who pumps gas at a waterfront marine store and takes off in a Dude Boat with a tourist from town.

The Harbour Girl is tall, with blonde hair and long legs, and wears Siberian Midnight nail polish. My daughter is short, dark-haired, and has never worked on a marine gas dock. What could I say? ‘I can guarantee you that you are not Harbour Girl,’ I assured her.

The respected journalist who interviewed me asked me which character best reflected my own personality and experiences. ‘What do you think?’ I asked, thinking maybe the Church Warden’s wife or the cat-loving Professor’s Wife.

‘Harbour Girl,’ he said, turning off his recording machine. I choked on my tea.

Actually not!”

—Pat Carney

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On Island: Life Among the Coast Dweller is a charming and witty peek into life on the BC coast, full of island eccentricities, archetypes, and surprises. It was the #1 BC Bestseller of 2017 and has been shortlisted for the 2018 BC Book Prizes. Pat Carney is also the author of Trade Secrets: A Memoir (Key Porter) and other works. Carney lives with her cat Jada on Saturna Island in BC’s Gulf Islands.

Born of Canadian parents in Shanghai, China, Pat Carney has deep roots in BC, where her grandparents homesteaded in the Okanagan Valley. She is a journalist, educator, and politician, and was awarded the Order of Canada for leadership in her roles as Member of Parliament, cabinet minister, and senator. In 2011 she was named by Equal Voice, a non-partisan group, as one of ten women who changed Canadian politics.

Pat will be speaking at the 2018 North Shore Writers Festival this April at the West Vancouver Memorial Library. She looks forward to meeting you there. 

Photo credit: Nancy Angermeyer