Seven Oaks Magazine.

Cloverdale poet and author Andrea Macpherson – whose first novel, 2003’s When She was Electric (2003), ranked in the top six of CBC’s Canada Reads: People’s Choice – has recently released an historical novel set in WWI-era Dundee, Scotland. Part meditative, part people’s history, Beyond the Blue (Random House, 2007) re-creates an almost entirely female world, in which men are scarce, exotic, or broken by war, and women work to control their own lives in the face of massive change, unyielding industrialism, and seemingly very limited options.

Demers: The characters that you're writing about in Beyond the Blue are, in their vast majority, working class. But with the exception of the beginning of the book -- which is this very Dickensian, almost socialist-realist description of the women's working lives, and therefore contrasts with the rest of the novel, which tells these very intimate, largely internal stories -- you don't spend too much time describing their actual work. What is your strategy for writing about class, which is an identity that, unlike race or gender, many people think that you leave at work when you go home for the day?

Macpherson: I don’t think I went into the novel consciously making a decision about how to treat the concept of class; rather, this was a story about working women, women who had themselves to rely on, and who had no real means of escape from their lives. And as such, class was bound to play a role in the shaping of their lives and experiences. As an industrial city, the class divides would have been quite apparent: the wealthy mill owners, and those who worked in the mills, barely scraping by, toiling under dreary and often deadly conditions. It was simply a fact of life, something that could not be ignored, but also not something that would have been pitied.

Having said that, there is much evidence that the mills and tenements provided the women of the town with great friendships and much happiness: they relied on one another and created fast alliances. I suppose, in a way, it was a means of escaping the tightness of their work, to be found gossiping from windows or sitting side by side in a snug.

Demers: The women in Beyond the Blue inhabit an almost entirely female world, given the context of WWI. And while in many ways they yearn for maleness -- in a wonderful reversal of trends, it's masculine qualities that are exoticized and fetishized -- most of the men in their lives are hurtful cads, unreliable and abusive. It's clearly a novel with a lot to say about gender politics -- do you intend it as a feminist work, or at least as part of that discussion?

Macpherson: That’s an interesting question. I think any time you are dealing with a story detailing the lives of women, you are entering into the discussion. I was aware of the unusual balance in Dundee during WWI – a town labeled a ‘she-town’, primarily run by women – and this undoubtedly affected the narrative. The men who would have been left in Dundee were only those who were aged, or too young, or already wounded. The town was, for all intents and purposes, bereft of men, and the women became accustomed to this.

I imagined that this must have had an effect on the women, and their perceptions of themselves and the world around them. The town did not crumble; industry did not fall to pieces. This must have informed the women in a new way about their capabilities. Mostly, their ability to survive.

Demers: For the reader, who has the benefit of hindsight, the women in your novel have a well-defined place in history: they're the people whose role in keeping their society moving during the war precipitated a massive sea-change in the role of women worldwide. But with the exception of the middle sister, Wallis --a union leader, fascinated by the unfolding Irish revolution -- these characters generally see history as something happening around them; affecting them,certainly, but not something that they're actively a part of building. Can people ever see there own role in history while it's happening?

Macpherson: I think it’s rare for anyone to actually recognize their place in history. Most of the time, people are simply living their lives, doing what they think is right, and it is not until later that they might be able to realize any long-term consequences. In terms of the characters in Beyond the Blue specifically, they are consumed with their own disappointments, dreams and drudgery. I didn’t want world events to become the focus of the piece; rather, these events would influence their lives and the paths they choose to take. A shimmering backdrop of sorts for their own human struggles.

Demers: When it isn't being sent up in the realm of broad racial stereotype (think Alexander Keith commercials),'Scottish' is an ethnicity that, in Canada, is usually treated as neutral or naturalized; for me growing up, for instance, I always unconsciously considered myself half-French Canadian and half 'regular' white (i.e. Scottish). Given that context, what was writing this book like for you as an exploration of identity and personal history?

Macpherson: It was a really satisfying experience. The dominance of Scottish heritage in Canada does seem to turn it into something accepted and expected. Physically digging into the past – both that of my relatives, as well as the city as a whole – forced me to pause and consider the intricacies within the culture. There was, of course, political, religious and class strife, but there was something else lurking below the surface, a kind of determination and fierce resolution. It definitely gave me a new perspective on my characters, and the kind of fortitude the world would have required of them.

Demers: Following on that -- what was the research process like for this book? How did you go about authenticating not only the circumstances in which your characters found themselves, but also their language, their surroundings?

Macpherson: My initial inspiration was pieces of my grandmother’s past that she had shared with me – hazy memories of her mother and her aunts, small flats full of tea and long hours at tedious, difficult jobs. I was interested in that aspect of the history, purely the humanity there, and so I started with a character, as I always do. In this case, it was Morag. I heard her voice, and the story built from there.

I had been to Dundee numerous times before and had heard much family lore, but I needed more; it was a time that I was not familiar with, and I needed to better understand the complexities within. I did a lot of research from here – reading and accessing archival sites and the like – and then went to Dundee again in 2003 specifically for research. The time I was there was incredibly valuable. Not only could I look at the city in a new way – from the vantage point of these characters and what they would have known – but to also do some hands-on research in places like the Verdant Works and the McManus Galleries, as well as many sites that are not readily available, thanks to the luck of being there during Doors Open Day (a time when you can access some of the oldest sites in the city). In a way, I immersed myself in the city, which was an incredible gift to the narrative.

Demers: Given the historical era that it covers, the pervasive themes of memory and history, as well as the interactions between the three sister figures, Beyond the Blue seems in part to be entered in conversation with Anne-Marie MacDonald's Fall on Your Knees. What's really fascinating about this is that as a response, it manages to be both Trans-Atlantic as well as Trans-Canadian. Not only is it 'Old' Scotland as opposed to Nova Scotia, it's also got umistakably West Coast elements, too: a rainy, overcast beach city, where water presents both awesome danger as well as the chance for redemption.

Macpherson: From the first time I visited Dundee, I was aware of the parallel to the West Coast – that dreamy, grey, misty surrounding. And the power of the water had always been apparent in the history of Dundee – they were indebted to ships, ships that brought jute, ships that took away jam, ships that needed to be built. Every city has its own specific industry, and Dundee was a port city so it was obvious the role that the water played. I think, perhaps, that I am biased here, though – I have always lived on the coast, and water serves as both a solace and inspiration for me.

Demers: There seems to be a double helix, though, in terms of your novel's heritage. Because not only does it work in the tradition of war-time, homefront Canadian literature (like Findley's You Went Away, or MacDonald's work), it also touches on this debate about aesthetics that authors like Zadie Smith and Russell Smith have engaged in, through On Beauty and Muriella Pent, respectively. The oldest sister, Caro,possesses a powerful beauty that is both magnetic as well as tragic; her Aunt and her cousin are similarly both strengthened and weakened by a delicate beauty,and the beautiful men in this story are always identified as possible sources of both salvation and danger.

Macpherson: I think that beauty is often categorized as either ‘good’ or ‘bad’, and I wanted to showcase that it is just as complex as any other aesthetic – it can be a blessing of some sort or something more shifting and dangerous. It’s part of what makes them whole, part of their characters, but it is not the only aspect that defines them. I wanted them to be recognizably human, whole characters, full and flawed.