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W.P. Kinsella, author of Shoeless Joe, dies at 81, assisted by doctor

W.P. Kinsella, the prolific B.C.-based author famous for Shoeless Joe, which was adapted into the movie Field of Dreams, has died. He was 81.
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Canadian author W.P. Kinsella stands on the baseball field before game five of the World Series between Toronto Blue Jays and Atlanta Braves at the Skydome in Toronto, Ontario, Thursday, Oct. 23, 1992. W.P. Kinsella, the B.C.-based author of "Shoeless Joe," the award-winning novel that became the film "Field of Dreams," has died at 81. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, Rusty Kennedy

W.P. Kinsella, the prolific B.C.-based author famous for Shoeless Joe, which was adapted into the movie Field of Dreams, has died. He was 81.

His literary agency confirmed Kinsella’s death was assisted by a doctor on Friday in Hope, near his home, but did not elaborate.

A friend and early teacher from the University of Victoria’s creative writing department said injuries suffered when Kinsella was struck by a car in 1997 had left him in poor health.

William Valgardson, a 30-year professor in the UVic creative writing department, said he last saw Kinsella in 2005 at a reading in Vancouver.

While at the event, Kinsella told his friend he was living on just half of one kidney.

“It’s a great loss to Canada,” Valgardson said. “He brought to the country a style and a voice that was amazing and very much appreciated.”

Kinsella was born in Edmonton to Irish-American parents and raised on a homestead about 60 kilometres outside the city, schooled mostly at home.

He attended UVic and later the University of Iowa before making his biggest splash with Shoeless Joe in 1982.

The book, about an Iowa farmer who plows a field of corn to create a baseball diamond to attract long-dead baseball players, was made into the 1989 movie Field of Dreams, starring Kevin Costner.

Shoeless Joe spoke to Kinsella’s love of baseball. He seized on the theme of Americans being convinced that if a person believes hard enough and works hard enough, dreams can be achieved.

Before the book and the movie, Kinsella was already known in Canada for his short stories set on the Hobbema Reserve in books such as Dance Me Outside from 1977.

Dark and funny, the stories are narrated by the fictional Silas Ermineskin, who introduces characters like his best friend, Frank Fencepost. The stories focus sympathetically on First Nations peoples and use their vantage point to critique mainstream Canada.

In the Silas Ermineskin stories, Kinsella slipped into the character of a young Alberta aboriginal narrator with a voice so authentic many readers are surprised to learn Kinsella isn’t even part native.

The books were controversial in the literary world of the late 1970s and 1980s for “cultural appropriation.”

Valgardson recalled his first meeting in 1975, when Kinsella approached him with a stack of manuscripts and the stated desire to study writing. Kinsella said he had an English degree but hadn’t been able to get anything published.

Valgardson said he looked at the manuscripts and found they were like panning for gold. They contained scattered literary nuggets, but none had been crafted to the point where it could get published.

So Valgardson agreed to take him on. He said what set Kinsella apart from other students was his willingness to practise and hone his writing as a craft.

“He would write and I would edit and he would rewrite and I would keep editing,” he said. “He was obviously very serious and he worked very hard.”

Valgardson said he later advised Kinsella to attend the Iowa Writers Workshop, one of America’s best schools for writing. He spent two years there.

Kinsella was a writer in residence at UVic and the University of Alberta.

“He never wanted to teach, he wanted to write,” Valgardson said. “All writers would like to be able to write full time. He is one of the few that actually managed it.”

Willie Steele, who has been working on a biography of Kinsella, said the writer struggled with health complications due to diabetes for a number of years.

In the week leading up to his death, Steele said, he asked Kinsella about his legacy. Kinsella told him: “I’m a storyteller and my greatest satisfaction comes from making people laugh and also leaving them with a tear in the corner of their eye.”

Kinsella published almost 30 books of fiction, non-fiction and poetry, and was awarded the Order of Canada and the Order of British Columbia.

He is survived by two daughters, who cared for him in his final years, and several grandchildren.

rwatts@timescolonist.com

— With The Canadian Press