Frequently Asked Questions
What inspired you to write “The Cure for Drowning”?
/Two things collided at around the same time and inspired me to write this book.
I inherited a book written by an ancestor of mine who had served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during WWII. He was stationed in the UK and flew many missions with Allied Bomber Command, before returning to Canada after the war and writing a book of poetry about his experience. In it, he included photographs of himself and his crew, as well as the Halifax bomber they flew in and other candid photos of life on the airbase in England. Reading that book touched me in a way that no lecture or documentary about the Second World War had before. I became mildly obsessed with learning his life story, and researching what military service in the RCAF would have been like for young men like him.
Around the same time, I wrote an essay about my experience working at a heritage reenactment site in BC. As part of the job, we had to wear period-accurate costumes, and as the only openly transgender person on staff, this led to some complicated and sometimes unpleasant interactions with visitors. I often felt erased from the narrative the site was telling about history, and searched long and hard through their archives to find any quantitative evidence that people like me had existed in the past. I eventually left that job to attend graduate school, and the essay I wrote about that experience went on to win a national prize. But even after all of that, I was still haunted by questions of how gender-non-conforming people like me must have lived, worked and loved in the past, and that sent me on a path that eventually led to writing this novel.
Is Kit based on a real person from history?
/In all of my research, I never came across any evidence that someone who was AFAB (assigned female at birth) served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during WWII. However, there are historical examples of people we would recognize today as transgender men serving in the military, such as Dr. James Barry and Albert Cashier. It is also very important to note that people we would today recognize as transgender women did serve in the military in all active theaters, and many did not return home.
One of the really tricky things about queer history, and specifically transgender history, is that much of the historical evidence we have available to research today relates to criminalization, punishment, and/or media scandal. For example, jail records, newspaper articles, court proceedings, and sensational obituaries. Any gender non-conforming person who successfully “passed” or lived as themselves would not have left a paper trail for future historians to find, and if they did, the paper trail would be indistinguishable from a cisgendered person’s history (ie. marriage records, identification papers, birth and death records, immigrations records, and so on).
The world of the past, particularly prior to WWI, did not have the complications of digital passports, photo id, or consistent, reliable census records. For those reasons, it would have been much easier for someone to move to a new place and assume a new identity, especially if they were of lower or working class, where questions of inheritance and titles were irrelevant. For every Dr James Barry who was scandalously “discovered” posthumously, I firmly believe there were many other transgender people who lived quieter, undetected lives.
What was the hardest scene in this book to write?
/From a craft perspective, the hardest scene to write was the final chapter of part II. There were so many moving gears and different goals to balance, it took over ten drafts to get it to the version you read in the book today.
From a personal perspective, the scene with the horse. (IYKYK) I had to take a week off from writing after finishing that scene.
Your book contains a lot of historical detail. What was your research process like?
/I originally had grand plans to travel and do research in-person at various places around Canada and the UK, but once the pandemic happened all of that had to change. Instead, I relied extensively on digitised archives from museums and historical societies in Canada and Britain, as well as the online amateur war historians and model aircraft community. I am indebted to all the librarians and archivists across the globe who have worked tirelessly for over a decade to digitise their collections and make them accessible to writers like me, and also to the many passionate bloggers and model aircraft enthusiasts who write about WWII aircraft.
In terms of process, I would focus on writing the story, and anytime I came to a fact I didn’t know, I would leave a gap and a note for myself, and carry on writing. When I eventually came to a gap that felt too big to jump safely, I would pause writing and switch to researching.
I would read until I felt I had a good general understanding of a topic, and then I would focus on sources such as photographs, diaries, letters and memoirs. I also listened to music, watched films, and read news articles, mail order catalogues, comic books, and books published in that time period, all to get a feel for what would have been on people’s minds at the time, which celebrities they would have gossipped about, and what their cultural touchstones were.
Is Harrichford a real place I can visit?
/No, Harrichford is entirely fictional. It is, however, inspired by the many small, rural towns scattered across south-central Ontario. Orangeville is a real city in Dufferin County, northwest of Toronto.
How did you research the farming scenes?
/I grew up in a small farming community in southwestern Ontario. While my family did not rely on farming for our livelihood, we did have a hobby farm with various animals, including horses, chickens, ducks, donkeys, and rabbits. I had enough experience getting up in the dark to haul water buckets in the freezing cold and weeding vegetable gardens in the dog days of summer to have sympathy for the McNairs!
Which writers have had the biggest influence on you?
/It’s a four-way tie between Emma Donoghue, Sarah Waters, Paulette Jiles, and Ursula K Le Guin
Which book character is most like you?
/I spent most of my childhood over-identifying with Alanna of Trebond from Tamora Pierce’s “Song of the Lioness” series.
I want to write more/write a book/get more writing done! What advice do you have for me?
/Follow your weird obsessions and your strange passions – that is where you will find your best inspiration and unique perspective on the world.
Learn to pay attention and observe the world around you accurately, with all of your senses. For example, instead of relying on what you *think* a sunny day looks like, practice truly paying attention and recording details of specific sunny days. You will be surprised at how these mundane, strange little details will make a scene come to life on the page.
Why did you become a writer?
/I became a writer because my top-ten dream jobs (X-Wing pilot, Gentleman Wizard, Airbender, Jedi, Full-Metal Alchemist, Space Pirate, Animorph, Vampire Hunter, and Dragonrider) were unavailable, and so I had to settle for my eleventh-place career choice.
In seriousness, I became a writer less by choice and more out of necessity. As a kid, I had so many thoughts, emotions, and impressions of the world that seemed very different from how other people reacted to the same thing. It became overwhelming at times, and quite lonely, so I started writing fiction as a way to communicate my perspective. To this day, I am surprised and grateful when a reader tells me that something I wrote resonated with them, because that is and has always been my first intention: connection.
Where do you write/What is your writing schedule like?
/I sometimes write at my desk in my studio at home, but I also dictate voice notes while walking my dog, scribble on the back of receipts at cafes, and sometimes write in cheap notebooks while lying upside-down on a friend’s couch. I try to write a little every day, but in reality, I often work in stretches of weeks or months at a time, and then take time off to recharge.
You mention in your author bio that you have a day job as “a professional geek”. What does that mean?
/I am a co-founder and co-owner of Bookwyrm Games, a Canadian tabletop gaming and accessories company. If you love Dungeons & Dragons or other ttrpgs, then you’ll probably like our stuff. You can check us out here.
Spoilers!
What happens to Patroclus?
/In the book, we see Patroclus return to Montreal with Rebekah. When she leaves for the WRCNS a little over a year later, Patroclus stays with her cousin Sabine. Post-war, Sabine falls in love with a young man from a large Italian family, and after they get married, Patroclus moves with them to an apartment above the family deli in the Plateau district of Montreal.
Patroclus lives a long and happy life as a deli cat, putting his expert mousing skills to good use, fathering many adorable kittens, and sleeping next to the warmth of the bread ovens every night. He enjoys being spoiled with smoked meat tidbits and lounging on the shelves to supervise customers. When Patroclus finally passes away peacefully at the age of nineteen, the whole neighbourhood turns out for his funeral.
Why did you decide to include a chapter from Adelaide’s perspective?
/Adelaide’s chapter came as a surprise for me. I knew from a pretty early point in writing this book what the final scene would be, but when it came time to write the epilogue, I wrote several versions, reluctant to let either Rebekah or Kit have the last word in case it felt unbalanced. It finally occurred to me that there was a third narrator present: someone who was perfectly positioned to show us an outside perspective on Kit and Rebekah’s relationship years later, and who could show us that both main characters had broken free of their past and were living in a bright future.
Technically, you could argue that there are THREE chapters from Adelaide’s perspective, since the opening prologue and the interlude scene between parts I and II could also be from her point of view, which gives the beginning and ending scenes a kind of symmetry. That is how they cast it in the audiobook!
Why does the selkie story change each time someone tells it?
/First, because it is a core concept in traditional storytelling that each storyteller gives something new to a story and makes it their own while remaining true to the “bones” of the narrative.
Second, so many of the stories that have been passed down to us today, whether mythological, historical, or otherwise, have been shaped by the victors, the conquerors, the representatives of the dominant culture at any given time. As a consequence of that, many more subtle versions of those stories get forgotten or deliberately erased. One of the ways to challenge that is to do what Kit does, and ask questions about the parts of a story that don’t make sense.
Finally, the selkie legend is an example of how the meaning of a myth can change depending on who is seen as the protagonist, which character’s experience is considered the most important, and above all, who is telling the tale. The differences between Dermot, Caroline, and Adelaide’s versions all demonstrate their unconscious beliefs about who the protagonist of the story is, and what the ending of the story really means.
Did Laurie know that Kit was AFAB (assigned female at birth)?
/Yes or no, depending on how you want to interpret the story.
Transgender characters in books (and television and film) are often put under an intense, invasive degree of scrutiny regarding their bodies and their gender presentation. Many stories delve into a level of interrogation and exposure of transgender bodies that cisgender characters simply do not face (with the exception of specific circumstances or genres where the goal is to horrify or evoke pity in the reader). I knew from the earliest draft of this book that it was really important to me that Kit’s identity be treated with dignity and privacy. To put it bluntly, if you can suspend your disbelief long enough to accept the malevolent fae creatures, multi-generational family curses, miraculous recoveries from near-death experiences, and weird somatic-telepathy across the Atlantic Ocean in this book, then it should take significantly less effort to imagine Kit in the RAF.
This is a historical fiction fantasy novel, and a wish that many transgender people have, myself included, is for the magic to simply snap our fingers and be seen exactly as we are, without having to undergo any kind of transition process, medical or otherwise. That is the fantasy that Kit gets to live on the page in part II; one where their gender presentation alters as easily as the selkie changes her form.
If that doesn’t resonate for you as a reader, or if you find it more compelling to imagine a world where Laurie knows that Kit is AFAB and not only keeps their secret, but continues hooking up with them, then rock on. I love that version too.
Does Rebekah ever reconnect with her parents?
/I would like to think that down the road, Rebekah reconnects with her father. Regine conceals Adelaide’s existence for her whole life, and it’s only after her death that Heinrich learns he has a granddaughter. I think Heinrich would be an affectionate grandfather, once given the chance, and that he and Rebekah mend their relationship.
What happens to Kit, Rebekah and Adelaide after the book ends?
/In my imagination, Rebekah gets to attend university as she dreamed of doing, and goes on to become a teacher. With her love of reading, I think she would eventually write her own books and do some translation work given her multilingual talents.
Kit works as a park ranger and guide in East Sooke Regional Park, one of the first parks established in the country. Their love of nature would lead them to get involved in the new national park movement in Canada and as an advocate for wildlife conservancy.
Adelaide grows up with loving parents and the entire Salish Sea as her backyard. She has Rebekah’s intelligence, Kit’s knack for getting into trouble, and Caroline’s stubbornness. By the age of twelve, Adelaide can swim like a fish, and sail anything that floats.
