“Writer. I have jumped out of the burning
building and I'm tying the bedsheets together as I fall. So far, so good.”
When you
visit Mitchell’s Twitter page, that’s his introduction. Can’t go wrong with an author like that.
 |
Mitchell and grandson Ty. |
The
Scribbler is most privileged to have Mitchell as our guest this week. He has
agreed to a 4Q Interview and is sharing an excerpt from his debut novel WIP, “Mulholland and Hardbar”.
Mitchell Toews lives and writes lakeside in Manitoba.
When not writing or if the sun beckons too persuasively, he finds alternative
joy in the windy intermingling between the top of the water and the bottom of
the sky or skates on the ice until he can no longer see the cabin.
He has stories in a variety of literary markets in the
US, Canada, the UK, and beyond. Details can be found at his website,
Mitchellaneous.com
Mitch is currently at work on a noir novel set in the boreal
forest, editing an
SFF novella, and writing grant applications to keep the proverbial wolves from
the door.
4Q: Your
short stories appear in several anthologies. Groota Pieter was previously
published in The River Poets Journal and has been accepted for publication for
a new anthology, We Refugees. Tell us about the story.
MT: Fiction
lets me address subjects that I find difficult to discuss otherwise. In this
case, it’s the fact that Mennonites—“my people”—who came to Canada in a semi-forced
immigration in 1874 now find themselves among the gatekeepers for today’s
refugees. While nineteenth century Mennonites from Southern Russia were
welcomed to the brand-new Province of Manitoba, some of their descendants now align themselves with those who are
fearful and restrictive when it comes to present day diasporas.
Midway between these two polarities stands “Groota
Pieter”. In the Sixties, our little grade school in Steinbach, Manitoba had its
own flood of immigrants—a dozen or so Mexican Mennonite families.
In the story, I use one of the new kids, “Big Peter”,
as a symbol for how immigrants are often viewed. It’s inconvenient and
confusing to welcome strangers and all their apparent differences in culture,
“values”, and habits. Canadian Mennonites today have not forgotten or chosen to
denigrate their own families’ past travails but, I suspect, it’s more a matter
of not being able to imagine these so-called
alien newcomers in Manitoba. What a disappointing twist that settler Mennonites,
who suffered as a people dispossessed in Europe only to have their descendants—many
now once again members of the landed economic elite, this time in Canada—behave
with moral ambiguity, and in some cases, religious intolerance.
Many modern Canadian Mennonites have constructed an
insulative moral landscape built upon a maxim, “What would Jesus do?”, together
with precepts like hard work, honesty (to the point of believing they invented
it) and a daily life of church-family-devotion. This cocoon shelters them from the
wayward outside world but may also dissuade critical self-examination.
“Us and them” is a powerful inclination. It opens us up to being overrun by
fear and suspicion. Seneca said, “Sometimes even to live
is an act of courage,” and we need to see this courage as a relatable virtue in
our new neighbours—broaden our empathy and lower our fences.
I’ve tried to use humour, human nature, and the guileless character of
children—along
with the commonality of a simple game like baseball—to underscore an obvious message. We’re all just people.
Obvious but, it seems, hard to live by. I hope this childlike
outlook depowers the “us
and them”
tendency and,
in some small way, expands the moral landscape.
4Q: What are
you working on now?
MT:
Even though I’m not one of those people who thrives on chaos, it kinda looks
like I am. I have a lot on the go.
Short stories are heart and soul for me, so that keeps on being a part of every
day. Writing, editing, submitting and shamelessly promoting. (Allowing for the
fact that Mennonites don’t do “shameless”. We always feel guilty about
something!)
I completed a debut novel over a year ago and have
been editing since then. I am fortunate to have a skilled and engaging editor
to work with. (He’s a Londoner and the possessor of a kick-ass literary
pedigree.) The novel is moving down the road, only partly on the rumble strip.
I hope to be able to query it this year.
Those are the itchiest spots right now, but I also
have a short story trilogy that I believe—along with a few supportive others—would make a
great adaptation for a screenplay. An SFF novella first draft is also done but
lies dormant, needing some tough love before it gets to the finish line.
Those last two darlings get a bit of energy as does
preparing grant applications. After
all, the pickup needs gas, the fridge needs beer, my editor needs paying, as do
airfares if I want to visit the grandkids on the coast.
I was recently recognized as a New/Early Career Artist by the Canada Council
for the Arts and I hope to get some assistance to cover expenses and help me to
build my craft and meet other writerly folk in the wild.
4Q: Please
share a childhood memory or anecdote.
MT: My
wife said this was too boring, but I’ll take my usual course and avoid her good
advice. As a youngster, having consumed the entire Hardy Boys detective series and all the comics I could buy, I
hungered for more. Our school and town libraries had lots of books, but I had
chewed through most of the children’s collections and much of it was of a more
Christian bent than I was looking for. You know… the wide world beckoning and
all.
Anyway, I discovered the University of Manitoba
Extension Library. Pre-internet, by a lot. You obtained a copy of their print
catalogue and a mailing address. Books were ordered and received by mail.
I remember one day when I was home from school with
the mumps and Dad walked in with a brown kraft paper bundle, tied with white
cotton string. A cluster of stamps and “Mitchell Toews, Box 220, Steinbach, Manitoba” was written in prim librarian
longhand, with the tell-tale swirls and blots of a fountain pen. The parcel was
heavy with adventure: Treasure Island, A
Rookie at Leaf’s Camp, The Red Schoendienst Story, The Best Thing Since Sliced
Bread awaited me within the lignum scented confines. All for free and each
month a fresh list of “New Titles — Just Received!”
Not unlike the row of tractors that sat dripping oil on
the Case dealer lot, each capable of magical transformation into a P51 Mustang that
took me for snarling barrel-rolls high above the prairies, these books gave me
the world in a brown paper wrapper and all I had to do was imagine.
4Q: Every
author, artist or other creative types have their favorite spot to work from.
Tell us about yours and what your writing habits are like.
MT: Janice
and I live on the shores of a small lake. Any spot with a view—whether in the 1950 cabin, out in the
“she shed” (a screen porch down by the water), up in the loft, or the workshop—is where I write. Bug free and above
freezing are my only requirements.
An oily tractor seat or P51 cockpit is nice, but if not, I stand.
An excerpt
from “Mulholland and Hardbar”
(Copyright
is held by the author. Used with permission)
The
following excerpt features a blustery dispensation given by the story’s
antagonist, James Friesen, aka Hardbar. He is that person you’re not certain
you want for a friend but know for sure you don’t want as an enemy. He’s a
villainous sort, but funny and nobody’s fool and he travels in heavy boots over
the shortest distance between right and wrong, always ending on wrong.
[…] Hardbar stared at
Mulholland for a second and then yanked on the anchor rope with a start. “Well,
tell the truth, I don’t gave a fuck.”
Mulholland stared back
and waited for a moment before he replied. He reeled in his fishing line and
stowed the rod in the rack. “So,
you don’t gave a fuck. Izzat right?”
“That’s right, that’s
right.”
Hardbar unzipped
his jacket and dug
for cigarettes. Finding some, he gestured at Mulholland with a backhand wave,
one fingernail dark purple. “Fier,” he
said in Plautdietsch, then leaned
forward with a grunt and snatched the lighter from atop the tackle box.
“You mean you don’t give a fuck,” Mulholland said, deadpan.
“Nope. Gave.”
“How…”
“See, I knew when you started talking that when you finished, I would not give a fuck, so I could exactly say, before you finished, that my fuck-giving was in da bag. I knew I was no way gonna give a fuck. It was already the time, before you finished talking when I had already quit fuck-giving.” Hardbar held his hands palms-up, and the new-lit cigarette smoked white in his fingers, dirty with silver minnow scale that made his hands sparkle in the setting sun. “It’s too late to say, ‘I don’t give,’ because I’m already all the way to 'I don't GAVE,’. You understand?”
“Now I don’t gave a fuck,” Mulholland replied, his arm stretched out to retrieve the lighter.
Thank you so
much Mitchell for being our guest this week.
For those
interested in discovering more about Mitchell and his writing, please follow
these links.
@mitchell_toews
You can also read Mitchell's short stories on commuterlit.com
CommuterLit.com has run nine of Mitchell’s short fictions. In June 2016 the e-zine published “The Red River Valley Trilogy“: “Encountered on the Shore” (Appeared twice: Rerun October 2017 – see below), “A Vile Insinuation”, and “Without Reason”. The linked stories concern, respectively: the aftermath of a violent encounter on a city street; a young American leaving the ball fields of North Dakota for the killing fields of Vietnam; and a devout Mennonite man grappling with cancer and faith.