Aislinn Hunter, author of The World Before Us, is among the featured authors at this year's Vancouver Writers Fest, Oct. 21 to 26 at Granville Island. writersfest.bc.ca.
It was a freedom Aislinn Hunter hadn't felt in ages.
Travelling to the United Kingdom for the first time after completing her latest novel, The World Before Us, the North Vancouver author didn't know what to do with herself - and she was ecstatic.
Penning the work was a 12-year process, seeing the dedicated researcher devote countless hours both at home and abroad to the British-set work's creation. Things proved further challenging in recent years as she was simultaneously working on her PhD in English Literature on a related topic at the University of Edinburgh.
"For the first time I thought, 'Oh my God, I can do anything I want here," Hunter recalls of her first non-research-focused journey overseas. "I don't have to go to museums, I don't have to go to bookstores and look for random books on Victorian gardens. I'm a whole new free person.'" Fresh off the presses, The World Before Us joins Hunter's previously published collections of poetic and short story works and her last novel, 2002's Stay, which was recently made into a feature film starring Orange Is The New Black's Taylor Schilling and Aidan Quinn, currently viewable on iTunes.
"It's a relief to have it out of my hands actually. Being married to a novelist surely can't be easy or being friends with a novelist because they're always having to carry that world in their head. It's sort of like having an invisible friend or something.. .. I felt during the time that I could have finished a book but I knew I couldn't finish the book that I wanted to write. And that book would have been a big leap in craft, it would demonstrate that I'd grown a lot as a writer and it would have a lot of depth and philosophy in it," she says.
The World Before Us focuses on London archivist Jane Standen, who lived through a nightmare at age 15, losing the five-year-old girl she was tasked with babysitting during a walk in the woods. The child was never found, leaving her family and Jane, who is now in her 30s and working at a small museum set to close due to a lack of funding, devastated. For Jane's final project, she goes in search of information related to another missing person, an adult woman who vanished approximately 125 years ago from a Victorian asylum near the same stretch of woods.
The novel's action moves back and forth between contemporary London and the Victorian asylum, in addition to a dilapidated country house that seems to connect both of the missing, exploring "the large reverberations of small, splitsecond acts, the irrepressible life behind everyday objects and the enduring power of affection," according to promotional materials.
Hunter had much to draw on for the work, having lived in Ireland for a few years around the age of 18. She also did a semester in the UK 10 years ago as a writer in residence at Lancaster University, and moved to Edinburgh for her second masters degree and is completing her PhD there. Her thesis is focused on resonance and material culture theory in Victorian writers museums.
Research trips to London for both the novel and her PhD have been common.
"I've been transcontinental in a big way," says Hunter.
That said, writing an entirely British book was challenging, requiring her to work hard to ensure its accuracy. During trips, she would drink in as much of the local colour as possible, hoping it would live on vividly in her memory upon returning to Vancouver.
"My husband walked past the study one day when I was reading a section out loud and he said 'Are you reading in a British accent?'" Hunter laughs. "And I said, 'Yeah, just a little one.' But it was all about being in that world," she says.
Hunter's idea for the novel started with the young girl's disappearance.
"I remember early on that that was the storyline: What would happen if when you were 15 you were babysitting someone and that little girl went missing and it was a tragedy but it wasn't really your tragedy because she's not a child you really know. I was interested in this idea of what it means to be adjacent to a tragedy, but not really a part of it," she says.
Hunter will offer further insight into The World Before Us at the upcoming Vancouver Writers Fest, Oct. 21 to 26 at Granville Island.
"I love talking about books and I love talking about ideas and so it feels like such a privilege to have the attention put on the book and on what you were thinking about when you were writing it," she says.
She's set to make several appearances, including The Hook, Thursday, Oct. 23 at 8:30 p.m. at Performance Works, along with Eric McCormack, Ian Weir and Sarah Waters.
She'll appear at the soldout Sunday Brunch, Sunday, Oct. 26 and later that day at 1:30 p.m. at The Al Purdy Show: Vancouver Edition at Waterfront Theatre, hosted by local writer and stand-up comedian Charlie Demers.
Hunter will also act as a moderator for My Way, Tuesday, Oct. 21 at 8:30 p.m. at Waterfront Theatre, an event featuring Charles Foran, Karl Ove Knausgaard and Eimear McBride.
Those looking to go deeper still into The World Before Us can seek out a collaborative project Hunter completed with Veda Hille. Hunter commissioned the singer-songwriter to compose and record a song inspired by her new novel.
"The song just blew me away. It's beautiful on its own, but if you read the book and then go into the song again, it's just really powerful. She's so talented," says Hunter.
"Romance of the Field" is available on Hille's website, vedahille.com.
Before Hunter can get started on her next novel in the spring, she'll be a featured author at writers festivals in Toronto and Victoria. In November she'll embark on a new project, a month-long stint as a writer-in-residence at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum at the University of British Columbia.
She pitched the project after visiting for the first time earlier this year. "I was just greedy. Looking at all of their stuff, I just thought, 'I want to touch this stuff. I would love to write about this stuff.' I could just feel all of my poetic sensibilities tingling," she says.
Hunter, who also teaches creative writing at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, will do some writing about the museum's collection, conduct original research and offer a workshop for children on writing about material culture. She's also planning to help staff create an official residency program and source funding so it can continue into the future.
