Writer Linda Spalding faced a dilemma with her new novel: How could she put herself into the mind of an 18th-century Quaker-turned-slave owner, a character based loosely on one of her own ancestors?
"I used to be very reserved about writing outside my own voice, and somehow I just jumped that hurdle," said the Toronto-based author of The Purchase (McClelland & Stewart, 368 pp., $29.99).
"I got old enough that I didn't worry about it. And I believe that's the novelist's job. Now I sort of believe you have to find everybody else's voice."
Spalding's efforts to find the voice of her main character, Daniel Dickinson, have more than paid off. The novel, a darkly compelling story spanning 17 years, was shortlisted for both the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and the Governor General's Award for Fiction.
The novel's title refers to Daniel's decision to move his family to Virginia and buy a young slave, Ones-imus, at an auction. What follows is the gripping, powerful account of how this purchase reverberates through two generations of the Dickinson family.
Spalding didn't have to look far for inspiration. She used a similar incident in the life of her great-great-great grandfather as a starting point, but her research only took her so far.
"I couldn't find much information about the real Daniel. I just made it all up."
But the novel is firmly grounded in realistic historical detail. Spalding read slave narratives, medicinal primers and even a PhD thesis she found online to get a sense of 18th-century Virginia.
"I've got probably 200 books that relate to the time and the place," she said. "[Thomas] Jefferson wrote a very small book about Virginia when he was governor, and it's got everything, every single stream and bird and tree and the weather conditions and soil conditions."
The novel's plot proved harder to wrangle than its historical setting. Spalding was mystified by her ancestor's decision to purchase a slave, she said. "I think that's what novels are for - helping you to answer the question that you've got burning in your mind."
"I knew that this decision had been made, so the question was why, and what kind of ferment would he have been in?" she added. "That interested me a lot, and I just worked to try to put myself in his shoes."
After writing an acclaimed work of non-fiction, Who Named the Knife, Spalding set out to challenge herself with The Purchase.
"My non-fiction in both cases, and in most of my essays, is very, shall we say, personal," she said. "It's that kind of thing where you are referring to your own life and beliefs. It's very interior. So with the novel, I couldn't do that. And I really wanted that challenge."
Born in Kansas, Spalding moved to Toronto from Hawaii in 1982 after marrying writer Michael Ondaatje. She credits the smaller and more personal Canadian literary scene for allowing her to develop relationships with publishers and other writers.
Though slavery is in some ways a uniquely American topic, Spalding considers herself a Canadian writer "because I never published anything until I got here. So my entire understanding of the process is Canadian.
"On the other hand, my foundation is as an American, my understanding of the world. I don't know whether I could write a truly Canadian novel, in the sense of content.
"Geography is in some ways destiny," she said. "I think if I'd stayed in the States, I'd still have written but not published."
When asked what it's like to be married to another writer, especially one as acclaimed as Ondaatje, Spalding laughs. "One of us is very private, and it isn't me!"
The two will read each other's drafts, but they seldom discuss ideas. "We both live in our creative heads, and it's sort of hard to put that out on the table. We're more like readers than talkers."
Spalding and Ondaatje are no strangers to the awards circuit, but awards can only offer "a vanishing sort of pleasure," Spalding said. Nevertheless, she is trying to enjoy the moment. "You don't want to get used to it or count on it. I'm trying to see it as a wonderful moment in my life that's going to vanish sort of fast. Like being on a vacation."
But Spalding's thoughts are already on her next project, which she says will be a novel.
"I do have the thought that I'd better write something good. I'd hate to have people say, well, that was a flash in the pan."
